Amazing Moyer
We all know that Jamie Moyer doesn’t throw very hard. He’s thrown 3,700 innings over his 22 year career, and at 45 years old, the guy who was known for his soft tossing ways is throwing even slower than ever. His average fastball so far this year has been 80.9 MPH, and according to the Pitch F/x tool by Josh Kalk, he’s thrown 518 pitches with a velocity below 80 MPH, compared to 566 pitches with a velocity greater than 80 MPH.
In other words, it’s just as likely that Moyer will throw you a pitch in the 65-79 MPH range as a pitch in the 80-85 range. Those are the kinds of velocities that will make scouts stop watching you in high school - almost everyone who played varsity ball in school faced a guy who threw harder than Moyer does now.
And it doesn’t matter. Moyer’s running a 4.35 FIP and 3.95 ERA, his lowest marks since his 2003 season in Seattle. His 5.53 K/9 and 46.8% GB% are more in line with a guy who throws a sinker and pounds the bottom of the strike zone with 90 MPH two-seam fastballs. Take a look at his career K/9 graph, and see if you can identify the decreases in his velocity:
While now throwing a fastball that routinely sits at 78 or 79 MPH, he’s striking out just as many batters as he always has. It’s unbelievable.
Jamie Moyer is amazing, and while he’s not the best pitcher we’ve ever seen, he might be the most remarkable.
Terry said,
July 15, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Who knew that trading Moyer for Barb and Baldwin was going to be such a horrible decision-not because of what Moyer has done for Philly but because of the money Seattle has committed to the Silvas/Weavers/Batistas of the world and talent spent to acquire HoRAM since then all in an effort to replace Moyer….
Seth said,
July 15, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Isn’t he making like $12 million or so? Oh, right, that’s the “pounds the strike zone with 90mph sinkers” guy some Northwest team got. I’d take Moyer and his changeup and super changeup any day.
Plus, is there a better person in MLB?
Tom Au said,
July 15, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Apparently, it’s the relative, not absolute velocities, that confuse batters, and make Moyer a pretty good pitcher. There is a 20 mph difference between Moyers’ 85 mph “fastball” and his 65 mph changeup. That’s more than the difference between someone else’s 95 mph fastball and his 85 mph changeup.
Major Leaguers, by definition, and even good high school batters can deal with “velocity.” It’s probably harder for them to deal with “variation,” something that Moyer is good at. He was one of the harder pitchers to hit, for the heroes of “Moneyball.”
taro said,
July 15, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
For me personally, Moyer is a HOFer.
Has anybody EVER accomplished more with less of a toolset?
Sal Paradise said,
July 15, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Possibly this very similar guy:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/219_P_season_mini_1_20080713.png
Both are amazing and very unique in the pitching world.
Jay said,
July 16, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Tom Au, interested to know how you arrived at those figures. Both BIS and Josh Kalk’s database measure Moyer’s average fastball at 81 and his changeup around 74. According to Kalk, Moyer’s fastest fastball was clocked at 85 and his slowest change at 71, so no batter could have possibly seen more than 14 mph of separation between the two on any consecutive pitches this year, let alone 20 with any sort of regularity.
Matt Garrett said,
July 16, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Sal,
Knuckleballers is cheating!
Though I do agree he is amazing.
Matt
Tiboreau said,
July 17, 2008 @ 12:16 am
I’d assume that Tom confused Moyer’s slowest pitch for his change-up when his slowest pitch is really his breaking ball.
Tom Au said,
July 17, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Thanks for picking up on my badly worded comment. I had meant to throw out a hypothetical: if there is a 20 mph difference between Moyer’s fastest and slowest pitch, that would confuse batters more than the low velocity would help them. And yes, I did confuse the change-up with the breaking ball in this context.
But apparently the comment did inspire a piece today about relative velocity.