Clay Buchholz's First Start: Pitch F/X

by bdalebs on Jul 17, 2009 11:45 PM EDT

Tonight was Clay Buchholz's first start in the MLB since his disgraceful return to the minors last season. In that time, he was expected to mature and learn to use his array of pitches better... Alright, me no good with the word stuffs. TO THE GRAPHS!!!

via www.brooksbaseball.net

Fastball and change-up are on the same plane for the majority of the flight, until the last 15 feet when the change drops by around 8 inches. The slider and the curveball both have a good bump on them. Now, let's see if the horizontal movement was there as well...

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That slider sure does come across the plate a lot, as does the curve. The fastball has some pretty good tailing action, coming back in on right handed hitters by almost a half foot. The change appears to be a straight 12-6, with almost no horizontal movement.

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Time to look at the strike zone to see where he was placing the pitches. First things I noticed:

All the sliders are on the right hand side of the plate (in on lefty batters). Maybe he's not comfortable throwing it in on right handed batters.
That's a lot of fastballs in the middle of the zone.
He was nibbling, as was observed in the GameThread. There were a lot of pitches on the right corner.
He threw a LOT of changeups - 27 of them. There were quite a few that appear to have gotten away from him, too.

But, we can't just look at where the pitches were, we need to know what the batters did with it.

First off - 9 SWING STRIKES. Ho-ly cow. That's pretty damn good, even if he didn't have the strikeouts to show for it. Aside from that, they were getting a lot of contact on pitches in the zone and the umps weren't giving him that much help - one strike that should've been a ball vs. three balls that should've been strikes. He only really had issues with throwing too many balls in the 3rd inning, so we probably shouldn't take his K/BB of 3/3 ratio too seriously.

Just a quick check on release point to make sure he's disguising his pitches well:

Meh. His curveball is a little higher than the rest, but overall he's pretty good.

And, for the last graph, let's check and see if the Chosen One really has those greatly-acclaimed pitches:

That's a lot of movement on the curveball. All of his pitches moved a lot, really.

And now, to wrap it up, some quick shots of data: the average fastball was 94.46 MPH, with the change-up sitting at 81.09 MPH, nearly 13.5 MPH slower - that's pretty damn good. His fastball maxed at 96.2 MPH too.

So, any thoughts? This isn't quite enough to make me a believer in Clay, but he was pretty good. Hope he gets another shot soon, as long as no one gets hurt.

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Comments

Nice work bs. Which mod front paged this for you?

And I hope opponents don’t find this.

"Hating the New York Yankees is as American as apple pie, unwed mothers and cheating on your income tax." -- Mike Royko

by sox-inda-south on Jul 17, 2009 11:51 PM EDT reply actions

IDK.

Really wasn’t expecting it, to tell the truth.

Also, if you think that most clubs aren’t using this kinda data in some form or another, you’re insane.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 12:01 AM EDT up reply actions

I'm guessing Randy since the OTM tweet included more info.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 12:44 AM EDT up reply actions

Not I, for the record.

I don’t think front-paging others is even in the scope of an Author’s abilities to begin with.

by Ben Buchanan on Jul 18, 2009 1:03 AM EDT up reply actions

No, it isn't

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 18, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions

thank you for the analysis quick rollup on the graphs

I noticed he seemed more in control he had his plan and he worked it as compared to last season. I do not think the Sox trade him for Halladay – but, that trade is still tempting. This start should just make him more hungry and focused

"Man that ball got outta here in a hurry, you know anything that travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?" - Crash Davis

by Dave D on Jul 17, 2009 11:57 PM EDT reply actions

Hope it does.

No problem – I’m kinda shocked Brooks had it up already.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 12:02 AM EDT up reply actions

They're up during the game

Pretty much live at Brooks.

MLB Notebook / StatSpeak / Baseball Daily Digest / Inside the Majors

by Zach Sanders on Jul 18, 2009 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions

Really?

Cool, might have to start using that in game.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 3:54 PM EDT up reply actions

The fastballs in the middle seemed to be Clay's approach for the 1st pitch of at bats.

Guys realized this in the 4th and he cut it out after the second double, resorting to a slider on the outside corner.

The nibbling seemed to happen spontaneously, which is odd.

Fair number of swinging strikes in the zone, which is always nice, and probably a symptom/result of the movement on his fastball and changeup.

A remarkably low number of swings on pitches outside the zone. I expect Clay will be best against aggressive teams so long as he avoids that first-pitch fastball problem.

He gave up hits when he should’ve. Middle-high or middle-middle.

The changeup and curveball, if utilized right, will give people fits.

by Ben Buchanan on Jul 18, 2009 12:00 AM EDT reply actions

Agreed with all of it.

The fastball did seem to be his first pitch a lot:

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 12:04 AM EDT up reply actions

Nice work.

I couldn’t watch tonight, so I’m definitely happy with the results. more than 100 pitches in less than 6 innings isn’t great and I wish he could have struck a few more guys out, but we can’t be too picky. The Sox have to get this guy in the rotation on a consistent basis.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Jul 18, 2009 1:18 AM EDT reply actions

Thanks for pre-emptively stealing my idea for my next post on Drivline

Jerk. Seriously though, good job. When did Brooks add flightpaths?

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 18, 2009 1:56 AM EDT reply actions

since ever

it is in the pitch type categories,

BB get better with an approach chart and letzner line

Unusual changeup fading the opposite way than a regular one. Does Buchholz throw some sort of change/split grip?

The Rays Party

by therayspartyleader on Jul 18, 2009 10:06 AM EDT up reply actions

I noticed that too

I have never seen a change-up behave like that before. Maybe he throws more of a running fastball and a straight changeup? Could that explain it?

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by Zach Sanders on Jul 18, 2009 11:36 AM EDT up reply actions

That's what I thought it was.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 3:56 PM EDT up reply actions

I was going to do this for BDD too

Oh well, still might

MLB Notebook / StatSpeak / Baseball Daily Digest / Inside the Majors

by Zach Sanders on Jul 18, 2009 11:39 AM EDT up reply actions

You have too many blogs :)

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 18, 2009 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

You could do it much better, I’m sure. Mine was pretty much crap compared to most breakdowns I’ve seen.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 3:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Sliders are almost always thrown away to righties, no?

And not thrown much against lefties? Can you split the pitches by handedness of batter?

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 18, 2009 10:01 AM EDT reply actions

Tell that to Daniel Bard

He was OK throwing the slider in on lefties.

by Ben Buchanan on Jul 18, 2009 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions

He doesn't count towards pitching generalizations.

He’s not human.

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 3:57 PM EDT up reply actions

Could make sense.

Hopefully he can throw either pitch to either hand though.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Jul 18, 2009 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, here:

Lefty:

Righty:

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Smoltz to the pen?

Not an original thought in anyway, but with this strong outing don’t you think that Clay should be given a few more starts.

Smoltz at this point has shown what he’s got and he has not even faced a real strong offensive club yet (Nats, Os, As, and KC). I think it would be beneficial to see if Smoltz has a bit more magic coming out of the pen in pressure situations.

The Sox still have the time and pitchers to figure out what their best rotation/bullpen combination is going into the fall.

by upCHUCK on Jul 18, 2009 1:02 PM EDT reply actions

Give Smoltz a few more starts...

Around the deadline we should see what the Sox plan on doing.

@bs_uf15bosox9be:OverTheMonster-ALLERGEN WARNING:May contain PB.

by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Via Harry Pavlidis:

Average movement:

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by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 4:34 PM EDT reply actions

by bdalebs on Jul 18, 2009 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions

3rd Inning

I feel like if you took out his third inning pitches, the ball-strike ratio would be greatly increased, making those charts look like he wasn’t dancing around as much either.

by Justin_Bobo on Jul 19, 2009 11:43 AM EDT reply actions