2020 Bullpen Discussion

[Derek]

Not concerned at all with Hand topping out at 91 tonight. It's not like he was ever a guy that was blowing guys away with his 93 mph fastball. As long as he can locate it and his slider keeps its bite, there's no reason he shouldn't be highly effective.

 

[Prime 1978]

Interesting, maybe they had both up because I swear I saw Cimber getting ready during the top half of the inning.

Tito addressed in the post game presser. Said he felt once Bieber got out of the 6th he felt Cimber was the option for coming into a clean inning.

 

[Prime 1978]

Double post

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

The key for Cimber is maintaining his arm slot.

"Cimber said his release point dropped nine inches from April to September. That is not a good thing. He had a 3.06 ERA in 37 appearances in the first half. After the All-Star break, it was 6.29 in 31 appearances....In terms of ERA, Cimber had a 3.30 ERA vs. righties and a 8.31 ERA vs. lefties.......Cimber relies mostly on deception and movement, but his velo dropped across the board last year."- Hoynes

Lefties hit .296/.943 off him last year. Maybe it was the drop in release point and lower velocity combination, or maybe his stuff just doesn't play against lefties even when he's on his game. We'll know more after this season I assume, but my guess is that going into the playoffs he'll be behind Hand, Karinchak, Wittgren, Hill, and possibly Maton in the right-handed pecking order.

 

[Derek]

As usual, Hoynes has no idea what he’s taking about. Cimber’s velocity last year was up from the second half of 2018 and within 0.3 of his career average.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

As usual, Hoynes has no idea what he’s taking about. Cimber’s velocity last year was up from the second half of 2018 and within 0.3 of his career average.

Hoynes was just copying from Baseball Savant.

"His sinker went from 86.4 mph in 2018 to 84.9 in 2019. His slider dropped from 78.5 mph in 2018 to 75.4 and his four-seamer went from 87.2 mph in 2018 to 85.9. The lost velocity may have had something to do with Cimber’s delivery issues."

I checked his numbers and they are correct. I added the link if you want to check yourself. But those are 2019 versus 2018 velocities. You specifically mentioned the second half of 2018. Maybe you have a different source. Maybe his velocity dropped when he flew from San Diego to Cleveland and stayed down in 2019?

Leaving Hoynes out of it, it’s still shocking to me that Savant has him losing 3.1 mph off his slider from ’18 to ’19. He throws it 50% of the time. This guy doesn’t have a lot of velo to lose.

Adam Cimber Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | MLB.com

(null) Avg Exit Velocity: 86.3, Hard Hit %: 31.2, wOBA: .309, xwOBA: .273, Barrel %: 4. Pitch Arsenal: SL, FF, SI

baseballsavant.mlb.com

 

[CATS44]

I wonder if what hurt Cimbers development was that, because of his delivery, he was pigeon holed as a ROOGIE from the get go.

 

[jup]

So I am not real proficient on this site yet so I will throw up the image and then put the text with it in a subsequent post until I am sure how images work here.

 

[jup]

So I said something in the game thread about seeing Karinchak pitch for the first time today and being underwhelmed after hearing about him for quite some time. And the two things I continued to hear was his walk issues and his CB.

So K is a big posture shift guy. They usually have very good CBs because their "perceived" arm slot is right over the top and it makes it very easy to throw a real hammer. But no one's arm slot can truly be that high, it is above the range of motion of the shoulder. So what pitchers do is posture shift to get there arm slot up there.

If you look at the insert top right, you can see K from the original picture and one where I "straightened his spine" to be more perpendicular to the ground to the right. When you do that you can see his arm slot is really a high 3/4rs. Posture shift lingo for non pitching nerds like me is something used to describe the spine during a pitchers delivery.

So in the larger picture you can see the curvature of his spine highlighted in yellow. But there also is this blue line that runs between his legs. That blue line is where you want you center of mass to be if possible during a pitching delivery. Because that is the way the human body is designed for balance purposes. If we are standing straight up and down, a line right between the legs perpendicular to the ground splits our body mass pretty evenly left to right.

If you notice his body mass, it is all shifted to the left side by the bend in his spine. And for the most part, it is even left of his left leg. Try standing in that position with only one leg on the ground and it becomes very easy to see the balance problems associated with it. That is why he has such a hard time throwing strikes. Because his body mass shifts slightly from pitch to pitch because he can't replicate the exact same "balance" position from one pitch to the next.

So great CBs out of this posture, very inconsistent throwing strikes. The good and bad of the delivery. Don't ever expect K to have good command, walks will follow him where ever he goes. He is a guy that will walk the bases loaded while striking out the side.

Incidentally Bauer used to be a huge posture shift guy in college, and that gave him a devastating CB that carried him to the Golden Spikes award and the #3 overall pick in the '11 draft. But he was never good on the command side across the board. Has become much better since he changed his delivery in '13 to a much more upright posture. But he lost that devastating CB he had in college which was a true hammer.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

So I said something in the game thread about seeing Karinchak pitch for the first time today and being underwhelmed after hearing about him for quite some time. And the two things I continued to hear was his walk issues and his CB.

So K is a big posture shift guy. They usually have very good CBs because their "perceived" arm slot is right over the top and it makes it very easy to throw a real hammer. But no one's arm slot can truly be that high, it is above the range of motion of the shoulder. So what pitchers do is posture shift to get there arm slot up there.

If you look at the insert top right, you can see K from the original picture and one where I "straightened his spine" to be more perpendicular to the ground to the right. When you do that you can see his arm slot is really a high 3/4rs. Posture shift lingo for non pitching nerds like me is something used to describe the spine during a pitchers delivery.

So in the larger picture you can see the curvature of his spine highlighted in yellow. But there also is this blue line that runs between his legs. That blue line is where you want you center of mass to be if possible during a pitching delivery. Because that is the way the human body is designed for balance purposes. If we are standing straight up and down, a line right between the legs perpendicular to the ground splits our body mass pretty evenly left to right.

If you notice his body mass, it is all shifted to the left side by the bend in his spine. And for the most part, it is even left of his left leg. Try standing in that position with only one leg on the ground and it becomes very easy to see the balance problems associated with it. That is why he has such a hard time throwing strikes. Because his body mass shifts slightly from pitch to pitch because he can't replicate the exact same "balance" position from one pitch to the next.

So great CBs out of this posture, very inconsistent throwing strikes. The good and bad of the delivery. Don't ever expect K to have good command, walks will follow him where ever he goes. He is a guy that will walk the bases loaded while striking out the side.

Incidentally Bauer used to be a huge posture shift guy in college, and that gave him a devastating CB that carried him to the Golden Spikes award and the #3 overall pick in the '11 draft. But he was never good on the command side across the board. Has become much better since he changed his delivery in '13 to a much more upright posture. But he lost that devastating CB he had in college which was a true hammer.

21 strikes in 28 pitches yesterday - not bad considering all the posture shifting. He did allow one walk, but that was on a 3-2 count after the guy fouled off about five pitches.

What impressed me was that Tito decided to throw him into the fire. He put him in to start the 9th with the score tied 2-2 and the Royals 3-4-5 hitters coming to the plate. A high leverage situation and the heart of the lineup. It reminded me of how bad Cody Allen used to be in these situations.

Anyway, Karinchak immediately struck out Soler, then got two easy fly balls. A 1-2-3 inning on 10 pitches. Sweet.

The one thing that concerned me was his fastball was in the 94-95 range. I thought he threw harder than that. When they swung at his fastball they fouled it off. The guy he walked fouled off several high heaters at the top or just above the zone. His FB looked pretty straight to me and not as fast as advertised.

They definitely swung and missed the curve when he got it down in the zone, though.

 

[jup]

21 strikes in 28 pitches yesterday - not bad considering all the posture shifting. He did allow one walk, but that was on a 3-2 count after the guy fouled off about five pitches.

What impressed me was that Tito decided to throw him into the fire. He put him in to start the 9th with the score tied 2-2 and the Royals 3-4-5 hitters coming to the plate. A high leverage situation and the heart of the lineup. It reminded me of how bad Cody Allen used to be in these situations.

Anyway, Karinchak immediately struck out Soler, then got two easy fly balls. A 1-2-3 inning on 10 pitches. Sweet.

The one thing that concerned me was his fastball was in the 94-95 range. I thought he threw harder than that. When they swung at his fastball they fouled it off. The guy he walked fouled off several high heaters at the top or just above the zone. His FB looked pretty straight to me and not as fast as advertised.

They definitely swung and missed the curve when he got it down in the zone, though.

There will be days when posture shift guys are very good and days that they are very bad, like any other pitcher.

But if you look at their track record, from batter to batter over a long period of time, what typifies them is inconsistency throwing strikes. And my post has nothing to do with yesterdays results. So if 21 strikes in 28 pitches yesterday - not bad considering all the posture shifting. was meant to somehow nullify what I posted, that is fine with me. I don't post to be the "smartest guy" in the room. That post was meant to be strictly informational, about the science and art of pitching that a lot of fans don't have insight into.

If you meant it as an aside about yesterdays performance, I would not agree completely. Even when he missed and it was called a strike, or was swung at, it was how he missed that was enlightening from a pure pitching analysis standpoint. But from a results standpoint, it was a good performance and I am sure his team mates and coaches are very happy with it.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

There will be days when posture shift guys are very good and days that they are very bad, like any other pitcher.

But if you look at their track record, from batter to batter over a long period of time, what typifies them is inconsistency throwing strikes. And my post has nothing to do with yesterdays results. So if 21 strikes in 28 pitches yesterday - not bad considering all the posture shifting. was meant to somehow nullify what I posted, that is fine with me. I don't post to be the "smartest guy" in the room. That post was meant to be strictly informational, about the science and art of pitching that a lot of fans don't have insight into.

If you meant it as an aside about yesterdays performance, I would not agree completely. Even when he missed and it was called a strike, or was swung at, it was how he missed that was enlightening from a pure pitching analysis standpoint. But from a results standpoint, it was a good performance and I am sure his team mates and coaches are very happy with it.

You're right, yesterday's sample was too small. Let's enlarge it to include his stint with the Indians last year. So far in his very brief major league career he's pitched 7.1 innings and walked two hitters, allowing one earned run. So far, so good, but Tito also warned there will be days when he can't find the plate.

Yesterday he struck out one of the six batters he retired. So far he's not in the "tons of strikeouts, tons of walks" category, quite the opposite. But it's only a couple of innings, so we'll see. Great start for the kid, though.

 

[Derek]

Hand averaged 91.9 on his fastball last night, up from 90.5 in his first outing.

I know he got hit hard on a couple of low sliders, but I think he's in a good place and will perform well for us this year.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

Hand averaged 91.9 on his fastball last night, up from 90.5 in his first outing.

I know he got hit hard on a couple of low sliders, but I think he's in a good place and will perform well for us this year.

When he was on, his slider's horizontal movement was absurd. Now, it's good--but it doesn't look the same to me.

Couple that with the velocity drop, and I expect hitters to go up sitting slider, knowing they can catch up to a fastball and foul it off. I think that's a recipe for Hand to be not as effective.

I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Derek]

When he was on, his slider's horizontal movement was absurd. Now, it's good--but it doesn't look the same to me.

Couple that with the velocity drop, and I expect hitters to go up sitting slider, knowing they can catch up to a fastball and foul it off. I think that's a recipe for Hand to be not as effective.

I hope I'm wrong.

Brad Hand Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | MLB.com

(ALL) Avg Exit Velocity: 87.6, Hard Hit %: 33.8, wOBA: .285, xwOBA: .289, Barrel %: 5.8. Pitch Arsenal: SL, FF, SI, CU

baseballsavant.mlb.com

Went from 15.8 inches of horizontal break to 14.7 inches this year. Could chalk that up to it still being early and pitchers are still loosening their arms.

Sinker is breaking more though.