Maybe try a four seamer?
To read the postgame comments of the Mariners after another miserable outing from Jeff Weaver last night, the guy is the second coming of Derek Lowe. Take a look at some of these quotes, courtesy of Geoff Baker:
“I’ve had success throwing my slider to him,” Weaver said. “I figured that, after throwing some sinkers to get ahead, he may have changed his approach to look for that sinker. But he never changed. He sat on the slider each and every time and hit them good.”
“This was a little bit more frustrating than the first time,” Weaver said. “I felt that I was out there with some good stuff, started getting some ground balls I was looking for. I wasn’t falling behind, I was getting ahead of hitters.
And there’s this one from the P-I.
“I was able to get ahead in the count most of the time and I went back to my sinker to get a lot of ground balls,” Weaver said.
So, Weaver threw a bunch of two-seam fastballs yesterday that he thought qualified as “good stuff”, he was trying to induce ground balls, and he just made a mistake by throwing Torii Hunter a slider that ruined his outing. The stats back up part of his premise – he got 14 groundballs compared to 6 flyballs and 4 line drives, so he posted a 58% GB rate for the game. You know the last time he got 14 groundballs in one game? September 27, 2005. He did it twice in ’05, also pulling the trick on opening day that year. Before that, he did it on September 18th, 2002 and July 27th, 2002.
And that’s it. Last night was the fifth time in the last five years that Weaver has gotten that many groundballs in one start.
So, despite what you hear, Jeff Weaver has not been a groundball pitcher throughout his career. His GB%, by season, since 2002: 44%, 39.9%, 40%, 40.7%, and 39.7%. The league average GB% is 43%. Jeff Weaver has a four year track record of getting less groundballs than the average pitcher. If he’s decided to turn himself into a sinkerballer, this is a new development.
And it’s not going to work. There’s a difference between throwing a worm-burner inducing two-seam fastball of the type that Derek Lowe, Brandon Webb, Chien-Ming Wang, Roy Halladay, and Tim Hudson throw, getting good velocity and movement on a pitch that is often in the 90-93 range, and having Jeff Weaver throw 85-88 MPH meatballs over the heart of the plate hoping to induce contact.
Just because you can put a finger on two seams and throw a pitch does not make you a sinkerballer, Jeff. You’re not going to survive in the major leagues throwing 85-88. Your pitches don’t have enough movement and you don’t have the kind of command or mound presence to know how to live off below average stuff. See all those balls being ripped to the wall in your first two starts? That’s what happens when you throw a sinker that doesn’t have enough velocity to get under the hitter’s bat. Those aren’t fluke hits – you’re getting torched because the pitch isn’t major league quality.
You have a four seam fastball – we all saw it in the World Series when you struck out 14 guys in 13 innings in the games that got you this $8 million paycheck. You can throw 90-93 and locate it well enough to get it past people occassionally.
Try it. It worked well enough for you to have a couple decent years as a flyball, four-seam guy back in 2004 and 2005. This whole reinvent yourself with the two-seam fastball experiment? It didn’t work in spring training, and it’s time to chuck it out the window.
You’re Jeff Weaver, and you’re not a groundball pitcher. Try not to suck your way out of the major leagues trying to prove that you are.
And for all of you who don’t know:
If a big league pitcher is hanging pitches or missing spots, it means he isn’t good enough. Weaver didn’t intentionally or accidently miss: that where he throws it. What I mean is that his pitches are not an aberration – they are a reflection of his current ability. Some pitchers can make adjustments. Dave suggests that Weaver make an adjustment in the type of pitches he throws – I hope that does it.
As far as Weaver’s attitude, I deal with those types on a constant basis. Weaver is one of those guys that is a dynamic personality when everything is going his way. When it doesn’t go his way, he gets sullen and withdrawn. It is a personality flaw reflected in his general behavior over many seasons. The guy doesn’t have a good rep.
Just wanted to let everyone know that USS Mariner got a mention in a Jerry Cransick article on ESPN.com. Gives credit to USSM for coming up with “King” as the nickname for Felix.
My friend and I watching the game were wondering why he thought a waist-high 78 MPH hanging slider was “good stuff”. Looked like pretty crappy stuff to me.
One of Weavers big problems last night was he threw everything on the same plane. The slider was breaking but mostly horizontally and his two seam fastball wasn’t sinking it was just slurving.
He needs to go to the 4 seam fastball just to throw some pitches in a different zone plane to make the hitters adjust vertically.
he needs to give the money back or to Baek and leave town…lol…
Anybody looking at what Meche is doing today?
Pitcher IP PC H ER BB K
Meche 6.2 94 4 1 3 6
There is an article from Crasnick on the ESPN baseball page about KING FELIX…
oops, meant to say, thanks for the Shout Out Jerry
56. Yeah, just heard about that…
ok, so Weaver is now being thrown under the bus for ‘not looking enthused’ …
I saw Weaver pitch in the olds days, when he was still with Detroit. Dude’s never been enthused. He’s played the “maybe I’m slightly crazy, do you want to find out?” card most of his career. Problem is he’s never been a consistent enough pitcher to pull it off (the best player I can think of in recent years to use it effectively is Randy – a giant, coming at you with “Mr. Snappy” or “Mr. Snap Your Head Off,” for instance – with just enough creepy guy who lives in the woods near your house to make his nasty stuff even more intimidating). Clemens has some serious screw loose game on the mound too.
Weaver’s attempts really just make him seem like the partied-out drifter who might walk up to a bonfire of people he doesn’t know to borrow a beer and a smoke. Next morning you find him crashed on your couch eating your Lucky Charms. He’s just off enough that you don’t want to throw him out, so in the end you hope he just moves on to some other party the next night. I wouldn’t mind playing poker with the way he reacts to events, though.
I just think of all the things we could have done with that 8mill. I hope he starts doing something to change his approach.
Meche update:
Pitcher IP PC H ER BB K
Meche 7.1 108 6 1 3 6
He’s struggling now…might get hammered this inning.
nope. 8 ip
Anyway, I still wouldn’t have paid 55 mil for him.
Would I?
More to the point, I think in retrospect, I would have paid 8 mil…
Way to tie that back into the thread. Kudos.
Dave, can you talk a little about how we as fans can readily distinguish the four-seamer from the two-seamer — differences in release point, arm slot, break, location, etc.?
Let us assume that Weaver, while not as bad as he has looked in his initial appearances, is still a bad starting pitcher. Do the M’s start skipping his starts when off days allow the other pitchers to continue on their regular four days rest? (By the way, last night would have been a perfect example of when to do this.)
Just a quick note to Mariner fans,
Gardenhire did not tell Mauer to bunt runners over before Hunter’s Grand Slam. Mauer occasionally likes to lay a bunt down the third base line when the 3rd baseman is playing back trying for a base hit. Jojima jumped on the ball as it died in grass for the sac out. It worked out in the end, but I’m sure Gardy was just as confused as every other Twins fan at his “sacrifice” bunt.
BTW, can we please bypass King Felix tonight? Is Jeff Weaver ready to pitch again yet?
Also, someone wondered why Morneau was batting fifth in our lineup. Gardy likes to go left-right-left with Mauer, Cuddyer and Morneau. Cuddyer had 108 rbi’s in the cleanup spot last year, and Morneau still knocked in 130 men out of the 5 hole.
Dave, can you talk a little about how we as fans can readily distinguish the four-seamer from the two-seamer — differences in release point, arm slot, break, location, etc.?
Arm slot and release point should theoretically be the same. Now, Weaver has about five different arm slots he pitches from, so not every two seam or four seam fastball is going to come in from the same angle, but the pitch itself isn’t determined by where you release the ball. It’s simply a difference in grip that causes the ball to move differently and at a different rate of speed.
The two seam fastball is generally going to come in about 3-4 MPH slower than a pitchers four seam fastball, so if you see a pitch that’s clearly not a breaking ball that is consistently below standard top velocity, there’s a decent chance it’s a two-seamer. A lot of times, you’ll hear an announcer say that a pitcher “took a little off that one” when the pitcher really just threw a two-seam fastball instead of a four-seam fastball.
The other key is to watch the movement. Last night with Weaver, for instance, you’d see his fastballs all had a bit of a loop to them. He was using the two-seamer’s natural sink to induce groundballs, but because he doesn’t throw it particularly hard, the movement is easier to spot. A guy like Felix, who throws his ridiculous two seam fastball as fast as 96, is tougher to differentiate because the velocity makes the movement less obvious. Felix, like most dominant groundball guys, throws a very hard sinker that starts diving almost as soon as it leaves the hand. Weaver, like Pineiro last year, is throwing it at a velocity that allows the drop in plane to be a little more obvious, to both us and the hitters.
The P-I put out a PDF file on pitching grips with some illustrations that are pretty helpful. I’d recommend looking it over if you haven’t seen it before.
Dave, did you chart the game?
Gameday data doesn’t seem to support your assertions. While their tracking system was turned off until midway through his second inning, the data indicates Weaver predominantly used his 4 seamer.
Hard stuff: (34 pitches) mean: 89.7 mph; high: 93 mph; low: 86 mph;
Offspeed stuff: (33 pitches) mean: 78.1 mph; high 84 mph; low: 71 mph;
There were approximately 5 pitches that were 83-84 mph that could’ve been a two seamer or a hard slider (lots of movement). There were also another 4 pitches that were between 86-88 that could’ve been twoseamers. At most he threw 10 pitches that might have been two seamers so it looks like the vast majority of his fastballs were of the fourseam variety last night. Of the pitches where data was reported, Weaver hit at least 90 mph twenty times with several more pitches at 89 mph.
what am I missing?
“I’m uncomfortable hitting against him,†said Hunter, who said he had no idea of his stats against Weaver. “I got lucky.â€
“I’m uncomfortable hitting against him,†said Hunter, who said he had no idea of his stats against Weaver. “I got lucky.â€
Let me get out my secret decoder ring……
OK…….”Please do not remove him from the rotation,” said Hunter “We play the Mariners again and I want 2 more extra base hits and 3 RBIs, I am gonna be a free agent again someday.”
Gameday data doesn’t seem to support your assertions. While their tracking system was turned off until midway through his second inning, the data indicates Weaver predominantly used his 4 seamer.
While I love the idea of the technology gameday is using, I don’t totally trust it just yet. I didn’t chart the game, but I was watching to see if I could pick up on something, and while I know the Fox gun isn’t the pinnacle of reliability (its usually 1-2 MPH too fast), there’s no way I missed 20+ pitches of 90 MPH or greater.
Since we don’t have a ton of gameday data, we’re not exactly sure what they’re tracking just yet. When I watch the game and think I see a lot of two-seam fastballs, Weaver posts the 5th highest GB total of his career, and then repeatedly says after the game that he was using his sinker to setup his slider, I think we can safely assume that he really was throwing a two-seam fastball, and that the Gameday data isn’t totally reliable quite yet.
Perhaps that’s part of his problem? Using 5 different arm slots is 5 times the amount of ways to mess your pitching mechanics, it would seem. Wouldn’t he conceivably have days where he’s pitching well at arm slot X, but is all over the place with arm slot Y?
Perhaps that’s part of his problem? Using 5 different arm slots is 5 times the amount of ways to mess your pitching mechanics, it would seem. Wouldn’t he conceivably have days where he’s pitching well at arm slot X, but is all over the place with arm slot Y?
Command has more to do with release point than arm slot, but yes, having multiple arm slots makes it harder for your muscle memory to develop a consistent release point, and theoretically, it should hurt his command to some degree. More than that, however, I’m not a fan of the multiple arm slots because it allows hitters to pick up on pitches easier. If he’s set on going to the Jeff Nelson slider, where he throws his body towards third base, it won’t take long for hitters to see the change in delivery and say “hey, its a slider, I think I won’t swing.”
Of course, the counter to that is that the hitter doesn’t get as many chances to line up the ball coming out of the same spot in the pitcher’s hand, and the varying deliveries give them more to think about. Orlando Hernandez has been using this kind of multi-delivery method for years, with pretty good results.
I wouldn’t recommend it to a young pitcher, but at this point in his career, it’s not something worth changing, either.
Don’t forget the data source for speed readings: is Gameday using the stadium gun for its readings? Ditto FOX? Two guns, one measuring ball speed at the release point (maximum acceleration) is going to be a lot different than a gun measuring ball speed 30 feet from the plate.
For my kids, due to the low equipment cost, I measure ball speed at the catcher’s glove and extrapolate the maximum ball speed to pad the kids’ egos. However, ball speed at the glove is the most reliable indicator of pitch effectiveness.
Fox has their own gun at each park – they’re not using the stadium gun.
Gameday isn’t using a radar gun at all – they’re using high speed cameras to track the motion of the ball, and mathmatic algorithms to calculate velocity based on distance and time. The gameday way is probably more accurate, but since we don’t have a lot of data to compare it to, and we don’t know where the cameras are aimed, we’re best off being careful with their results right now.
Sounds like your typical apples to oranges comparison too.
If the Gameday data is more accurate, but you’ve been using the less accurate data for years now, you’ll probably want to continue to use the same data source for comparison purposes.
Gameday isn’t using a radar gun at all – they’re using high speed cameras to track the motion of the ball, and mathmatic algorithms to calculate velocity based on distance and time.
I don’t know how well that works, but it sure sounds impressive.
First inning, me to my dad in our seats in section 121: “Hmm, Weaver hasn’t even hit 90 on the gun yet, that’s probably a bad sign”.
Next pitch: 90 MPH fastball, result is a double in the RF gap.
My dad: “Guess he heard you.”
It was a loooong few innings last night.
Dave, in the topic intro: “To read the postgame comments of the Mariners after another miserable outing from Jeff Weaver last night, the guy is the second coming of Derek Lowe.”
and reading (with some amusement :)) Mariner Fan in CO Exile’s comment, “…I wouldn’t mind playing poker with the way [Weaver] reacts to events, though.”
Actually, Derek Lowe ain’t all that bad nowadays, Dave…but when he WAS going bad in the years he pitched for the Red Sox, I remember Red Sox fans used to joke about seeing “the Derek Lowe Face”, a kinda squinched up expression that said to everyone in the ballpark that he wasn’t a happy camper.
I saw that bite-into-a-sour-lemon expression on Weaver’s face the whole time he was out there on the mound last night.
The Phillies are moving Brett Myers to the pen to make room for John Lieber in the rotation…Why not buy low on Myers if the Phillies would be willing to trade him?
To replace Weaver. On-topic…
For the record, Weaver has always identified himself as a two-seamer/sinker pitcher. The quote in his entry for The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (I don’t have it in front of me), is a quote from a NYT article right after he gave up a HR in the 2003 WS. To paraphase: “You have to throw your best pitch in a tough situation. My best pitch is my sinker. He just hit it out of the park.”
The Phillies are moving Brett Myers to the pen to make room for John Lieber in the rotation…Why not buy low on Myers if the Phillies would be willing to trade him?
Seriously? Wow. I’d rather have Myers in the rotation than Lieber.
And, yes, I’d rather have Myers than 4/5ths of the M’s rotation, too. Even if he is a ‘jerk’…
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. It’s over on Rotoworld.com which tends to be a fairly good source of information. Not 100%, but up there.
That’s on par with the Snelling trade in terms of stupidity. Lieber is better than Eaton. Eaton should go to the pen. A rotation of Hamels, Myers, Garcia, Moyer and Lieber would’ve been pretty sweet.