Twins Video
So, it might make a little sense to study Ervin Santana, especially given that he should be returning to the Twins spring training rotation soon, if not today. The problem with that is that I’m no expert when it comes to pitching. I get all mixed up about which way a 2-seam fastball moves versus a 4-seam fastball, or a slider versus a sinker versus a cutter.
So I’m going to rely heavily on FanGraphs to provide some basic data and be transparent about what I know and don’t know. Maybe you, dear reader, can fill in the blanks in the section below. I’m not ashamed to groupthink this stuff. Indeed, that’s the point of the site.
Per Fan Graph’s high level Pitch F/X data on Santana, he relies a great deal on two pitches with a third thrown in occasionally. Last year, he threw:
- His fastball 53% of the time, which is a little less than he has in his career (56%).
- His slider 39% of the time, which is a little more than he has in his career (36%).
- His changeup 8% of the time, which is about what he’s done in his career, but a little less than the last two years.
So over 90% of the time he’s relying on his fastball and his slider and only rarely going to his changeup. I found that interesting, because many starting pitchers are criticized for being “only two-pitch pitchers.” For instance, that’s the narrative on Tyler Duffey, who relies on a fastball (53% in 2016), a curveball (39%) and worked to mix in a changeup (7%). Those ratios, including the changeup, nearly match Santana’s.
So let’s see what those pitches do. From FanGraph’s excellent Pitch F/X Game Charts view, here is the movement.
Blue = Fastball
Orange also = fastball (officially a 2-seam vs a 4-seam)
Green = Changeup
Black = Slider
The 0,0 mark is where the ball would end up if it was thrown without any spin. So the fastball (blue/orange) drifts a little left and stays a little higher (because it has some upspin) than it would than if it had no spin at all. The changeup does the same thing, which is handy when it looks like a fastball, but again, Santana doesn’t throw it very often.
The slider moves to the right, maybe up a little, but not nearly as much as the fastball. You can see why it would be a pretty good complementary pitch to the fastball.
Let’s go back to the fastball and changeup, which end up with about the same movement. Here is another chart from that FanGraph’s page that shows the movement horizontally, but the velocity is on the vertical axis.
Yup, the changeup ends up in about the same movement, but seven miles per hour slower. Incidentally, the slider has about the same velocity, but moves the other direction from it.
I can’t find any breakdown of when Santana likes to throw these pitches. I’d be particularly interested to see how often he throws each against left-handed hitters versus right-handed hitters. Just from the data, I suspect the changeup is used a lot more versus left-handed hitters, who had a slightly lower OPS against the right-handed Santana last year than right-handed hitters.
Is any of this what makes Santana successful? My best guess is he just has a pretty good fastball and two pitches that vary enough to give hitters that split second of hesitation. But it’ll be more fun to watch his next outing and see if I can see what he’s trying to do.
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