Comments on: Have You Seen Justin Verlander’s Fastball?

By: taro

taro — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:05:01 +0000

Apparently Leyland wants Verlander to throw “slower” and pace himself this year to eat more innings (so they don’t have to go to their crappy bullpen).

They were also talking about utilizing the two-seam more to get early outs…and as we speak Verlander is getting trashed again.

Maybe its time to end the experiment. :-)

By: marc w.

marc w. — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:29:29 +0000

Is he actually throwing more 2 seamers? Or, more specifically, what does pitch FX show for the break on these fastballs? The break might help determine if it’s actually a different pitch or broadly the same, only slower.

By: Lantermanc

Lantermanc — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:21:58 +0000

I had a chance to get Felix, Bedard, and Adam Jones for Verlander, Billy Wagner, Jered Weaver, and Mike Lowell, but Bedard was the deal-breaker for the other guy. Hindsight being 20/20, I should’ve taken the deal.
I hope Verlander doesn’t put in a Bonderman-like 2007.

By: taro

taro — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:17:09 +0000

Hes throwing more two-seamers this year, and clearly its not working.

Its not something I’d worry about long-term, but it sure doesn’t seem to be working right now.

By: Joser

Joser — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:54:43 +0000

Wow, those velocity tables would sure look good as a… graph. Looks like a nice Poisson distribution.

By: Mariner Fan in Colorado Exile

Mariner Fan in Colorado Exile — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:25:51 +0000

I am not well-versed on Verlander’s injury history, but is there anything that presaged this? More importantly, is there any type of arm problem that usually becomes known after a symptom like this that doesn’t seem to indicate natural decline? To be touching the mid-high 90’s on a consistent basis last year and now to find that less than 4% of your fastballs break 96 is devestating.

By: David Appelman

David Appelman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:26:32 +0000

They were definitely trying to get him to throw slower at the beginning of 2007, but last year was such a success for him and with their 1000 run offense and everything…. why fix what ain’t broken. I like the argument that he actually is broken.

By: dan

dan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:23:20 +0000

I remember reading somewhere that the Tigers coaching staff was trying to teach Verlander to throw softer, to induce more movement on his fastball. Now one of two things has happened: this has either worked (he’s throwing slower) and he’s just not hitting spots for some reason… or he was throwing slower and the staff “teaching” him to throw slower was just a positive spin on his mysterious loss of velocity. Whatever the cause, it obviously hasn’t turned out well so far, for him or the team.

By: Eric J. Seidman

Eric J. Seidman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:35:49 +0000

That’s really something. So far, 22 % of his pitches this year have been at speeds (87-90) that he only reached approximately 3.3 % of the time last year. And he didn’t even fall to those speeds once during March/April of last year.

By: David Appelman

David Appelman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:25:53 +0000

Here's just March & April numbers:

Spd      2007     2008
87               0.70%
88               1.41%
89               8.45%
90              11.97%
91      1.44%   23.24%
92      3.61%   23.24%
93      5.05%    9.86%
94     11.19%    8.45%
95     15.16%    9.15%
96     23.10%    3.52%
97     21.66%	
98     15.52%	
99      2.89%	
100     0.36%