The Great Tillman Debate

[Sports Guy]

Not what I'm talking about at all.

You listed 3 scenarios, one of which is that PitchFX is "very flawed". I'm arguing that PitchFX definitively is not "very flawed". He may be misinterpreting what it means, but the raw data is not very flawed, and it does show accurately how much Tillman's pitches moved.

I said it is ONE OF THOSE THINGS...and listed that one as one of the possibilities..if that's not one of the possibilities, then 1 of the other 2 are.

[Tony-OH]

There was no doubt Hernandez had the better spring. I am glad I will get to see DH pitch in the bigs.

How many starts will DT give Guts to right the ship? More or less than 10 starts?

I sure don't hope the O's decide to trade Tillman if we don't have a pitcher deserving demotion from the starting role.

So is your argument that the Orioles should get rid of Guthrie for Tillman this year? So the Orioles should get rid of a guy who even in his poor year last year pitched 200 innings? The Orioles should just eat the millions they owe him in order to give a young pitcher with command issues starts in the major leagues. Really? That's your position?

I have no idea how long the lease will be on Guthrie, but I'm pretty certain if Tillman is pitching well in AAA and Guthrie is stinking up the join by the beginning of May, I could see the move made to replace Guthrie with Tillman.

[JTrea81]

Can we get a list of guys who have?

He also didn't prove he wasn't ready, DH just showed that he may be more ready. He's just shy of 22, plenty of reason for patience.

And basically all teams that develop top pitching prospects hang onto some that don't live up to the hype. That's just the nature of the game. The key is to have enough guys that you can afford to miss on some and to be good at identifying who will and won't pan out. The latter is easier said than done, and forgive me, but I don't have more confidence in your ability to that than I do in AM and the rest of the O's staff.

Jimmy Haynes, Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, Matt Riley, Sidney Ponson etc...

[mweb]

Tillman's swinging strike percentage without contact last year was 12%. The MLB average was 15%. His contact% was 83% while the league average was 80%. Both stats are good indicators of one's "stuff."

Pitch F/X is very helpful in that we can use the information to help isolate why batters got their bats on the ball well despite good movement and velocity (I haven't looked into this just taking TyCobb's word). We can look at other factors like how well is he hiding the ball, is he throwing strikes but not locating the strikes well, is his pitch selection predictable?

I agree. That has to be at least a good counter-balance to the Pitch FX which I do feel is a great tool and not very flawed. The way it's used by some may be very flawed though.

[Babypowder]

If Tillman was allowed to just go down to AAA and throw high fastballs and breaking balls in the dirt while having success then I would agree with you. But the fact is the Orioles have a very good pitching coach in Mike Griffin who had Tillman in Bowie and Norfolk, so I doubt they will just let him dominate AAA hitters with stuff that will not work in the big leagues.

They will work on very specific things and if Tillman starts to show his command has improved, I'm sure you will see him back in the big league soon enough.

This same organization apparently thought whatever he was doing to dominate AAA last year was going to work in the majors. If they thought he was ready to pitch in the big leagues last year then a half season of growing pains and a handful of spring outings shouldn't change their minds IMO.

[TyCobb]

I would disagree with you. Guys who can't throw strikes or command their pitches around the zone will not dominate AAA either. If Tillman start to "embarrass" hitters, that would probably mean his command has improved and he's ready to come back up. The Orioles did not see that this spring nor did they see that in most of his start last year in the big leagues.

Perhaps we should all be happy that we don't have to keep young guys with poor command because we have enough depth to allow them to continue to develop.

So Tillman went from great command before his call up to poor command after his call up last year? Almost instantly?

I doubt there are many AAA hitters that handle Tillman FA/CH combo in the minors. From the lack of reports of Tillman's CH in the minors last year I doubt he even threw it much last year at AAA.

I am happy for DH. Very happy. After looking back it may be the best thing for the O's because Tillman definitely was going to be giving the time to develop as a SP. I don't trust DT as an evaluator of talent so DH may have been force to switch into a BP arm. I think that would have been a foolish thing to do so quickly. DH would have been just as bad as a RP if his SL was as poor as it was last year.

Side note: For you Tony or David's father. Does DH actually throw a CU or is that just what his good SL looks like? PITCHf/x claims he has a CU and SL which he threw each equally. This has been bugging me for a while now.

[mweb]

Jimmy Haynes, Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, Matt Riley, Sidney Ponson etc...

Riley is the only guy there that was viewed as highly as Tillman.

[Sports Guy]

Matusz has great stuff IMO...but I guess people can define that differently.

[TGO]

Jimmy Haynes, Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, Matt Riley, Sidney Ponson etc...

Loewen and Riley were the only guys in the BA top 25 like Tillman, and they failed in large part because their arms almost fell off.

The other guys were never, ever, ever in the same league talent-wise as Tillman. Haynes was the closest and he topped out in the high-30s.

[Sports Guy]

Riley is the only guy there that was viewed as highly as Tillman.

Loewen was way up there as well...But of course, both Riley and Loewen had injury issues that held them back.

[tvz1997]

Loewen and Riley were the only guys in the BA top 25 like Tillman, and they failed in large part because their arms almost fell off.

The other guys were never, ever, ever in the same league talent-wise as Tillman. Haynes was the closest and he topped out in the high-30s.

Yeah, but were they also excluded from Orioles promotional materials?

[TyCobb]

This is where you are wrong. Major hitters say his stuff is not. PitchFX is a tool, not the end all be all when discussing the quality of stuff.

A pitch can have a lot of break (curveball), but if hitters pick it up early and can lay off it, it's not a good pitch. A pitch is only good when it's getting batters out.

Having great stuff and being successful are two different things.

I agree with your second part.

Tillmans FA/CH is so good that I rank his CH ahead of his CU. A hitter isn't going to be able to tell those two pitches apart. I wish brooksbaseball still had those specific charts up. It would be much easy to show you exactly why I believe Tillman's CH is so good. That FA/CH is the reason why I would take Tillman over Matusz.

Tillman does have a nasty drop on his CU. He also couldn't locate it for his life in the majors. I believe Tillman needed to get use to the MLB baseball. I think that change had a lot to do with CT and DH throwing their breaking balls last year. I doubt CT/DH would get those SO numbers in the minors without the ability to hit zones with there breaking balls.

I don't think it has been noted but PITCHF/x will not tell you how well a ball is hiding from the batter. That is very important and one major advantage why Lincecum fastball is better than Tillman.

[TGO]

Ty's last post made me ponder this: is there anything preventing the O's from giving Norfolk a whole bunch of ML baseballs to use during side sessions instead of the minor league ones? Do they do this already?

[TyCobb]

I love Pitch f/x but the graphs you posted are meaningless without comparing them to something.

My own take is Tillman has outstanding over-the-top-type stuff, by that I mean he gets huge amounts of vertical movement. He has that big 12-6 curve and a "rising" fastball. But he doesn't get even an average amount of horizontal movement on either pitch. Look at the pitch type averages. He has a good change up by that measure---good movement in both planes and a good amount of velocity separation from the fastball.

I do not think he necessarily has to change anything about his stuff. Moving to a more 3/4 slot might hurt more than help. But he does have to figure out how to harness the stuff he has to a better degree.

The graphs I posted were just to show it isn't hard for Pitchf/ x to tell Tillman's pitches apart.

[Flosman]

No, I just know what i am talking about...you don't.

He doesn't have excellent stuff right now..at least not consistently. I don't think you will find one person who agrees he consistently has excellent stuff.

I am confused, four 24 hours you said that CT going to AA was a"terrible" decision. Then you now argue that his "stuff" needs work. Am I the only one that notices some irony?