Fangraphs: An attempt to Quantify Pitcher Deception

[weams]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-attempt-to-quantify-pitcher-deception/

A confession first. I was thinking about Mychal Givens before I went to bed, and the fact that his minor league pitching coach called him a unicorn. So when I graphed height-adjusted release point against horizontal movement, I was gratified to see Givens as a big ole red outlier.

Here is that graph, with Givens above the line. What you're looking at is height-adjusted release point (release point minus height, so Chad Bradford is the mostest negative) against horizontal movement on the fastball. Generally, the lower your arm slot, the more horizontal movement you have. The color describes the swinging strike rate on the pitch, with red being above average. The size of the bubble is the ground ball rate, with bigger meaning more ground balls. Givens gets whiffs and has less horizontal movement than you would expect, given his release point.

[weams]

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'></script><div class='tableauPlaceholder' style='width: 604px; height: 690px;'><noscript><a href='http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-attempt-to-quantify-pitcher-deception/'><img alt='Dashboard 3 ' src='http://public.tableau.com/static/images/Tr/TrueReleasePointvsHorizontalMove/Dashboard3/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a></noscript><object class='tableauViz' width='604' height='690' style='display:none;'><param name='host_url' value='http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableau.com%2F' /> <param name='site_root' value='' /><param name='name' value='TrueReleasePointvsHorizontalMove/Dashboard3' /><param name='tabs' value='no' /><param name='toolbar' value='yes' /><param name='static_image' value='http://public.tableau.com/static/images/Tr/TrueReleasePointvsHorizontalMove/Dashboard3/1.png' /> <param name='animate_transition' value='yes' /><param name='display_static_image' value='yes' /><param name='display_spinner' value='yes' /><param name='display_overlay' value='yes' /><param name='display_count' value='yes' /><param name='showVizHome' value='no' /><param name='showVizHome' value='no' /><param name='showTabs' value='y' /></object></div>

Some names!

[BohKnowsBmore]

What about quantifying "craftiness?" Would be interested to see the disparity between lefties/righties.

[Camden_yardbird]

Clearly something the Orioles have been targeting either on purpose due to similar analysis or just from the types of players they target. Names mentioned in the article include: Givens, O'Day, Preston Gullimet, Chris Waters, and a few more.

[Frobby]

There's a little too much going on in that chart. I get a headache trying to follow it.

[weams]

There's a little too much going on in that chart. I get a headache trying to follow it.

Charts always do that to me.