Felix Bautista 2022

[Just Regular]

He wasn't as good tonight, but his debut was filthy enough to get the Statcast guys writing about him as a top opening weekend thing.   Link at bottom has some videos of the 1-2 sequence to get Wander Franco.

It’s true that he touched 99 mph, blowing the ball past Franco. But 99 isn’t that hard to find these days. What’s far more interesting is the obscene amount of rise he got on it, which is to say that his fastball dropped only 6.6 inches on the way to the plate, and while some of that is about velo -- gravity requires time, does it not? -- it’s still an absurd number given that last year, no fastballs dropped less than 10 inches.

https://www.mlb.com/news/2022--mlb-season-first-weekend-facts

 

[emmett16]

That change up is unhittable. 

[Just Regular]

Unfortunately Adames' double that became the game-winning run was on his Slider.   Is a 3rd pitch really necessary?

Velocity-wise tonight, Hader in the 9th couldn't unseat him for the game's fastest pitches.

Top Pitch Velocity			MPH
		Felix Bautista	98.6
		Felix Bautista	98.1
		Josh Hader	98.0
		Felix Bautista	97.8
		Felix Bautista	97.7

[Just Regular]

BP had an article on him this morning.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/73914/bullpen-session-king-of-fastball-rise/

The bit most informational to me was about the "contortion" to attain the release point where 1230 vertical attack spin comes easy/natural.    Not because it was new that striving for the high attack angle is good, but more because isn't this basically the same thing Kyle Bradish is known for?   

Later in the story there was a chart of the early MLB leaders in Most Rise (aka Least Vertical Drop) showing Tyler Wells and Hunter Harvey also in the Top 10.    Fingers crossed next week we get fresh Bradish Statcast metrics here.

As you can see, the two pitches are similar in many ways, and that has a lot to do with their eerily similar release points, as well as how the pitchers contort their bodies to get to said release points.

Bautista pulls away from Evans, however, in two major ways. The first is velocity, as Evans’ fastball is of the low-90s variety, and the second is by how many inches it drops on its way to the plate—an astonishing 7.0 inches on average. With that context, we can now see how Bautista’s fastball is different from Evans’.

Pitcher	Velocity	Vertical Drop	MLB Rank
Evans (2021)	91	9.86	13
Bautista (2022)	97.5	7	1

[Just Regular]

Brown on the broadcast shared Bautista gave him 6-8, 270 current measurables, then noted B-Ref still has 6-5, 190, which he says was correct when he signed with the Marlins.

[PHRESH]

5 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Brown on the broadcast shared Bautista gave him 6-8, 270 current measurables, then noted B-Ref still has 6-5, 190, which he says was correct when he signed with the Marlins.

That's a big dude 

[vab]

This guy has closer stuff. I don't know about the consistency or the mentality but the stuff is there. 

[PHRESH]

Always happy to see the Mountain enter the game with a lead in the 9th.

[orioles119]

The first few pitches I saw were suspect.  But he got it back together to get the outs.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

 

[Moose Milligan]

IMO, he’s effectively wild. I don’t think he’s gonna walk a lot of guys but at times he doesn’t make finding the zone look easy. There’s a lot to like and I’m happy we have him but there’s something I don’t fully trust yet. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Filth Flarn Filth

 

[sportsfan8703]

Big time save. I wonder if he’s out for tomorrow now?  Khreibel has been struggling and it’s affected our pen. We really need Hall to put things together. 

[survivedc]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:03 AM, Moose Milligan said:

IMO, he’s effectively wild. I don’t think he’s gonna walk a lot of guys but at times he doesn’t make finding the zone look easy. There’s a lot to like and I’m happy we have him but there’s something I don’t fully trust yet. 

It’s what made Rivera so incredible. Seems like most other relievers can only be dominant for a couple years. I’d take 2 more like this year from Bautista.

[CharmCityHokie]

20 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Big time save. I wonder if he’s out for tomorrow now?  Khreibel has been struggling and it’s affected our pen. We really need Hall to put things together. 

I know he's still a couple weeks away still, but I wonder if Tyler Wells goes back to the pen for the rest of the season as well. That could certainly help if he can get back into the routine of it.