Introducing Yu Darvish
Temptation is always highest when mystery shrouds the subject. Rarely is the fulfillment worth the bewilderment, but there are always exceptions. Meet Yu Darvish, the lanky, 6’5” 22-year-old phenom who doubles as one of the Japanese team’s aces. A baseball site without a single mention of Darvish is about as common as the dodo bird. Darvish is more than the new Daisuke Matsuzaka, he’s the new Sidd Finch.
Except Darvish actually breathes.
While the results were shaky early on, Darvish flashed fine velocity. Seven consecutive fastballs opened the game with an average velocity just shy of 95 miles per hour. Darvish would top out at 96.9 MPH, but failed to see his velocity drop too much as he reached the 85 pitch mark. Darvish’s final 10 fastballs recorded an average of 92.95 MPH.
Although Darvish did throw 42 two-seam fastballs, he also threw a pitch that registered as a four seamer and a cutter. Throw in an unhittable slider and curveball, and Darvish has most pitchers his age beat in both quantity and quality. Here’s a look at Darvish’s stuff by movement:
Let’s focus in on that slider. Darvish tossed it 18 times an had the following results: ball, ball, ball, ball, called strike, called strike, called strike, ball, ball, hit, swinging strike, called strike, in play out, ball, called strike, swinging strike, swinging strike, and finally swinging strike. That’s 4/18 swinging strikes, or 22% total, and of those who actually dared to swing, Darvish recorded 4/6 whiffs, or nearly 70%.
Why was Darvish’s slider so untouchable? Harry Pavlidis – one of the best PitchFx imagery creators around – created a pair of flight paths showing Darvish’s pitches from an overhead and first base view. Both of those images can be viewed here. Pretty much everything bends or breaks in tantalizing fashion.
Yes, it’s only 85 pitches, but Darvish looked every bit as good as advertised.
Print This Post
Quoting every married man, ever.
Beautiful.
and have you seen Yu’s wife?
http://asianmediawiki.com/Saeko
She’s Japanese…and that’s Mrs. Darvish to you, keep it PG
Like there’s a difference.
I agree, he was nasty, and I think the initial struggles were as much from too much adrenaline and a bad throw to second.
Yeah, being on foreign soil in unfamiliar surroundings doesn’t help either.
Did you see how the two-seem fastball broke in to right handed batters on the pitchFX image? The movement is so drastic it almost looks like a shuuto.
YES!! I have been waiting to hear more about Darvish, he looks to be a solid pitcher. Is it possible for somebody to post more Hyunjin Ru and Tae Kyun Kim info from the Korea squad?
I posted the Ryu breakdown a few days ago, I’ll see what I can do for Kim.
Could someone please be so kind as to explain the pitch movement graph. It seems to be counter intuitive as I know a pitch can’t break upward. Thanks in advance.
The movement is compared to that of a ball with zero spin.
Also a “negative” horizontal break is in to righties, a positive horizontal break is in to lefties.
So a four seam fastball would be +y and a 12-6 curve would be -y?
Yeah. Reference this (for righties):
http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net/wiki/images/4/47/Guide2.gif
Unfortunately, he’s never shown any interest in coming over to the US.
He’s only 22 but has four years service. I’m sure in another four years the Fighter’s will be posting his contract. We’ll see what he says then. Of course, his arm could fall of before then.
No player would dare to openly state their desire to goto Majors in Nippon Baseball right now. Don’t worry, he will be in states much like the others who want to play with the best to become even better.
It isn’t simply Darvish hasn’t voiced interest in the MLB, or that he has claimed to be presently focused on Japanese baseball. During the third Korea-Japan WBC game, the ESPN commentators reported that Darvish stated explicitly that he would never come to the MLB, that he would rather retire from baseball altogether, because leaving Japan would be a disservice to Japanese baseball and in particular young Japanese fans.
Maybe Darvish will end up here anyway, that’s obviously a possibility, but he won’t be able to do that without being explicitly hypocritical.