About Brad Lidge, I can understand citing injuries as a reason to expect his value to decrease, but his velocity decrease was actually intentional.
I couldn’t find an article to cite but I remember reading about his change in pitching style from hardthrowing to accurate. He made this change in the middle of the year and immediately became much more effective.
Looking at his pitch fx stats on fangraphs you can see that his sudden velocity decrease corresponded with his sudden improvement in performance from about august on.
Also he understood that his fastball was less effective than it was a few years ago and began to use it a lot less.
If he continues to pitch the way he did in the second half of 2010 we might see the lidge of 2008 make a comeback.
To be fair, though, the Lidge of 2008 was hardthrowing AND accurate. His velocity compensation is in fact because of he simply can’t do both simultaneously anymore. It will be interesting to see if hitters start to adapt to his change in velocity as more know what to look for.
John says:
March 4, 2011 at 4:22 pm
About Brad Lidge, I can understand citing injuries as a reason to expect his value to decrease, but his velocity decrease was actually intentional.
I couldn’t find an article to cite but I remember reading about his change in pitching style from hardthrowing to accurate. He made this change in the middle of the year and immediately became much more effective.
Looking at his pitch fx stats on fangraphs you can see that his sudden velocity decrease corresponded with his sudden improvement in performance from about august on.
Also he understood that his fastball was less effective than it was a few years ago and began to use it a lot less.
If he continues to pitch the way he did in the second half of 2010 we might see the lidge of 2008 make a comeback.
Saul says:
March 5, 2011 at 2:54 pm
To be fair, though, the Lidge of 2008 was hardthrowing AND accurate. His velocity compensation is in fact because of he simply can’t do both simultaneously anymore. It will be interesting to see if hitters start to adapt to his change in velocity as more know what to look for.