Sometimes people talk as if the pitcher has absolutely no control once the ball leaves his hand, which is confusing to me. A pitcher’s velocity + movement + command affect the type of contact that he allows. I think we overuse the word “control” and should use “influence”. The batter is not the pitcher’s puppet, but the pitcher can, and does, influence the type of swing and contact a batter makes if he has good “stuff”.

It’s like saying that a batter has no control over the type of hits they get once the ball is struck. Well, duh … but we also know the hitter’s attributes, power, selection, etc often result in the same hitters being at the top of the league in SLG, ISO, etc.

Whether it can be predicted (or projected) or whatever, it should be obvious that some pitchers (even some pitches) are harder to “hit well” than others. There is “contact” and there is “good contact” … we need to be deciphering between them when looking at pitcher’s influence on the batted ball. A hitter badly fooled by a good changeup or late breaking sinker may get “contact”, but likely the type of contact that the pitcher enjoys.

I was simply saying that Pineiro and Zambrano’s production in 2009 isn;t just simply “luck”, but due to throwing more moving pitches instead of straight ones.

Pineiro was successful due to high GB%, Big Z was successful not allowing HRs. I never said Big Z was becoming a groundball pitcher.

He regularly posts HR/FB rates that seem lower then they should be (compare it to his teammates, and the fact that Wrigley isn’t exactly a pitchers park). It’s my understanding that HR/FB is supposed to be more park based, and not so much in the pitchers control. This would lead us to believe that zambrano should have higher HR/FB rates, but he continues to keep them down.

Same story with his BABIP. He regularly posts incredibly low BABIP numbers, even without the cubs having a stellar defense. His career 18.6 LD% surely plays a role, but even that, doesn’t seem to fully account for his low career .280 BABIP. An interesting side note, is that ted lilly, has been posting low BABIP’s with the exact opposite profile as zambrano (and pitching to the cubs TERRIBLE defensive OF).

So the question is…is this finally the year that zambrano’s BABIP, and HR/FB regress to the mean, like our sabermetric minds tell us, or Zambrano doing that we (I) am missing to seemingly defy our statistics.

Maybe gaining a consistant arm angle would help that.

Pssst … Even as a cardinal fan, I must admit I really enjoy watching Big Z. Don’t tell anyone. While his constant forehead wiping and crotch grabbing drives my ADD crazy, I really like watching him pitch. His mechanics are pretty good (He really sits on the back leg), and he has great “Latin” arm action.

I’m interested in the “consistent” arm angle thing, because it could help control (certainly), but a “floating” release point also makes pitches feature varying movement and harder to pick up.

The thing I wonder with Z is if he means to vary his arm slot or if it happens because he loses focus (no doubt about it, Z loses focus quite a bit). I say that because when i watch him and he “loses a batter” (walks him) he really misses. What hurts him most is that with his FB, he really seems to miss “in the zone”. What I mean by that is that instead of losing his fastball low and away, he loses it up and over the plate. Sure, it’s a strike, but it’s “missing in the zone” which is often times worse.

With his body type, sometimes i wonder if it’s a combination of loss of focus, and balance, leading to rushing (front leg), which causes his arm to drag, resulting in a higher release point (from 3/4′s) that causes pitches to stay on a higher plane.

He’s hard for to gauge, because I don;t watch all of his starts, and he’s “effectively erratic” at times that he’s hard to get a good read on. However, if he had a more consistent release point, like say Bartolo Colon, he might be easier to hit, because the ball “becomes visible” to the hitter at the same time, from the same place, each and every time.

I’m not a big fan of the “floating arm slot”, but some pitchers use it effectively. In actuality, there is a small “range” of arm slots that a pitcher could use and still be considered a “consistent slot”, and that’s what I would like to see Z achieve a little more of, while using the various arm slots on PURPOSE and at effective times.

I said a lot just to say “Big Z can be a confusing pitcher”. IMHO, (and I love the guy), alot of Big Z problems are between his ears and just above his belt. Focus and some conditioning could rejuvenate Z’s career. Big pitchers like him, with nice arm action, and decent movement, generally are effective for a long time in MLB.

His pitch selection has altered little; fewer fastballs per 100 pitches, more cutters in place of sliders, and some extra split-fingered pitches. His stuff gets more groundballs than fly balls which is a positive sign, but generally speaking there’s nothing here to indicate he’s going to continue giving up less than seven home runs per 100 fly balls.

This quote is confusing (not to me, but to the author). You just stated that he’s replacing some fastballs with pitches that move, and then … comment that there’s nothing to indicate that his HR % will stay low.

To me, it’s pretty obvious … pitches that move, particularly the pitches you mentioned which look like fastballs until late and then break downwards (sharply), are going to be harder to hit for HR’s. That’s obvious.

It’s, IMO, rather similar to the Pineiro BB/9 and contact % discussion. He found pitches that he can throw for strikes that don;t get mashged, and his overall numbers were better. Looks to me like Big Z did the same thing. maybe he’s becoming “craftier” in his old age. In other words, maybe he’s finally learned that you cannot throw low 90s FBs by everyone like you can when they’re mid 90s FB’s.

So, look at his other stats … [1] his K-Rate is up to where it hasn’t been in 3 years and [2] his walk rate is down, as well as [3] given up less HRs. I’m sure you can explain what 3 factors FIP is based on.

Well, look at that, when you use throw pitches that look like fastball, but feature late-breaking movement down in the strikezone, you’re harder to hit. Who knew?

I’m not being rude in any way, maybe trying to be humorous … but, really, I do get tired of analysts just “chalking it up to luck”, even though they themselves described something significant and repeatable that very well could have led to the improvement performance.

Both Pineiro and Big Z learned that as velocity decreases with age, you need to shift toward late moving pitches, breaking down in the zone. Heck, Z shoulda been doing that from the start (IMO).