Breaking down Homer Bailey part 1
I want to look at Homer Bailey over his final 3 starts when he came back from the disabled list with a healthy groin. I am going to look at his starts in 3 parts. Today I am going to look at Homer Bailey and what he did when he threw his curveball.
Over the three starts, Bailey threw 63 curveballs in the three games. The curveball was thrown 24% of the time he threw a pitch. Below is a chart breaking down all 63 pitches and the swinging results of the pitch.
As you can see by looking at the chart, Bailey only threw 20 curveballs for balls (32%) while the rest were labeled as differing types of strikes. If Bailey can continue to control his curveball at a rate like this, or even somewhat similar I would look for him to have a lot of success going forward to next season. Tomorrow I will be looking at Homer Bailey and breaking down what he did with his fastball.
Big thanks go out to Josh Kalk for helping me get the information so I could break it down and make the chart. You can check out his blog http://www.baseball.bornbybits.com/blog/blog.html for some really great stuff using the MLB Enhanced Gameday Pitch f/x information.
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7 Responses to “Breaking down Homer Bailey part 1”
October 13th, 2007 at 3:02 am
typo - I think you meant to say “only threw 20 curveballs for balls (32%) while the rest…”
Nice breakdown. I didn’t see the game on the last day of the season, but Bailey’s second-to-last start was really a pleasure to watch - the curve that night was just unbelievably good.
October 13th, 2007 at 9:14 am
I did…. I will go fix that. Thanks for catching it.
But yeah, his curveball was completely different when he came back. It was consistant, didn’t hang it and was in control.
October 13th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Great to see a Reds blogger getting in on the pitchf/x game! Now if only they could get this system installed in our minor league stadiums…
Seems to me that there might be a slight trend (emphasis on slight) for Bailey’s curve to be thrown for strikes more often when it breaks less. Of course, some of those balls might have been intentional–a sharp breaking curve in the dirt can be a great out pitch.
-j
October 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I agree J.
Over at Redszone last year, I made a post about how a similar system should be in place in all of our minor league stadiums to use for scouting and coaching purposes. Can you imagine what you could do with that in a minor league place. You can see through the system when a pitcher is throwing his best curveball or his best fastballs, then go back and look at the video’s, find the mechanics and see if something is differing between that one and some of his lesser breaking pitches, or slower fastballs and make adjustments.
I think that it would be a great tool to take full advantage of. I mean really, drop a million bucks and have this system implemented in all 5 stadiums you play in and see what you can do.
As for Bailey’s curve tendencies for strikes/break….
He threw 13 with more than 14 inches of break and only 2 were balls (85% strikes)
Of the 29 he threw with a 13-14 inch break, there were 13 balls (56% strikes).
Of the 21 remaining that broke less than 13 inches, there were 5 balls (76% strikes)
Could just be a sample size issue too though.
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