More photos » by Manuel Balce Ceneta - AP

Drew Storen can do this for real, too.

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I like the Arizona Fall League. I've been tracking and classifying a lot pitches, thanks to the PITCHf/x installations in Peoria and Surprise. Nearly 10,000 pitches through Saturday's Rising Stars Game.

Let's take a look-see at some of my favorite stats. These are based only on PITCHf/x data. Some, such as ground ball rates, can be expanded to cover the non-PITCHf/x games, too. But I'm not. I'm also collapsing across pitch types due to sample size issues and a lack of finality on many of those classifications.

Anyway, on with the Strasburg. I mean Storen. I mean show.

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More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

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Ever since I have seen and used Pitch F/X data, I have been trying to grasp the difference between the umpire-called strike zone and the textbook strike zone.

The official rule book definition of the strike zone has changed over the years.  Since 1996, the offical definition according to MLB is:

"The Strike Zone is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the bottom of the knees. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball."

On TV or on MLB Gameday there is a nice box that shows this perfect strike zone.  After working and observing PitchFX data for a while, the strike zone is not that perfect and the following is a look at the basics of the called strike zone and how the batter handedness effects it.

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Stephen Strasburg's fastball is raising some interesting questions. While Strasburg was on the mound on Monday, a Tweet and an email (so old fashioned) came in asking about the Surprise, AZ, PITCHf/x data. Was it hot?

Strasburg throwing 101 was a surprise to many, and seeing him sit near 98 for a few innings raised more questions. I took a look at the two PITCHf/x installations in the Arizona Fall Leauge (Surprise and Peoria) this morning at the Hardball Times.

The basic conclusion was, no, the system in Surprise isn't hot. Relative to Peoria, that is.

Assuming the two systems are pretty much on par, the opportunity came up to compare AFL pitchers to themselves as MLB pitchers. Using release speed (55 ft. from home plate) I was able to compare data from 14 pitchers.

Nothing fancy and statistical, but, as you browse the baker's dozen + 1 set of images below, I think you'll probably reach the same conclusion I did.

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Stephen Strasburg made his second Arizona Fall League start this afternoon. Gameday, as they do with many rookies, had some troubles with his pitch types. The fact that he threw 90 mph change-ups didn't help either.

My own classifications are somewhat tentative, as this is one game from one park. And there are differences between the Peoria installation and Surprise. There's three or four inch difference in release point height, so I'll wait until a game in Surprise for the 2009 first rounder before doing these up in full detail.

Fastballs

Strasburg threw 36 heaters in today's outing. I'm not sure of the two- and four-seam split yet -- right now I think he threw five sinkers, but that's not for sure. In any case, the fastballs from Strasburg came out of his hand at no less than 95, maxing out around 99.6. He sat around 97/98, which is nasty.

This was clearly an off day for Strasburg, so don't make too much of this. Only 48% of his fastballs found the strike zone. Even though hitters took a lot of fastballs in the zone (53% !) his B:CS ratio landed at a hefty (for a fastball) 2.7.

Despite control issues, the whiff rate of .143 against his fastball (swing rate .389) was pretty good, and he got the ball in play on the ground (.667). Still, each ball in play resulted in one base, on average, for an even SLGCON of 1.000.

Off-Speed and Breaking Pitches

Strasburg throws a curveball and a change-up, with the latter not getting much action in college ball (IIRC). Thursday's game saw 10 change-ups and 14 curveballs out of Strasburg. The changes ran from 88 to 92, which is often the fastball range for some starters.

Beyond the speed gap of 7 or 8 mph (very nice), Strasburg's change "sank" about six inches relative to the fastball, which is brutal. If he's hiding that thing at all, yikes. If today was any indication, he was. He kept it out of the zone (30%), but every one he threw for a strike yielded a swing. Two of the seven balls were chased. Of the five total swings, three found nothing but air. Two made contact, on the ground, which still didn't work out well. Both were singles.

Strasburg's curveball isn't a big yakker, but has much as five inches of top-spin induced sink, resulting in a one foot difference from the fastball. It's also thrown in the low 80s, making it pretty vicious.

So, it has good enough snap, above average velocity and, my favorite, he threw 11 of 14 in the strike zone. Six of the 11 were watched by the batters (B:CS ratio of 0.6) and half the swings (six) resulted in whiffs. But, two were left up and in the middle of the plate, and were subsequently sent out of the ballpark for home runs.

Just a Bad Day

Strasburg had bad luck, which he actually made on his own. He hung two curveballs, and paid the price. But not every hung curve is hit, and it remains to be seen if he continues to do that with any regularity. The ground balls that turned into hits were probably more or less out of his hands (relatively speaking). The fastball command was clearly a problem.

So, next time out (hopefully in Surprise), I'll be looking for four things:

1. Distinguishing sinkers from fastballs
2. Fastball control
3. Curveball command
4. Outcomes of balls in play

And I'll also be enjoying one of the most exciting pitching prospects of recent memory.

More photos » by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

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I haven't seen much of Vladimir Guerrero play this season, but he has looked horrible swinging at pitches out of the zone in the playoffs. Even though I have read that he swings a way, haven't seen he him action recently.  I decided to look at Vlad's ability to judge the strike zone and not swing at pitches outside of the zone.

Fangraphs has some measures of contact rate for a player's balls in and out of the strike zone. Even though I love Fangraphs, the information was not complete enough for that I wanted to see how the balls were hit (e.g. foul, out, hit). Also, all the pitches out of the zone were used at Fangraphs. I wanted to limit them to pitches just outside the zone by eliminating the number of called balls way out of the zone. For my strike zone, I used -1.2 and 1.2 for the x dimension and 1.5 to 3.5 for the y dimension.  For the expanded zone I increased the x dimension to -2 and 2 and the y dimension to 0.5 and 4.5.

Including Vlad, I looked at 2 sluggers from each team left in the playoffs. Also, I ran the numbers for all hitters. I used all available Pitch F/X data from all years since the sample size was small in some cases. Here are the results:

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No, I won't do this everyday (maybe). Yes, I have a huge back-log of New Arms. More on that below...

Today was opening day in Arizona, as top prospects in the Arizona Fall League started their short season. Thanks to MLBAM, PITCHf/x will be running in Peoria and Surprise (home to 3 of the 6 teams in the league).

The Gameday IDs will be pretty good as things progress, as the MLBAM team is getting more information on the lesser known pitchers in the league. They already have weightings in the system for pitchers who have seen big league time and some from the higher minor leagues, according to Cory Schwartz, Director of Stats for MLBAM.

I quickly classified the pitches from today's game myself, without splitting two- and four-seam fastballs. I want more data from the pitchers, and the new installations, before I get too fancy. All that's after the jump...first, a teaser.

I've got the ALDS and NLDS all tidied up and classified. I'll share some of the numbers tomorrow night.The bigger effort is nearly done ... classifying all pitches thrown in 2009 by rookies. And position players. I've completed initial classifications for all 120-something of them, and I'm in the process of reviewing and revising. Or in the process of getting ready to review and revise. Dang AFL distracted me .... oh yeah, read on for the pitch classifications from today's action in Peoria.

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More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Carl Pavano reacts after giving up a home run to New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez during the seventh inning of Game 3 of the American League division baseball series Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009, in Minneapolis. Don't worry Carl, it's not all your fault. Blame the other pitcher too.(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

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(Note: OK, it wasn't "instant" per se, but in my defense I started late last night and I was very tired. However, it got done, so enjoy!)

With last night's final Mariano Rivera cutter for the evening, the last cutter Mo or anyone else will ever pitch in the Metrodome, the Minnesota Twins were eliminated from the 2009 American League playoffs by the New York Yankees in a rough, but ultimately unsurprising sweep. The Twins provided us a great run to the postseason and an amazing season by catcher Joe Mauer, but they fell short tonight, unable to punch through more than a singular run despite seven hits.

Tonight's game was highlighted by two excellent starting performances by the Yankees' Andy Pettitte and the Twins' Carl Pavano, he of the former "most injured Yankee ever" status. I figured we'd dive into some Pitch f/x charts to witness the two performances.

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Cliff Lee's post-season debut turned into a complete game gem. Losing a shutout in the 9th was not completely Lee's fault, but, as it goes with baseball, your success as a pitcher isn't your own, either. Lee's finesse game matched-up against Ubaldo Jimenez and his power game, and came out ahead. While the game started as a pitcher's dual, the Phillies blew it open

Age and handedness aside, there is one stark difference from Game 1 of the 2009 post-season - velocity. Jimenez broke 100 six times, 101 twice (101.4 max) and never fell below 95. Lee, meanwhile, only hit 95 twice (95.2 on the sinker and 95.1 on the four-seam).

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