The Cincinnati Reds game tomorrow is live on Fox Sports Ohio at 8pm ET. The plan as things sit right now is for me to go live on Youtube for Reds Minor League Talk for at least some of that game. So if you are as unpopular as I am and have little going on for your Saturday night, feel free to join in. Now onto some real news.
On Thursday afternoon the Reds took on the Colorado Rockies out in Arizona. The Rockies stadium has an active Trackman system linked to Gameday. That means we were able to get exit velocities for batted balls and pitch velocities for the pitchers.
Let’s start with some quick data on the hitters. Brandon Dixon doubled in the 5th inning. The ball left the bat at 107 MPH and went 359 feet. Eugenio Suarez was the only other batter to reach triple-digits – he had a 100 MPH exit velocity out to left field in that same inning.
The pitchers give us more fun data to look at. There were five pitchers on the day for the Reds. Let’s take a look at the velocities for each guy:
There’s a lot to unravel here, but let’s start with the two starters. Luis Castillo had the 2nd highest velocity of any starting pitcher in the Major Leagues last season at 97.5 MPH according to Fangraphs. He and Luis Severino both had a had a full MPH lead over third place among pitchers with at least 80.0 innings thrown. That third place guy? Castillo’s teammate Michael Lorenzen. Sal Romano, for the record, was 15th on the list at 95.3 MPH. The Reds best pitcher in 2017, Castillo was bringing the absolute heat on Thursday afternoon. He averaged 98.3 MPH between his two fastballs, and topped out at 99.7 MPH.
Robert Stephenson averaged 96.5 MPH over his three innings of work. That’s up over 2 MPH from what he averaged in the 2016 season (94.2). He also topped out at 98.6 MPH in the game. That didn’t quite match his high of 99.2 MPH that he had in 2017. Still, it was good to see some of that velocity that Stephenson hasn’t shown too often over the last few years. That it also came with 70% strikes is even more impressive. Manager Bryan Price was impressed by his outing.
With the relievers, let’s start with Zack Weiss. He’s now up to 4.1 shutout innings on the spring with two walks and five strikeouts. He didn’t see much action, throwing just 10 pitches in his appearance. But, he topped out at 94.5 MPH and averaged 93.6 MPH on his fastball. Kyle Crockett, a lefty in competition for a LOOGY role, now has a 2.08 ERA in 4.1 innings this spring with a walk and 3 strikeouts. He averaged 90.1 MPH on his fastball and topped out at 91.2. That falls in line with where he has been in the Major Leagues between 2014-2017. For Jared Hughes he averaged 93.6 MPH on his fastball. That’s about where he’s been at for his career in the Majors.
Joey Votto is the hero we deserve
It’s been a rough couple of years for Cincinnati Reds fans, but while the wins haven’t been there, Joey Votto has been. We are likely looking at the best hitter to ever wear a Reds uniform. The odds are that we won’t see anyone better than he is in our lifetime (though, let’s hope we do – but that’s a pretty big ask). Last season Joey Votto swung at more strikes than he has in the past. He did so while also leading the universe in not swinging at non-strikes.
Eno Sarris of The Athletic interviewed Joey Votto and published the interview earlier today, along with some outstanding information on just how incredible Votto is. The Reds first baseman is a student of the game. The interview itself is awesome, and you need to go read it (subscription is required). But, perhaps the most interesting part was something that Votto sort of mentioned about fastballs all starting to look the same and having less movement, and then the data compiled by Andrew Perpetua that shows just how true that is.