Comments on: Verlander’s Big Start

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:46:07 +0000

Another reason why the fly balls aren’t as much of a concern as normal is because he plays half his games at Comerica Park. The outfield is one of the biggest in baseball. Left center and center are just enormous and right field is fairly shallow, but that doesn’t affect a hard throwing righty like Verlander as much. Center is a good 420 feet away from home plate which is huge, but the big key is that about 50 feet to the right and left of dead center has to be a good 430 or there abouts.

By: Eric Cioe

Eric Cioe — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:03:33 +0000

Not really. It’s just how the Twins teach their pitchers to pitch: they are usually one of the AL teams with the fewest walks and the most homeruns given up. I think Rick Knapp saw in Verlander a guy who was trying to be a groundball pitcher and failing. I think the idea was to let Verlander pitch to his strengths, rather than according to some top-down, organizational philosophy that Chuck Hernandez seemed to have. He wanted everyone to be a pitch-to-contact groundball pitcher. That makes sense with a lot of guys. But Verlander wasn’t one of them. As soon as he started putting his fastball at the top of the zone rather than trying to hit the low corners, he was throwing more strikes and getting more punchouts. Sure, the flyballs are eventually going to lead to homeruns. But because balls in the air turn into hits at a lower rate than groundballs, combined with a lower walk rate, I think the idea is that the homeruns he’s going to give up are going to be solo shots.

By: Chris in Dallas

Chris in Dallas — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:54:14 +0000

Watch him pitch sometime. You won’t be concerned about the flyballs so much. Dude is practically unhittable when he’s on. I imagine a few more fly balls will start leaving the park (especially as we warm up weather-wise), but if he’s keeping guys off the bases via the free pass and striking out a pantload of hitters I’m thinking solo homers aren’t so bad. And he’s got Granderson to run down some of those potential big flys…

By: Luis

Luis — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:47:10 +0000

I made a trade two weeks ago for Verlander. I gave up Grady Sizemore and got Verlander and Victorino in return. My hitting is stacked and I’ve got Carl Crawford among others, who take care of my SB. I was looking at Verlander’s numbers and I did see the 28% GB, which seemed really odd to me and almost made me back away from the trade I made. Then, I thought about it and thought it was just an aberration as his career numbers shopw GB% to be around 40%.

Should I be worried about the amount of FB he is giving up and that only 5.5% are leaving the yard?

By: Matt Harms

Matt Harms — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:41:44 +0000

“to limit the walks and keep the ball in the air”

Why are those two somehow indicative of one another?

By: anon

anon — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:32:57 +0000

“Correspondingly, he is missing fat more bats than ever before”

Nitpicking, but I’m guessing you meant “far” more bats than ever.

By: Eric Cioe

Eric Cioe — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:29:13 +0000

I think the increase in flyball outs is intentional. Rick Knapp taught all the Twins pitchers coming up to limit the walks and keep the ball in the air. Verlander’s stuff seems a lot better suited to flyball pitching than groundball pitching. He certainly looks more comfortable pitching around the letters than trying to pitch at the knees.