Saturday Pitch f/x
We'll focus on Mr. Kawakami and show what Mr. Moylan looks like when he's back in form.
Here's the horizontal and vertical break for Kawakami's pitches:
And here's a table via Brooks Baseball
| Pitch Type | Average Speed | Max Speed | Average H-Break | Average V-Break | Number Thrown |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 89.91 | 91.7 | -6.77 | 10.33 | 41 |
| CH (Changeup) | 83.91 | 84.9 | -7.1 | 5.2 | 8 |
| SL (Slider) | 83.51 | 84.8 | 2.2 | 5.14 | 13 |
| CU (Curveball) | 68.46 | 70.5 | 8.35 | -5.81 | 14 |
| FC (Cutter) | 85.55 | 86.5 | -0.39 | 7.85 | 6 |
| FT (TwoSeam Fastball) | 89.43 | 90.8 | -8.19 | 7.86 | 7 |
His movement is as good as advertised. Every pitch has above average break on it and he throws a variety of pitches. I am pretty sure what's classified as a changeup is actually a shuuto. It's what some people call a "reverse slider," but it's faster than a slider. It's basically what would be in between a 2 seam fastball and reverse slider. Oh, and some of the sliders/cutters are mixed together, but you can see the general difference.
His curveball has that massive, massive break, but I'm not a fan of it. Offspeed pitches need to be disguised and every time he threw that curveball, everyone knew it was coming. It just doesn't seem like it'll fool the better big league hitters.
I think the two things that will allow Kawakami to be a good big league pitcher is his command and variety of pitches. His walk rate has been bad in the majors so far, but I hope he'll settle down eventually. Once he gets that down, he'll be very effective because he'll be able to throw 5 pitches ranging from 84 MPH to 90 MPH with different movement. If he throws a pitch down and away to a righty, is it going to tail back into the strike zone like his 4 seamer or 2 seamer might? Or will it tail back in, but fall back out of the strike zone like the shuuto? Will it move half a foot off the plate and dive into the dirt like the slider? Even if the batter is waiting for a fastball instead of a slider or curveball, he'll still have trouble because that fastball can break 3 or 4 different directions depending on which one is thrown. There's a lot Kawakami can do and a veteran pitcher with great control and a ton of options can be very effective. We'll just have to hope the control comes around eventually.
Here's the pitch results for Kawakami:
via img23.imageshack.us
Some nice looking swinging strikeouts. That home run pitch is about as far down the plate as a pitch can be. Wow. Lucky that other flyout/lineout/popout next to the home run didn't do any damage.
And here's Peter Moylan looking sharp:
His fastball/sinker (whatever the heck you want to call it) velocity isn't quite back yet. It's 2 MPH or so down from 2007, but his location was real sharp on Saturday. Kept the ball down and away on this lefties and got two swinging strikeouts from it. The called strikeout was against a righty and he placed it right at the knees for that called K.
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8 comments
Comments
Nice.
Moylan’s chart is unbelievable.
I’m interested to know what makes KK’s curveball so different from other 12-6 curveballs in the majors that won’t make it a successful big league pitch.
You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
by Smoltz's Beard on Apr 13, 2009 11:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I wasn’t paying much attention, but maybe he was tipping it in some way
SWAGGA LIKE...whoever the fuck is not walking people
President, CEO, and chairman of the Brandon Jones fan club
by bigjoe on Apr 14, 2009 8:44 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Oh man I had a reply typed out and accidentally closed my tab.
Check out this Beyond the Boxscore article on Hanson and Kawakami’s pitches and this Hardball Times article, On Curveballs. Basically the hump on Kawakami’s curve is really noticeable. It basically “jumps” above his other pitches right away whereas Hanson’s curveball doesn’t have the same jump. Rather, Hanson’s curve just looks like it’s falling at a slower rate than the other pitches. That combined with Kakakami’s massive speed difference makes it easy to pick up right away. I’m a little disappointed in Hanson’s curveball now that I see it. It’s a good pitch, but I keep hearing it’s a plus, plus curveball so I’m thinking one of those Burnett, Beckett, or Ben Sheets 80 MPH+ hammer curveballs. Heck, even a Brett Myers curveball.
Anyway, I’m not a fan of Kawakami’s curve because I don’t think it has the proper deception, but I’m sure he’s smart enough to figure out how to use it effectively. Here’s his curveball results from Saturday:

by VictorW on Apr 14, 2009 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I swear
This is just the coolest stuff ever. As long as you’ve got the time to do this, keep doing it. I’ll appreciate it.
I would have loved to see a Maddux shutout on one of these things.
by Weldon on Apr 14, 2009 12:20 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
they have em u just got to follow VictorW’s links…u cant find this F/X data all over the interweb…but it is really cool
Heyward,Hanson,and Shaffer r ready now!! Why do you think they havent signed the "right handed bat"?
by fatazfoot on Jan 7, 2009 8:59 PM EST
by Swo12bv on Apr 14, 2009 7:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
how does his 4 seamer have more vertical break than his other pitches or am i reading that wrong?
by yondaime4 on Apr 15, 2009 1:12 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
oh I guess it is saying ‘upward’ and not down like I was assuming
by yondaime4 on Apr 15, 2009 1:13 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs


























