I brought this over from my old blog and imported all three parts of this story into one post
Change up
I want to look at Homer Bailey over his final 3 starts when he came back from the disabled list with a healthy groin. I looked at this in a 3 part series, one part for each different pitch that Bailey throws. Today I am going to look at Homer Bailey and what he did when he threw his Change Up.
Over the three starts, Bailey threw 27 change ups in the three games. The change up was his pitch of choice just 10% of the time. Below is a chart breaking down the 27 change ups and the swinging results of the pitch.
Of the 27 change ups thrown, Bailey threw 13 balls (48%) and 14 strikes (including fouls and balls put in play [52%]). The change up has always been Bailey’s third pitch and one that he has struggled with more than the others. The speeds ranged from 79-86 MPH, but at least in this small sample size, speeds did not correlate with strikes or balls. The change up will likely continue to be Bailey’s third pitch, and one that he doesn’t throw very often. Hopefully he has a little more control with it as he continues to throw it more, becuase right now, it is far and away the pitch he has the least control of.
Fastball
Over the three starts, Bailey threw 173 fastballs in the three games. The fastball was his pitch of choice 66% of the time. Below is a chart breaking down all 173 pitches and the swinging results of the pitch.
Of the 173 fastballs thrown, Bailey threw 66 balls (38%) and 107 strikes (including fouls and balls put in play [62%]). The interesting thing about this is that Bailey threw strikes 6% more often with his curveball than his fastball. Overall for the speeds, it appears that Bailey is throwing both a 2 and a 4 seam fastball which can be noted by the movement/speed of the pitches. I would like to see a little better control of the fastball for him, but I would expect his control to get a little better as he continues to pitch.
Curveball
I want to look at Homer Bailey over his final 3 starts when he came back from the disabled list with a healthy groin. I am going to look at his starts in 3 parts. Today I am going to look at Homer Bailey and what he did when he threw his curveball.
Over the three starts, Bailey threw 63 curveballs in the three games. The curveball was thrown 24% of the time he threw a pitch. Below is a chart breaking down all 63 pitches and the swinging results of the pitch.
As you can see by looking at the chart, Bailey only threw 20 curveballs for balls (32%) while the rest were labeled as differing types of strikes. If Bailey can continue to control his curveball at a rate like this, or even somewhat similar I would look for him to have a lot of success going forward to next season. Tomorrow I will be looking at Homer Bailey and breaking down what he did with his fastball.
Big thanks go out to Josh Kalk for helping me get the information so I could break it down and make the chart. You can check out his blog http://www.baseball.bornbybits.com/blog/blog.html for some really great stuff using the MLB Enhanced Gameday Pitch f/x information.