So I watched Civale pitch 4 innings yesterday and was once again struck by the attack that he uses. It is so similar to Bauer’s. And their repertoire also. Thought of Derek and an exchange we had early on, on the board. Thought I would take the time to throw something up on a thread.
Berto did the bulk of the pitch calling and sequencing, and is excellent at using this strategy from his days of learning it while catching Bauer. I won’t try to get to detailed on this pass, but will try and look from a 30 thousand foot level first.
The theory, which dates to Perry Husband back in the early 2000’s goes kind of like this.
You bring hitters to a middle speed so you can beat them faster or slower.
This can be done by throwing the bulk of your pitches in the middle speeds (SL, Cut, CH) or throwing on either side of the middle with fast (FB) and slow (CB) only “trapping” the hitters timing in between.
Hitters have to get a feel for their timing by facing a pitcher. And they get that feel from the velos of the predominance of his pitches. So if you throw everything 85 that is what they adjust to. As you often see, hitters will have trouble early against a soft tossing starter (Josh Tomlin), before they adjust and “slow their bats down”. Vice versa, you throw everything 100, and sooner or later they adjust and hit that also (by cheating to the ball – ie starting early). So as the strategy goes - you want the hitter to adjust to a middle speed in your repertoire Not the fastest or slowest.
Here we have Civale’s pitch distribution for his first start.
43.4% of his pitches were in the slowest (CB) or Fastest (4s) category. The other 66.6% (SL, CH, Cut) were middle speed. And can be visually seen in between the yellow lines in the cross hatched area below.
And what becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly, from a visual stand point, is the fast and slow pitch distribution as we go along the timeline of the game.
When we add in break points between at bats, it becomes even more apparent how Fast/Slow are used and distributed.
Early at bats were predominately middle speed (4 hitters) as the other guys in the lineup are watching and getting reports from the guys that have been to the plate.
Then you see middle speed pitches with a single occurrence of fast/slow coupled. And then later on you see some at bats with only fast and slow as the hitters have been drawn to the middle already.
You bring the hitters to middle speeds, then you beat them at both ends (fast and slow). But you have to have a repertoire suited to be able to do that (will take another post) and Civale has one. And his catcher understands the concept well as Bauer (the guy who has used it since college) spent many days with Berto.
Berto did the bulk of the pitch calling and sequencing, and is excellent at using this strategy from his days of learning it while catching Bauer. I won’t try to get to detailed on this pass, but will try and look from a 30 thousand foot level first.
The theory, which dates to Perry Husband back in the early 2000’s goes kind of like this.
You bring hitters to a middle speed so you can beat them faster or slower.
This can be done by throwing the bulk of your pitches in the middle speeds (SL, Cut, CH) or throwing on either side of the middle with fast (FB) and slow (CB) only “trapping” the hitters timing in between.
Hitters have to get a feel for their timing by facing a pitcher. And they get that feel from the velos of the predominance of his pitches. So if you throw everything 85 that is what they adjust to. As you often see, hitters will have trouble early against a soft tossing starter (Josh Tomlin), before they adjust and “slow their bats down”. Vice versa, you throw everything 100, and sooner or later they adjust and hit that also (by cheating to the ball – ie starting early). So as the strategy goes - you want the hitter to adjust to a middle speed in your repertoire Not the fastest or slowest.
Here we have Civale’s pitch distribution for his first start.
43.4% of his pitches were in the slowest (CB) or Fastest (4s) category. The other 66.6% (SL, CH, Cut) were middle speed. And can be visually seen in between the yellow lines in the cross hatched area below.
And what becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly, from a visual stand point, is the fast and slow pitch distribution as we go along the timeline of the game.
When we add in break points between at bats, it becomes even more apparent how Fast/Slow are used and distributed.
Early at bats were predominately middle speed (4 hitters) as the other guys in the lineup are watching and getting reports from the guys that have been to the plate.
Then you see middle speed pitches with a single occurrence of fast/slow coupled. And then later on you see some at bats with only fast and slow as the hitters have been drawn to the middle already.
You bring the hitters to middle speeds, then you beat them at both ends (fast and slow). But you have to have a repertoire suited to be able to do that (will take another post) and Civale has one. And his catcher understands the concept well as Bauer (the guy who has used it since college) spent many days with Berto.