Parker Hageman

Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm released a new set of data to the public on Tuesday: the Sprint Speed metric. Sprint Speed was introduced in April but was limited, showing the speed of outfielders and defense only at that time. After some modifications and additions, the group has added baserunning and has created a leaderboard for consumption at BaseballSavant.com. As Minnesota Twins fans have seen with their eyes, like when he beats out bunts back to the pitcher, and through various other StatCast metrics like Max Speed, Distance Covered and Viscosity*, Byron Buxton is fast. Thanks to the data captured by MLB, we now know just how fast he is and where he stands among the game’s speediest speedsters.Byron Buxton is the second fastest in baseball. Sorry to disappoint the speed enthusiasts. When it comes to the fastest man in the game, the Reds’ Billy Hamilton has the bragging rights, covering a 30.1 feet per second, while Buxton checks in right behind him at 29.9 feet per second. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is someone Twins fans might recall seeing move at a snail’s pace in a recent series: Albert Pujols. Pujols’ running abilities are obviously hampered by injuries but nevertheless at 23.3 feet per second, he is the slowest man in baseball. In case you wanted to know who the slowest man in a Twins uniform is, that honor is shared by two men: Jason Castro and Kennys Vargas. If you are wondering how the sausage is made, MLB’s Mike Petriello explains how it all works: As we discussed in April, we're measuring speed in terms of "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second window," because feet and seconds make a lot more sense in the context of baseball than miles and hours. While three feet per second may not sound like much, if you were to maintain that speed for four or five seconds, suddenly you're talking 12-15 feet. It can be the difference between being safe or out or not even trying. While Hamilton averages about 30 feet per second, Olympian Usain Bolt, by comparison, has reached up to 37 feet per second in his first 40 meters. The sausage-makers also did you a favor by removing the instances when a runner was jogging to first or pulled up to trot home on an uncontested play. Sprint Speed is only interested in maximum effort plays. Considering that when I first started writing about baseball before the advent of Pitch FX and I had to chart my own swing-and-misses and pitch types during games, this is a substantial innovation. It is novel, to be sure, but I still am left thinking about the applicable use of this specific metric. It will help settle some bar bets and I certainly can see this number splayed on a broadcast after someone like Buxton covers a ton of territory in the outfield or rips a triple, but in terms of the analysis of the game? Part of me just wants StatCast to release a generic baseball skill leaderboard. I want to sort through the rankings of guys’ home-to-first times, catcher’s POP times and a pitcher’s delivery time -- things of that nature so I won’t have to bring a stopwatch to a game (note: I do not bring a stopwatch to a game). MLB probably won’t do this because sites like Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus could use that data to create their own metrics, so we have to be satisfied with the morsels that MLBAM provides us. While this data may be a surface-scratcher, there are some things of interest when you parse the list. Take note of the fastball Minnesota Twins: Eduardo Escobar happens to be the fourth-fastest member of the Twins with an above average speed of 28 feet per second. That would be considered swift. Yet over his seven year career, he is just 8-for-17 in stole base attempts, averaging just five attempts per year. How is it that he is such a bad base-stealer? Are his leads inferior? Does his jumps suck? What is it about Escobar that makes a fleet-footed individual below-average at stealing bases? StatCast’s data leads to more questions which, unfortunately, have to be addressed through more StatCast data that isn’t available. Oh well. At least we now know Byron Buxton is very fast. *Not a real thing but you bought it for a brief second which just goes to show how little you pay attention to StatCast. Click here to view the article

Should have asked him about crashing on the Morneau/Mauer couch in St Paul.

Since I missed this play the first go 'round, I searched it up at Baseball Savant (video). The remark about Castro running over to field it made me think that it was a terrible offline throw. It was actually Sano, who was set up for the relay, who nabbed it, albeit offline as well. (You can see Sano throw his arms up to call for it as Rosario reaches it so that may have influenced Rosario's decision-making.) The baseball play is that the throw should have gone into second to keep the double play in order with just one out. Plain and simple. Or, if Abreu insisted on continuing to second, he would have been toast (but it appears he only went ahead once Rosario committed to throwing to Sano). I will add there is a benefit for the decision-making to throw home in that situation. There run expectancy difference between a runner on 2B with one out and an runner on first with one out is .665 vs .509 (so a reduction of .155 runs to the defense's favor). Meanwhile, had Rosario cut Cabrera down at home, with Abreu on 2B with two outs would have a run expectancy of .319. I'm guessing none of that was going through Rosario's head as he tried to get behind the baseball. With a two-run lead, you have to be positive you can get a throw to nail the runner. Again, I think the throw should have gone into second but there's some logic behind the attempt to throw a runner out at home in that situation.

I don't think this is entirely true. You look at the guys with really good curveballs, they get into two strike counts and toss the hammer all the time. Hitters KNOW that it is coming and are still swinging out of their shoes. Now, you could argue that hitters who know a curveball is coming in hitter's counts or first pitch may be less inclined to chase.

Right. Look no further than Ryan Pressly who has struggled to locate his curveball -- one of the league's highest spin rates -- in the strike zone.

I was referring to his curveball. I should have been more specific.

I was happy to ready tonight that the Twins were using their Trackman radar to capture data on Greene during his bullpen session at Target Field. From Lavelle's recent article: ' Among other things, that should help them establish a pretty good baseline of where his curveball is at. Very refreshing to read that.

No disrespect meant for Gore. I just haven't seen strong ties to him like I had Greene, Wright or McKay.

I think it matters to an organization like the Twins because it could affect his development timeline. Look no further than Kohl Stewart as an example of someone with a plus-fastball and lack of quality secondary pitches. The question for me becomes, OK, where is his breaking stuff at right now. That video was a flash of a good pitch, imo. Is that someone that happens once in a blue moon when he throws it? What are evaluators not liking specifically? As far as innings thrown goes, he likely threw around 80-100 innings in a given calendar year between HS and club baseball. That is comparable to most college starters. All amateur arms need to build in the system.

Actually science has found that throwing a curveball is no more or less harmful than a fastball. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25553209

In both scenarios you are offering up hypotheticals so don't get your point with this comment either.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts... But yes, he was a highly thought of prospect.

For pitchers in the regional, 130 or more is regular. Coaches use caution during the season and then let the leash off for the postseason. I will add, Vanderbilt has developed one of the best pitching programs in college baseball today. I don't necessarily enjoy Kris Benson as a comp either.

If you are following baseball’s upcoming draft, you have undoubtedly heard the name Hunter Greene - the two-way hard-throwing kid from a Los Angeles-area prep school. If you somehow missed it, Sports Illustrated offered a glowing profile of a kid with plus makeup and off the charts attitude. After reading it, you come away certain this is a can’t miss, surefire Hall of Famer. To drive the point home, on the cover the magazine asked “Baseball’s Lebron or the next Babe?” In less than 24 hours we will know which direction Derek Falvey, Thad Levine and company have decided to lead the Minnesota Twins. Will they go with the sky-high ceiling of prep school graduate Hunter Greene or target a “safer” college pitcher like Kyle Wright or Brendan McKay, two arms that are further along the development timeline, or, hell, even a position player like Royce Lewis or Pavin Smith? If you are basing your reaction off the SI article, you will be sadly disappointed when and if the Twins decide to go another direction. Here’s one reason why the Twins might be vindicated on the decision to pass on baseball’s Lebron.Believe it or not, there are good reasons for the Twins to pass on Greene (as noted recently by Nick Nelson in his excellent profile). Most seem to be concerned with his injury potential and while that may be one of them, we have to remember that almost all pitchers are a high injury risk to some degree. A study from 2016 that links the usage of fastballs (rather than velocity) may make Greene’s reliance on his fastball a slightly higher risk for Tommy John. One of the more common criticisms levied against Greene is the relatively weak set of secondary offerings to go along with his hundred mile per hour fastball. He throws a curve, slider and changeup but none of them stand out in reports. The Pioneer Press’s Charley Walters echoed this in a recent column saying "despite a fastball that reaches 100 mph, [Greene] has little concept of a breaking ball.” Is that right? Little concept? In his senior season Greene has flashed signs that he has some concept of a breaking ball as you can see on this little ditty below. Of course, that specific pitch may have been a rare one-off, well-executed bender for him. Plus, he is squaring off against high school competition that is doing everything possible to just touch the elite velocity pitch. Anything other than the fastball thrown is likely going to induce a big miss. Nevertheless, If we are to take the consensus at its face, scouting reports have been consistent in that criticism about Greene. In May MLB.com’s Jim Callis said that some scouts have rated his curveball as well-below average. While his secondary offerings may not be in the same universe as, say, Josh Beckett’s or Kerry Wood’s curveball coming out of high school, the point is, that depth, tilt and location is evidence that Greene has *some* concept of a breaking ball and that may be a significant factor in the decision whether or not to draft Hunter Greene number one overall. In terms of the tools Greene possesses as a pitcher, the most touted is his ability to reach triple-digits heat as a 17-year-old. That, in and of itself, is a big reason why he has garnered national attention. If you pop the glove at that type of speed at that age, you will be swarmed by men in bucket hats and polo shirts carrying radar guns all summer long. Having said that, the super hard throwing high school pitcher club is not the exclusive fraternity that it once was. There are 14-year-olds shoving 92 in Alabama (by comparison, Greene was hitting 83 as a freshman in high school). Elite velocity still gets hitters out at a high clip at the major league level but almost all pitchers need a wrinkle to mix in and scouts have felt Greene’s secondary offerings have average potential at best. The curveball has become a weapon du jour of analytics teams. Tom Verducci wrote an article about the revival of the pitch in major league baseball, noting the rise of Houston’s Lance McCullers and his reliance on his unhittable deuce as the reason for his big season. In the profile Verducci remarked that “[o]rganizations have learned that if someone does not show an aptitude to spin a baseball as an amateur, it’s foolish to expect him to acquire the skill.” Houston’s general manager Jeff Ludlow did not disagree. In short, if you don’t already have a snapdragon bender that spins at 2,900-plus rpm by the time you are drafted, chances are it will never come. The ability the spin a ball depends on years of release point feel, it's not like a slider or changeup that pitchers can learn in the ranks. With that in mind, it is somewhat concerning that evaluators lack confidence in Greene’s curveball and this might give an organization pause before pulling the trigger at 1-1. In the draft room, Twins staff must be contemplating this and balancing that with the fact that both Vanderbilt’s Wright and Louisville’s McKay already have curves that have been described as plus pitches. Baseball America said that Wright’s curve has been “showing tight spin and late vertical break early and often...the pitch has plus potential.” MLB.com’s draft profile said that McKay’s was “a consistent plus pitch”. The Twins war room will have to weigh this carefully. There is no doubting his makeup and talent. The real question is, do the Twins have enough confidence in Greene to develop a secondary pitch, anything to take pressure off of throwing his fastball all day long? Click here to view the article

RE: Pressly's "straight fastball". This is a fair point. His four-seam fastball, even as it is reaching 98, is arrow straight. Data backs that claim up. According to Pitch F/X data, Pressly's fastball has one of the lowest deviation from a straight line path in the game. Two pitchers have an even straighter fastball that Pressly (deviates from the straight line path to home less) is Ardolis Chapman and Clayton Kershaw. To me, the straight fastball in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem until hitters can sit on it. This is why I believe Pressly should be working on switching up his pattern and, like Trevor May said, keep hitters from eliminating other pitches.

I don't think command of the curveball is the reason he doesn't throw it early in the count. Last year Pressly threw his curveball in the zone at a 47% clip. The years before, even higher than that. Nevertheless, even under those circumstances he choose to throw his slider over his curveball early in the count if he was going to throw something other than a fastball. Molitor said in spring training that Pressly likes to throw his slider on the first pitch to first-pitch fastball hitters. This season, with the zone rate on the curveball is way down. Like Molitor said, he may be overthrowing it (hence grounding it) which, in that case, Rochester is a perfect option to refine that. That said, he should also try to unleash it early in the count as well.

Well, you didn't really disagree or you misinterpreted what my opinion was. The summary of my opinion in the post above -- based on data -- is that Ryan Pressly should throw his curveball, his best pitch more. That's it. Anything you are interpreting beyond that -- such as his role -- is not a part of this analysis. You are certainly welcomed to disagree with that conclusion but, based on your post, you seem to be agreeing with the fact that his fastball gets obliterated.

Thanks for the comment!

There's no question that Pressly's curveball has not been thrown in the zone as much as he did last year. In fact, he has thrown a lot more non-competitive (over 18 inches away from the center of the zone) than last season. So it is not surprising to see that opponents have been laying off. Still, when hitters have swung, they have missed at nearly a 75% clip, highest of his career. I don't blame the catcher for the pitch selection. Ultimately, it is up to the pitcher. Front office members, coaches and catchers can do all they can to recommend throwing what pitches and when but if the pitcher does not feel comfortable throwing the pitch, he is not going to throw it. I sincerely hope the message from the staff to Pressly was for him to throw his curveball a ton in Rochester. Get a feel for throwing it for a strike as well as in early counts.

On Wednesday afternoon, following yet another bullpen meltdown, the Twins announced the decision to option Ryan Pressly to Rochester. They made other moves too -- including designating for assignment lefty Jason Wheeler -- but Pressly’s demotion hurts. The right-hander had allowed 19 runs in 18 innings of work, owning a swollen 9.50 ERA. Both his walk rate and his home run allowed rate ballooned alongside the ERA. While he was far from the only contributor to the relief corp’s recent collapse, Pressly could no longer be trusted to handle the assignments. The thing is, on paper, Ryan Pressly has all of the qualities of a quality shutdown reliever, someone Paul Molitor should have no lack of confidence in at the end of a game. For one, Pressly shoves upper 90s heat, a rare commodity from someone in Twins uniform. The list of Minnesota pitchers dating back to 2009 who have reached 99 MPH or higher begins and ends with Juan Morillo and Ryan Pressly. Two, he has a snapdragon curveball that toys with the laws of physics and melts minds. And three, like a Turkish celebrity chef, Pressly will season an at-bat with a harder slider, just to keep a hitter’s head ringing. These are three plus pitches and yet Pressly struggled in 2017 to keep opponents from squaring him up. What went wrong for the 28-year-old and can he rebound?In April, following a bad stretch of appearances, Pressly tried to assess his issues. In his eyes, he was nitpicking, failing to attack the strike zone. His manager believed it was possible he was “overthrowing”. Both may be true but there is another issue at play and that is the notion that Pressly has fallen into a predictability pattern. The right-hander, who has one of the better breaking balls in the game, refuses to turn to it until there are two strikes in the count. This means hitters can eliminate that pitch from his arsenal in certain counts -- specifically early in the count -- and just hunt speed. Download attachment: Ryan Pressly 2017.JPG Download attachment: Ryan Pressly.png Rehabbing pitcher Trevor May talked at length this spring about the need to alter the hitter’s ability to eliminate pitches. May discussed the idea of throwing more of his secondary pitches in counts he did not regularly do so in order to give opponents something to think about. Almost every pitcher falls into patterns, he said, such as leaning on one particular pitch type in certain situations. If, for example, a hitter knows he will not see any offspeed pitches in a 1-1 count, he might swing from the heels at the fastball. “If they can never eliminate them you are going to have a leg up every single time because it is much more luck on their part,” May said. “That’s the goal.” In Pressly’s case, teams have likely circulated scouting reports which inform their hitters to look for a fastball in those counts above because they will rarely see anything else. They can eliminate Pressly’s best pitch, his curveball, right away and one of the reasons why they are having success in those particular counts. There does not seem to be a clear explanation for why Pressly doesn’t mix in his curveball in those counts. When he does decide to throw something other than a fastball early in the count, it is usually his slider/hard cutter. It is possible that Pressly, who has not been consistently throwing his bender in the zone this year, may shy away from using it early in counts because he is afraid of falling behind. The logic could be that curveball drops out of the zone so fast, hitters may refrain from chasing after it and thus put him in another 1-0 hole. Still, if hitters are not expecting a curveball and are actively hunting fastballs, it would stand to reason that they might be fooled by the curve and swing over it or beating it into the ground for an easy out. The fact of the matter is his curveball -- the big, slow, time-and-space altering curveball -- is bar none his best pitch. In his five seasons at the major league level, Pressly’s curveball has had a .183 batting average against. Over the last two years he has maintained a swinging strike rate of over 20 percent. What’s more, as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci pointed out this month, smart teams have learned that one of the quickest avenue to pitching success is by throwing your best pitch most often. Spin is highly influential in the results when it comes to curveballs and Pressly’s uncle charlie rotates at one of the highest rates in all of baseball. At over 2,900 RPM on average, Pressly’s pitch had the 11th highest spin rate according to StatCast data. This number is significant because curveballs with that type of data generate low batting averages (as seen above), low exit velocity (Pressly’s is at a low 83.5 MPH vs 86.3 MPH league average), and high swing-and-miss rate (32% miss rate). With these types of returns, Pressly should be spinning his curveball every chance he gets. As Red Sox manager John Farrell told Verducci, “The data is showing, if the curveball is your best pitch, use it more often.” Pressly is blessed with one of the best pitches in the game and, to his detriment, he has not been using it to its fullest potential. For the sake of the Twins’ bullpen, it is a shame that someone as gifted as Pressly has not be able to elevate to the status of lockdown reliever. Perhaps time in Rochester will help him regain some confidence in the pitch as well as give him an opportunity to break off a few snappers in counts he normally would have avoided. Click here to view the article

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