Timmy - where's the slider? Plus quick thoughts on Game 1.
by Fla-Giant on Oct 28, 2010 12:01 PM PDT
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Great win last night against the invincible Lee, let's hope the bats stay hot the rest of the series. However, I was alarmed to see that Lincecum didn't throw a single slider again last night. In fact, the last slider that I remember him throwing was in 2nd inning of game 1 of the NLCS against the Phillies. The slider was the elite pitch that he had added to his repertoire, after his horrendous month of August, that fueled his awesome dominance in the month of Sept. and the first game gem of the NLDS against the Braves.
Obviously the blister on his finger is a real issue that the Giants are not talking about (or just plain prevaricating - did you notice that Timmeh didn't look at his finger even once last night). Hopefully, some journalist will get the real story and write about it after the Series is over. When you think about it, it's amazing that Timmeh has been able to keep the hitters off balance enough in his last 3 appearances (including the relief stint in game 6) throwing just his FB and change. He's been able to keep the runs allowed relatively low enough to keep the Giants in both games he's started since then even thought the batters know he only has those 2 pitches. He did throw a handful of pitches last night (about 5) that I would classify as a slurve. They were all off-speed pitches, thrown in the mid-70s and out of the strike zone, with the obvious intent of just giving the hitters something different to distract their sight and timing. Going forward, I don't think we can count on Timmeh being dominant in this series unless he can throw some type of breaking ball as a strikeout pitch or miraculously get his FB velocity consistently over 94 moh again.
My quick shots on Game 1 after the jump.
On the positive side:
- who would have guessed that the Giatns could force Cliff Lee to throw 104 pithces before he finished his 5th inning? The Giants had only 2 quick outs (out of a total of 14 outs) against Lee - totally against type for the Giants hitters.
- who would have guessed that Juan Uribe would start out his 1st World Series AB against Cliff Lee going 3-0, and not lifting his bat off his shoulder?
- the Giants scored 8 of their 11 runs after 2 outs. That continued a trend for the postseason where the Giants have now scored 21 of their 41 total runs after 2 outs. Once again, that's totally against type.
- who would guess that Franchez would start his 1st World Series game with 3 straight XBH's? Against Cliff Lee no less!
- Pat Burrell's AB in the 5th was a thing of beauty. After striking out in his 1st 2 ABs, and looking outclassed, he was able to work a 2-out walk off of Lee (only the 2nd walk he's given up in 4 postseason starts this year) after going to a 2-2 count. That kept the inning alive and the Giants scored 5 runs after his BB to blow the game open.
On a negative, or worrisome, note:
- Andres Torres's leg was obviously affecting him in the field last night. The double by Moreland in the 4th ithat fell in front (and to the side) of him, and the double by Cruz in the 9th that fell between him and Schierholz, were both balls that he would normally catch. They would have been very tough plays, but he would have gotten to them. It looks to me that the hip-flexor injury has cost him half a step on his take-off.
- Buster is still not swinging the bat well. He's still opening up his hips and front side way too quickly, and trying to pull the ball too much. Even the single that he hit in the 3rd was a ball on the outside part of the plate that he was luckily able to get enough of his bat on to serve just over the SS and get the run home. When he's on he hits that pitch into right CF for a double or triple. You'll remember that the 1 good hitting game that he had in the NLCS (4 hits in game 4) he was keeping his weight back, his hands in, and driving the ball to RF. We need Buster to get locked in if we want to keep the offense rolling.
- Pat Burrell is in a mini-slump. He had Lee right where he wanted him twice in this game. Ahead 2-0 and expecting a FB in. He got what he wanted 3 times, and swung and missed all 3 times - twice by large margins. Pat the Bat needs to get at least 1 big hit if we're going to win this thing.
- WTF was Bochy doing with the bullpen in the 9th inning? Just when you think that he's on a magical run of coaching decisions in the postseason he goes and does something dumb like that. There was no excuse to have Affeldt or Wilson pitching in the 9th with a 7 run lead. Bochy yanked Ramirez and Affeldt way too quickly. If he didn't like what he saw out of Ramirez in the 2 batters that he faced, he should have brought in Mota, because Affeldt had warmed up and was ready to go in during the Rangers' mini-rally way back in the 5th inning. A manager should never warm a reliever up like that, then have him sit for almost 50 minutes, only to warm him up again and bring him into a 11-4 game. Bringing Wilson in was very dumb. There's no reason to give the meat of the Rangers order a look at him with a 7 run lead. I don't care if the bases were loaded, Wilson should only come into that game if the tieing run is at the plate.
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Didn't want to say it out loud
But I noticed that Timmeh really seemed to back off the slider after game 1 against Atlanta. There were a few sprinkled in in game 1 of the NLCS, but not nearly as many as he threw against Atlanta the first time around. I hope it’s a blister issue that is close to healing at this point.
Totally agree about Buster and he seems to have the reverse issue of Cody Ross, it’s almost like he’s getting his front foot down too quickly throwing off his timing and causing his front side to fly open, that or he’s trying to hit too many 7 run homeruns.
As for Bochy’s 9th, I don’t mind him using Wilson, because he’s used to throwing every couple of days, and this time of year his appearances are sporadic, but totally agree about Affeldt, it’s almost like he was dooming him for failure.
"I signed up for this job, the day I was born" - Brian Wilson, Ninja
Yeah
Timmeh threw a ton of sliders against the Braves in the 1-0 win. I remember that at least 7 of his 14 K’s came on the slider. It was electric – sittin at around 90 MPH, with a very late break. All of the Braves hitters were saying that they had read the advanced scouting reports (and watched videos) that he had the new pitch, but nothing prepared them for how elite a slider it was. He threw it about 5-7 times in game 1 against the Phils, but it didn’t have the late break, and was obviously affecting his finger, so Buster stopped calling for it after the 3rd inning.
On Wilson, I didn’t mind him pitching based on an over-use concern -he’s a horse and there’s a lot of breaks in the Series. My thought was that almost all of the Rangers (beyond Vlad and maybe Young) had never faced Wilson before, so why give them a look at them in such a blow-out?
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I doubt the look at Wilson really matters. First, many hitters have faced him multiple times and it doesn’t seem to help. Second, he just threw fastballs and let the Rangers put them in play. I don’t think seeing him that briefly will matter.
I had been thinking about Timmy’s lack of the slider. I assume it’s the blister that’s keeping him from throwing it. I wonder how he’ll respond to that for (the possible) game 5.
I feel prickishly demanding!
I couldn't be prouder of my recent adoptee - Tim Lincecum's dealer. He provides the secret fuel behind both Cy Youngs. Also, he taught Timmy the change-up.
by giantsfansince1981 on Oct 28, 2010 1:16 PM PDT up reply actions
Also had no problem with bringing in Wilson or Affeldt. Well, I think Affeldt probably should have come in to start the 9th instead of Ramirez, but whatevs. I heard on the radio that Bochy wanted to get Wilson in regardless just to get him some work since it’d been 4 days… I think making sure he can throw strikes might be just as important as keeping the Rangers from seeing him?
If Brian Wilson’s going to get knocked around and have a lot of his pitches put in play, better it be with the team leading by 7 than leading by 1.
"I could hear the angry MCC cacophany in my head."--Oldjacket, 7/4/10
While Wilson came in with the bases loaded, he still had a 7-run lead, so he didn’t care if those runners scored. All he had to do was get 2 outs before anything else happened, and he was betting that the Rangers wouldn’t string together enough hits if he just let them hit the ball. That’s the right thing to do in that situation, and something Ramirez and Affeldt bafflingly failed to do.
One more positive quick-hitter
Keep your mind on the number 3 in this series. The Giants remainde undefeated in the 2010 postseason in games that they scored at least 3 runs. If they can keep that stat going in this series I don’t think there’s any way they lose it.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I think they are actually 8-1…they lost the second game to ATL 5-4. Still a great record though.
by VizquelQuest on Oct 28, 2010 2:03 PM PDT up reply actions
according to Pitch F/X he threw a lot of sliders.
Disfrute Los Gigantes every day at www.leftymalo.com
Really?
This makes me lose confidence in Pitch F/X then, because I didn’t see a single slider. Either that or the slider just wasn’t there, but even then they would appear as hanging sliders. I think those sliders were mis-categorized changeups.
"I signed up for this job, the day I was born" - Brian Wilson, Ninja
by Giant Torture on Oct 28, 2010 12:39 PM PDT up reply actions
+1
As I posted below, it’s laughable that they have Timmeh throwing 28 “sliders” and only 17 changeups. There’s absolutely no way that he threw anywhere near as little as 17 CUs. You’ll also notice that the SL and CU were thrown at basically the same speed. Except on rare occasions when he might slip, there’s no way Lincecum throws his slider at the same speed as this CU.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
They're smoking the weed over there
I re-watched Timmy’s entire outing on my DVR this morning. He didn’t throw a single slider. As I wrote, he did throw a handful of a slurve-like breaking pitch (in the mid-70s), but that’s not Timmeh’s elite slider that he developed at the beginning of September.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
this is not the weed’s fault.
find another whipping boy, man.
Turns out you can spell Ugnio Vlz without 4 E's
by The Gene Hackman on Oct 28, 2010 12:41 PM PDT up reply actions
LOL
Yeah, my bad. I had weed on my mind, because I saw a headline of an article earlier today that said something like:
“Giants Fans Smoking Weed at the Ballpark?”
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Weed
lots of it… last night there was literally a cloud of dope smoke outside the public house.
As always, nice analysis. I agree 100%. I was particuarly bothered by the fact that he brought Wilson into the game too. The only thing I could think is that he wanted to keep him fresh? But I agree, the bullpen managment was atrocious.
And while it worked out fine with Ish getting a hit, I would have run Panda out there for an at bat. The way he seems to be going, I could see him getting hot just based on a few ABs against some shitty pitching. And I think having a chance at heating the Panda is a chance you have to grab.
Rmember the slightly off-center CF camera angle often makes sliders look like they have no break — which would look like a changeup. And by saying he was throwing a “slurvy” thing but not his elite slider, I think you’ve answered your own question. He was throwing sliders, but not good ones.
Disfrute Los Gigantes every day at www.leftymalo.com
wrong
1. I know the difference between a slider and a changeup and a slurve – even from that camera angle.
2. F/X is claiming that he threw 28 sliders and only 17 changeups – no way is that true.
3. you’ll notice that the average mph difference between the SL and CU is only 1.3 mph (as claimed by them). I’ll bet $1M that 99% of those “sliders” were changeups.
4. Timmeh doesn’t throw a slider in the mid-70s – that’s his slurve. You’ll notice that F/X states that he threw 5 “curveballs” at an average speed of 78 mph – those were the pitches that I called a slurve.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
For Comparison
Here’s the PitchF/X:“http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php?month=10&day=7&year=2010&game=gid_2010_10_07_atlmlb_sfnmlb_1%2F&pitchSel=453311&prevGame=gid_2010_10_07_atlmlb_sfnmlb_1%2F&prevDate=107” for the Atlanta game. I confess that I can’t read these graphs very well. The Hmov/Vmov graph looks much more splayed out in last nights game, where I think you can make out a split between the slider and change in the ATL game. I felt watching the game that he was throwing just the change, but I could be wrong as well.
No, you're perception is correct
Timmeh throws his slider at least in the high-80s. If it’s not a good pitch that night then it won’t have much break (it hangs), but it will still be thrown in the 88-91 mph range.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Timmy Confuses Pitch F/X anyways
Aren’t all his fastballs 2-seamers? Yet they almost always show up as 4-seamers.
The double that fell in between Nate and Torres obviously had some weird wind issues, otherwise it wouldn’t have fooled both of them in exactly the same way.
Mark DeRosa, still existing.
If you go back and look at the play again (as I have 5 different times) it’s obvious that Nate thought Torres was going to catch it. That’s why he veered away to get behind it near the end. Clearly he was assuming that Andres was playing his normal game and got surprised by his inability to get to it. Nate could have almost certainly gotten a glove on the ball (and maybe even have caught it) if he had run full-out after it the whole way. It’s not like the ball was a line drive screamer – it only rolled about 5 more feet after it hit the ground. It wouldn’t even have rolled to the wall.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
He definitely threw some sliders — I haven’t checked the PFX numbers — but on TV they kept calling them changeups, but they had the slider rotation for sure.
Ask me about my blog.
I did not see him throw more than 1 pitch with anything close to the slider spin on it that he threw at more than 82 mph. Tell me when it was that you think he threw his a pitch with the slider rotation on it at a speed above 82.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Either you believe the pfx measurements are broken, or he threw pitches with slider movement last night — but that he threw them, along with all his pitches, with an average of a little over an inch less vertical bite. I couldn’t watch most of the game so I don’t have an opinion. Here are the fx data from the two games, last night and ATL-1.
As the link itself states:
Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate.
I don’t know enough about how pfx works to make any in-depth comment on whether it’s “broken” – I just know that from watching the game for the 2nd time (specifically analyzing what pitches Timmy was throwing), Timmy did not throw anything remotely close to 28 sliders last night. I know that his CU can break to either side of the plate, and it’s vertical drop can vary greatly.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
some pfx-SL distributions
Here are the two games for pitches classified as sliders, ATL-1 in black, last night in blue.
MPH:
Takehome: last night’s sliders were slower.
Z (vert):
Takehome: last nights sliders dropped a lot less.
For those who don’t look at pfx data a lot, Z measures deviation from spinless flight. Only curves show negative drop as a rule. ATL-1’s great sliders dropped nearly as much as expected from gravity alone, last nights retained an inch or three more backspin induced rise.
X (horiz):
Takehome: last night’s sliders were sloppy. This one I missed looking at the table alone, and lends some credence to the idea that last night’s sliders weren’t sliders — or at least, they weren’t very good sliders.
Question: is it better to have a consistent or inconsistent pitch?
intuitively it might be better to have a consistent one, but wouldn’t good hitters take note of the speed, vertical or horizontal movement of your pitch types, and if they recognize a specific pitch type, they can swing at it at the location they are looking for (“it looks like a slider, I will swing slightly lower than where it looks like it’s going to go”)? Whereas, if your pitch is inconsistent, hitters will have a harder time to predict where it goes, even if they recognize the pitch type.
Obviously baseball player might not work like that and I have never played ball.
Proud adopted parent of the ball dudes, who have grounded into 109 fewer double plays than the Giants.
I think you want deception, but not at the expense of predictability. If you don’t know where the pitch is going, you’re going to miss your spot. The messiness above was horizontal, which translates to a greater risk in leaving a pitch in the middle of the plate or way off, instead of placing it as desired in a swing-but-miss spot.
Didn't see it
As Fla-Giant mentioned none of the pitches were thrown hard enough to be sliders. Not to mention that absolutely nothing I saw last night looked like a slider. Obviously, I could have missed one or two, but no way I missed 28 sliders. I’ll bet the Rangers could settle the debate, but for me this pokes a hole the size of Mac Truck in PFX.
"I signed up for this job, the day I was born" - Brian Wilson, Ninja
by Giant Torture on Oct 28, 2010 1:37 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, it’s pretty common knowledge that the MLBAM pitch-type classifications aren’t great for certain pitches (cutters and changeups especially). Though, I do think they are getting better. Learn to classify the pitches yourself in PFX data-sets and you’ll be a much happier camper.
Ask me about my blog.
Good observations, Fla-Giant.
On KNBR this morning, Kuip alluded an interesting approach the Giants hitters took towards Lee by mixing aggressive ABs (where they went looking for the fastball on the first pitch) and patient ABs—almost like the Giants were the ones keeping Lee off-balance, and not the other way around.
I wasn’t thrilled with Bochy’s bullpen management in the 9th last night, but I wasn’t surprised, either. Luckily there’s a lot of room for error with a 7-run lead. The one thing the Rangers did was put a bit more pressure on Cain tonight—he needs to go 6 or 7 innings and leave the game in the hands of the set-up guys. If we saw Ramon Ramirez again, the Giants are in trouble.
"I could hear the angry MCC cacophany in my head."--Oldjacket, 7/4/10
This may not be relevant any more but the pitch he struck out Jayson Werth with in relief in NLCS GM 6 was a slider.
Good point
Forgot about that one, and I think it is relevant. PFX probably has it as a 4 seam fastball though.
"I signed up for this job, the day I was born" - Brian Wilson, Ninja
by Giant Torture on Oct 28, 2010 1:38 PM PDT up reply actions
I din't re-watch that game on DVR
Just watched it in real-time – so I’ll defer to your judgment.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Yeah, that was a slider. You can see it in the spin and in the action of his hand.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Although, once again, that was nowhere near the electric slider he was throwing through most of Sept. and against the Braves.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Here are both games, pfx curves (black), sliders (blue) and changes (green) for vertical and horizontal
Vertical — this one separates out the curves, it seems.
Horizontal — here we separate sliders and changes:
If I had time I could probably do a classification myself, but it’s been a while since I thought about how to do this right.
He threw less sliders, perhaps he had trouble controlling them in warmups or perhaps the blister had its negative impact on that pitch.
On Thursday Cain threw very few curveballs. Perhaps his slider was working better, or he could not get the kind of control of the curve that he often has. Despite the change in pitch selection, he continued to not give up any runs.
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