Pitcher Analysis
Drew Colbert 2023-04-24
Quick Summary
Pitcher A is a right hander who has an arsenal containing a four seam, curveball, slider, changeup, cutter, and sinker. He mainly relies on four seam, curveball, and slider. His four seam has a lot of bite to it, almost like a two seam fastball and his go-to pitch to try and get a first pitch strike, which he is successful at doing 55% of the time. His slider is his go-to offspeed pitch in just about any situation, he can throw it for a strike or he can add some extra movement on it to try and get you to chase. His real put-away pitch is his loopy curveball, he throws this pitch the most in counts with two strikes and he throws it almost exclusively down and away to right-handed hitters to try and get them to chase. He is not as confident in throwing it for a strike, as his usage goes down considerably in counts where he is behind. Overall, if you can get on this guy early and avoid all the junk he throws outside of the strike zone, you can get after him to all parts of the field.
Pitcher B is left hander with an arsenal of four seam, slider, curveball, changeup. Majority of the time he is throwing his four seam or his slider. He is a Chris Sale type, with a solid fastball that tails a lot and shifty slider that he throws towards the back leg of a righty. With two strikes you can expect either a high fastball or a slider that is towards the bottom right corner of the strike zone. One of his best abilities is the way he throws the fastball and slider from the same spot. This makes it extremely difficult for a hitter to read the ball coming out of his hand. The biggest downfall of pitcher B is his lack of a third pitch. The fastball and slider are good and can work, but having that third pitch, like a changeup, nailed down would take him to the next level. He doesn’t throw it much, but when he does there isn’t much drop to it, which makes it a hanging ball that any hitters eyes will light up for. He seems like when he’s on, he’s untouchable. But if just one pitch isn’t feeling right, he might be in trouble.
Full Breakdown
Pitcher A
Pitcher A has a wide array of pitches under his belt that he will throw, but the most common are four seam, slider, and curveball with a pretty healthy mix changeups in there as well.
## Pitch Type Ave Pitch Speed Total Thrown Usage %
## 1: changeup 88.2 250 10%
## 2: curveball 84.4 476 20%
## 3: cutter 85.8 108 4%
## 4: four_seam 93.3 962 40%
## 5: sinker 92.6 15 1%
## 6: slider 84.7 609 25%
Pitcher A tends to work two parts of the zone: low-and-away to right-handed hitters and up-and-in to right handed hitters. Other than that there seems to be some reluctance to throw the ball to any other part of the zone.
Pitcher A tends to attack both sides of the plate the same way. Still wants to work those two corners of the zone regardless of what side the batter is on.
Individual Pitch Breakdown
The release point actually tends to have quite a bit of variation. His 4-seam can come from an over-the-top angle, but will more often than not be anywhere around a 3/4 release point. What you may notice though is that the curveball generally comes from over-the-top where the slider will most likely come from the 3/4 release point. Now this make sense considering the goal of each pitch, the curveball is going to have more vertical break whereas the slider is going to have more horizontal break to it. As a hitter, this would be something you could pick up on and be able to recognize which pitch may be coming.
Here is a breakdown for the vertical and horizontal movement of each pitch. The most surprising thing on this chart is the horizontal break of the fastball. There tends to be quite a lot of bite to his fastball and it seems to move more like a two-seam fastball instead of a four-seam fastball. Another thing to note is that his curveball is a big looping curve that has a lot of movement but could most likely be adjusted to by a hitter. Whereas the slider has a lot of variability to it, showing a large range of movement, which depends on the situation. In fact, with two strikes, there is significantly more horizontal and vertical break on slider slider, presumably trying to get the hitter to chase one out of the zone compared to when there is less than two strikes in a count.
Pitcher Tendencies
To start an at bat, his fastball is typically his go-to pitch to try and get one over and get ahead of the count, choosing this pitch about half of the time. He will occasionally go to an offspeed pitch to mix it up and pretty consistently throws an actual strike 55% of the time, regardless of what pitch.
After that first pitch, he seems to stick to the same tendencies as before. Reliance on the fastball mostly with a healthy dose of curveballs and sliders in the mix. Being behind in the count he is less open to throwing his curveball compared to any other count type, leading me to believe that he is not as confident in throwing his curveball for a strike and he uses this as mainly a strikeout pitch to get guys chasing. He relies heavily on his fastball throughout all counts and he throws the slider more in counts where he’s behind or even, which is a sign he is confident he can throw it for a strike in any count to mix up the batters timing.
## Pitch Type Ahead Behind Even
## 1 changeup 62 77 111
## 2 curveball 160 97 219
## 3 cutter 14 48 46
## 4 four_seam 191 306 465
## 5 sinker 4 3 8
## 6 slider 154 230 225
When he gets into a two strike count, he goes to his three favorite pitches about the same amount of times, with the curveball just edging out the fastball. This again confirms that his curveball seems to be his put-away pitch. When he does go offspeed, he usually throws it down and away to righties, which is not uncommon for pitchers to do. Another common trend is that he throws his fastball up in the zone when trying to get guys out. Both of these are common to a pitcher as a put-away pitch and he follows suit.
To wrap up, this spray chart shows where hitters typically hit each pitch. Notice how the fastball gets sprayed all over the field, this could be due in part because he throws more, but also because of his reliance to it on the first pitch. Guys may jump all over the first pitch fastball if they’re expecting it and are able to put it in play. It is also worth pointing out that his offspeed pitches are typically being fouled off or hit back up the middle. Given that he exclusively throws it low and away to a right handed hitter or down and in to a lefty, it shows that hitters are trying to foul off the junk and make him come in with something hard, or doing what they can with the outside curve and try to go the opposite way.
Pitcher B
Pitcher B throws four pitches but mostly relies on just the four seam and slider to get by with the occasional changeup to mix it up and very rarely throws his curveball. There is a drastic speed difference between his four seam and his slider with nearly a 15mph difference between the two.
## Pitch Type Ave Pitch Speed Total Thrown Usage %
## 1: changeup 85.3 280 15%
## 2: curveball 71.9 76 4%
## 3: four_seam 93.5 935 49%
## 4: slider 79.9 604 32%
He is not afraid to throw anywhere around the plate, with a good mix of inside and out, and up and down. He favors down and away to a lefty hitter but that is most likely because of the slider that he throwing.
In terms of lefty vs righty, he does not seem to attack either side any different in terms of location, keeping it pretty consistant with both.
Individual Pitch Breakdown
His release point is very consistant throughout all of his pitches. There is almost no difference in the release point between his fastball and his slider which is where he makes his living. This is a really good sign as a pitcher, it’ll be very difficult to tell what pitch is coming when they all come out of his hand the same way.
His movement is probably what you would expect from a lefty. A lot of tail to his four seam that cuts in on a lefty and a huge sweeping slider. The slider is mosty horizontal break and very little vertical break. So that is a pitch that might look like a fastball out of the hand but then it just runs away from you. Also note that the changeup has a lot of horizontal break to it but very little vertical break to it, this tells me that if he misses his spot with that pitch it is going to hang there for someone to hit a long way. This is something to watch out for and work on.
Pitcher Tendencies
He likes to use his top two pitches to get ahead in the count, mainly his fastball. He is throwing a first pitch strike about 55% of the time.
Whether he’s ahead, behind, or even in the count, his pitch selection remains almost the same. He uses the slider just a little bit more when he is ahead in the count, but not by much, showing me that he is confident that he can throw it for a strike when he needs to.
## Pitch Type Ahead Behind Even
## 1 changeup 62 89 129
## 2 curveball 7 23 46
## 3 four_seam 248 315 372
## 4 slider 185 152 265
With two strikes, it is no surprise what pitches he is going to turn to and where he is going to throw them most often. He is going to throw a slider at the back leg of a right handed hitter or away from a lefty and he tends to go high fastball as well for a put out pitch. This is a good combination to have where you can really change the eye level of the hitter with two very different pitches.
Finally, the spray chart shows that his fastball is most often being hit to the right side of the field, with a lot of balls seeming to go right down the first base line. As we showed with the movement, his four seam is going to be tailing away from a right handed hitter so when they see that, they are going to go with the pitch and go the other way. His slider mostly gets hit to the left side or up the middle, which is where a left handed hitter’s only option is if he throws it correctly.
