Welcome to the 2009 season!

This is technically the first opening day for brooksbaseball.net. I hope you have fun accessing all the PitchFX data for the 09 season.

If you notice a bug, or have a request for some new feature, don't hesitate to send me an email: dan (at) brooksbaseball dot net.

If you happened to catch the USA/Venezuela game last night, you were treated to some great play-by-play by one of our Sox radio broadcasters (Dave O'Brien) and some of the worst color commentary ever recorded by Rick Sutcliffe.

But, in a stunning, shining moment of clarity, both Dave and Rick managed to have 5 minutes of un-forced conversation that approached the issue of King Felix Hernandez, who pitched admirably and effectively against the Italian team, coming out of the pen. The point of all of this talk was simply "why?". Why was King Felix, who you'd figure to be one of the real weapons on the Venezuelan squad, coming out of the pen to pitch against Italy?

And, fair enough, good question. Felix pitched 4 innings of 1-hit ball, posting 4Ks. Why waste this kind of pitching on an undermanned Italian squad when you know you've got to face the US if you win? Why burn King Felix if you don't need to?

Well, I'm not sure. But here are two possibilities. The first is that, actually, at the time the Venezuelans brought him into the game, the score was tied, 0-0, on account of Mark DiFelice and his 10,000 cutters (A thought: Does Mark DiFelice extend this strategy into other games as well, throwing only "Scissors" in Rock/Paper/Scissors?). The second is that Felix's effectiveness really masked the fact he isn't really up to MLB speed quite yet.

If you don't know anything about him, let me briefly describe Felix Hernandez. He throws hard. Very hard. A lot hard. When he can locate and he isn't acting like the Mariner version of Julian Tavarez, he has disturbingly good stuff. For example, in a lame attempt to correct for park effects (who knows yet if the cameras are similar this year, we'll just have to guess at it), here's a Felix start from last year at Toronto, on June 11th:



Yeah, that's right. 97.4mph max on that fastball. He can bring the heat, and sustain the heat, the entire game.

Here's the same kind of plot for his four innings in the WBC:



Maybe I'm just reading too much into things, but that certainly looks different. In this one, he's all amped up for the first inning, hitting almost 96, and then he hits a wall. A big wall. Next inning he's down around 94. Then he's down around 93. And by the time the fourth inning rolls around, he's hovering at 92.

This isn't to say anything bad about Felix - he's in a version of extended spring training just like everyone else is, and he isn't tuned up yet. I don't think this is characteristic of the Felix Hernandez we're going to see in the MLB. But I think it certainly might account for why Venezuela wasn't saving him up for the US team, which is laden with bona fide major league sluggers. Felix might just not be ready for that kind of intense competition yet, at least not at the level that Dave and Rick were expecting.

So, the Italian team had a relatively unknown pitcher, Mark DiFelice, start their WBC Game. He pitched four innings, didn't give up a run, and generally did a good job. So why a blog post about him?

Well, Mark DiFelice managed to go 4 innings, throw 45 pitches, and throw only 4 fastballs and 2 curveballs. It wouldn't be so odd if I told you that the 39 other pitches were something like knuckleballs - maybe he's just the Italian Tim Wakefield. Or, maybe the 39 other pitches were a heavy sinker, which a sinkerballer could conceivably throw that often in a short start.

No, Mark DiFelice, starting pitcher for Italy, managed to throw 45 pitches, 4 fastballs, 2 curveballs, and 39 cutters/sliders. 39 Cutters!



The graph above shows all of Mark's pitches, with the horizontal movement of the pitch due to the spin of the ball on the X (horizontal) axis, and the speed of the pitch on the Y (vertical) axis.

Despite the fact that Mark apparently throws at three decidedly non-fast speeds ("slow", "pretty slow", and "very slow"), the "Green" is clearly his "fastball". It's faster than the rest, and it moves like a fastball from a RHP would move. The "Blue" is clearly his curveball. It moves like an RHP's curveball and is thrown decidedly slower than the rest.

And then... Purple. An entire mess of one pitch: the cutter. Never mind the fact that a lot of these cutters don't really even move that much, he continued to throw them. A lot. Ignore the few mislabeled pitches on the next plot (Gameday algorithm continues to frustrate...), but look, in the fourth inning, Mark DiFelice manages to throw ALL cutters. Not a single other pitch.



Impressive.

And, just in case you were wondering: "didn't team Venezeula figure this out?" The answer, almost certainly, is yes. Despite throwing 4IP of 0ER ball, he gave up two hits and a few very loud outs (including a sensational diving play and a runner gunned down trying to take second).

How can we tell Venezuela was looking cutter? Well, only one non-cutter pitch was even swung at all game, and every at-bat ended on a cutter:

I shot off a quick email to the man in charge at MLB Stats, Cory Schwartz, and got the word that MLB will be tracking the WBC with PitchFX!

So, I have added a new tool at the right that is specific for the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Only games in MLB Venues will be tracked by the system (because that's where they've got the cameras installed), but this should give us all the first look (and most detailed picture) of some of the hottest international pitching prospects and stars. It will also effectively give us spring training data on a number of MLB pitchers that are taking part in the Classic.

I will be closely monitoring this new page/system for possible bugs. If you notice one, please contact me immediately.

The PitchFX Data for the Rays/Phillies Endless Game 5 is still posted under 10/27/08.

The strikezone maps include all of the calls from Monday.

Just a heads up for anyone planning on using any of it.