Young Guns Lacking Quick Trigger
Three of the league’s most promising young starters are also three of the league’s least efficient starters. Joba Chamberlain, Clayton Kershaw, and David Price are loaded with good velocity and bright futures with present issues in putting batters away within a timely manner.
During the third inning of last night’s game, Chamberlain threw 48 pitches and allowed two runs without the ball so much as leaving the infield. Three walks and a pair of hit batsmen gave the Mets the lead without much of their own doings – the exception being Carlos Beltran’s 10 pitch at-bat that culminated in a walk; Beltran fell behind 1-2 and with the count worked full, fouled off three consecutive pitches before drawing ball four.
Despite the inning from fielding independent pitching hell, Chamberlain has been the most efficient of the trio; averaging 3.94 pitches per batter faced this season. Kershaw averages nearly a half of a pitch more per batter with 4.35, and Price is nearly an entire pitch more at 4.82. The former two are averaging a little over five innings per start while Price has made four starts this season and only pitched into the sixth inning twice.
Price 19 IP, 12.32 K/9, 8.53 BB/9, 50.2 Zone%, 17.5 O-Swing%
Chamberlain 63.1 IP, 8.24 K/9, 4.69 BB/9, 43.9 Zone%, 23.2 O-Swing%
Kershaw 64 IP, 8.72 K/9, 5.48 BB/9, 50.4 Zone%, 21.7 O-Swing%
Despite the decent Zone% it’s not hard to see why Price is having the most issues. Sure, he’s throwing about the same amount of pitches in the zone as Kershaw, and more than Chamberlain, but less hitters are chasing Price out of the zone, meaning he’s actually throwing less strikes than Kershaw overall. Being a three true outcomes pitcher is hard work when your ratios are that high, although admittedly it is a pretty small sample size.
Here’s a graph comparing the three. It contains each start made thus far, the average amount of pitchers per batter faced, and the total amount of batters faced. Take away the outlier on the left side of the graph and you can see the obvious inverse relationship between the two.
Just in case you were wondering: Roy Halladay averages a little under 3.6 pitches per batter faced.
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Intriguing data. However, “but less hitters are chasing Price out of the zone…. less strikes.” Fewer hitters, fewer strikes, son. ~Love, Miss Grammar.
Interesting piece, but I think it would be more useful to see pitches/out than pitches per batter faced. The number of pitches a pitcher throws or how deep he can go in a game has more to do with how quickly he can get outs than just how many quickly he can get through a batter. The number of batters faced is probably pretty well correlated with the number of outs, but there are times when throwing fewer pitches per batter is not necessarily more efficient, especially for high strikeout pitchers.
Striking out fewer hitters and allowing more balls in play will decrease the number of pitches thrown to each batter and increase the number of batters you face, but it also decreases the rate at which you get outs. Is it really helpful to face an extra few batters if it doesn’t mean you go any deeper into the game? That’s why I think going by outs instead of batters faced would be more useful.
I do agree that the balls and the walks are the big issue for Price. Generally, walks seem to have the biggest impact on pitch counts of any event, and since they don’t return any chance of an out, looking at pitches/out or pitches/tbf will still tell you walks are a major issue.
Pretty SSS for Price. But it looks like he has definitely been struggling with his command, and the umpires have probably tightened his strike zone a bit because of it. Compounding the issue.
From what I’ve seen with Price, he just doesn’t seem to have enough confidence in his stuff right now. Quite a few times I’ve seen him get ahead in the count either 0-2 or 1-2, and then he’ll begin to nibble the corners instead of being more aggressive. When he just goes after a hitter, it’s a great thing to watch because his stuff is just so nasty.
Another young gun has a quicker trigger: Porcello is at 3.84 P/BF.
You could run a stand alone piece on how bad Chamberlain has been. K/9 down. BB/9 way up. K/BB worse than league average. Velocity down 3 MPH. What is wrong with him?
It really speaks to how good Chamberlain really is when his ‘down’ numbers are equal or better than these other very highly-regarded phenoms.
What’s wrong with him? He’s 23 years old and has yet to consistently harness his stuff, like most if not all 23 year old pitchers. We’ve seen flashes, like his string of starts last year before a twinge in his shoulder shut him down. Maybe we’ll see that again this year.
His down numbers are worse than Kershaw’s. Kershaw’s FIP this year is more than half a run better than Chamberlain’s.
When he went on that run last year, he was averaging 95 in every game and touching 99. He’s averaging well under 93 this season. His stuff hasn’t bounced back after that shoulder problem. It’s a concern. His velo in 2009 is the same as Phil Hughes. I’d go so far as to say Hughes has better stuff right now. Velo is the same, more movement on Hughes’ fastball, Hughes gets a lot more movement on his curve. Hughes is showing a curve that borders on ++ in 2009 (far more drop and h movement than average) and Chamberlain’s has lost v-movement.
Actually Price is a trend and to make an excuse for his bad performance is denying reality. The reality is when Price throws strikes, he’s hittable. Price has been more effective throwing more balls than strikes. In his 1st four games where he never made it through the sixth inning of any game, he gave up 5 earned runs in 19 innings. In his one start where he threw more strikes and went 7 innings he gave up 5 earned runs in those 7 innings. So 5 earned runs in 19 innings when throwing balls, and 5 earned runs in 7 innings when throwing strikes. This shows Price is very hittable when he throws strikes. And you can almost bet money he will go back to throwing more balls than strikes sooner or later. The problem is eventually players will force him to throw strikes and will be more patient finding a pitch they can crush.
FYI only nerds and grammar geeks care about grammar outside work and school. That’s a proven fact. Not something to brag about.
Kershaw should not be in this topic at all. Your basically expecting a 21 year old to have the same learning curve as 2 soon to be 24 year olds with Chamberlain having more major league experience.
Anyone honestly believe a 21 year old version of Price and Chamberlain would be better than their soon to be 24 year old versions? Of course not. So you also believe when Kershaw turns 24 his numbers number of a 24 year old won’t be better than Price or Chamberlain of the same age when at 21 his numbers are on par with those 2 at 24 years old?
It’s pretty clear Kershaw is the better pitcher considering his age and the fact he’s already improving on last year’s numbers. So you guys need to stop babying Price and Chamberlain. You all treat them like their the 21 year olds and Kershaw is the 24 year old.