2014 Chicago Cubs: Let's Go 2015 Cubs!

[Powdered Toast Man]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

[Slaky]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

And his .321 BABIP doesn't seem unsustainably low, either. In fact, it seems a little high.

[Eli]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

[PenFoe]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

And his .321 BABIP doesn't seem unsustainably low, either. In fact, it seems a little high.

What stat represents how badly he's blocking Chris Rusin?

[Tony]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

Uh... why?

[Eli]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

Uh... why?

Dan Duquette thinks they're ineffective and cause arm injuries.

[Powdered Toast Man]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

And his .321 BABIP doesn't seem unsustainably low, either. In fact, it seems a little high.

I swaw that metric too, but I didn't quite know how to interpret it.

[InternetApex]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

Uh... why?

http://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2012/08/more-talk-about-the-pitch-the-orioles-dont-want-their-young-hurlers-to-throw.html

EDIT: The link above is to an interview with Orioles director of pitching development Rick Peterson. Some fascinating stuff in there about why they don't allow their pitchers to throw cutters. He also offers this:

So this is less about any injury factor?
"Correct. This is much more performance related. In developing young starting pitchers, you want to, No. 1, develop a sound delivery that you can repeat consistently to execute quality pitches; No. 2, fastball location preferably at the bottom of the strike zone where the batting averages are at the .220 and below range; No. 3, to develop a quality changeup to control the head of the bat; lastly, to develop a breaking ball that has depth, either a curve or slider.
"Those are your primary foundation building blocks to build quality pitching throughout your organization. After you build that pitcher and he develops into a sound major league pitcher, the additon of a cutter can happen at some point. But it has to be monitored."

So Arietta's golden. Trade Snork for a bunch of their post-hype turds and let's go chammenship.

[InternetApex]

This just in: Jake Arrieta's cutter will drink the blood of Dan Duquette and Rick Peterson.

[ChuckD]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

That's not entirely accurate. Duquette said that they don't teach the pitch -- not that it's forbidden from being thrown. In terms of CT/AllPitches, they've been 23rd in MLB since the comment was made.

[Eli]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

That's not entirely accurate. Duquette said that they don't teach the pitch -- not that it's forbidden from being thrown. In terms of CT/AllPitches, they've been 23rd in MLB since the comment was made.

SHUT UP CULLEN

[Tony]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

I was wondering the other day if he's been using his cutter after leaving the Orioles (they don't let pitchers throw them) and right on cue, Fangraphs addresses the topic.

Maybe the new marketing inefficiency is finding guys from the Orioles and just letting them throw cutters.

Uh... why?

http://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2012/08/more-talk-about-the-pitch-the-orioles-dont-want-their-young-hurlers-to-throw.html

EDIT: The link above is to an interview with Orioles director of pitching development Rick Peterson. Some fascinating stuff in there about why they don't allow their pitchers to throw cutters. He also offers this:

So this is less about any injury factor?
"Correct. This is much more performance related. In developing young starting pitchers, you want to, No. 1, develop a sound delivery that you can repeat consistently to execute quality pitches; No. 2, fastball location preferably at the bottom of the strike zone where the batting averages are at the .220 and below range; No. 3, to develop a quality changeup to control the head of the bat; lastly, to develop a breaking ball that has depth, either a curve or slider.
"Those are your primary foundation building blocks to build quality pitching throughout your organization. After you build that pitcher and he develops into a sound major league pitcher, the additon of a cutter can happen at some point. But it has to be monitored."

So Arietta's golden. Trade Snork for a bunch of their post-hype turds and let's go chammenship.

I'm not saying the cutter is not a good pitch, don't misunderstand me. A cutter used effectively is a nice addition to your arsenal. But a cutter thrown 40 percent of the time for a young power pitcher can become a crutch, then your velocity drops and you fail to develop your changeup and a breaking ball that has depth to it.

Well that all seems reasonable. I was all excited about laughing at the crazy Orioles and their wacky pitching theories. Damn.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

A little love for Jake Arrieta this season? Just a lil 1.98 ERA (2.31 FIP), 55/15 K/BB (!!!), 1.200 WHIP. Getting teh ground balls and not walking people.

I'm sure there are new statfaggy stats for some other stuff he's doing well that I don't fully understand.

Yeah his FIP is also incredible. He's been ridiculously good.

And his .321 BABIP doesn't seem unsustainably low, either. In fact, it seems a little high.

I swaw that metric too, but I didn't quite know how to interpret it.

It's generally expected that a pitcher's BABIP will sit around the league average or, for pitchers with longer track records, the pitcher's career average.

The league average usually is generally around .300 (.298 so far in 2014) and Arrieta has a career BABIP of .291 in 459.2 MLB innings.

If his 2014 BABIP were considerably lower than these, we should be concerned that his low ERA and WHIP might be unsustainable. Instead, his BABIP is a bit higher than average (Fangraphs says .321, Baseball Reference says .328—not sure why the discrepancy), meaning that, if anything, we should expect him to to benefit from more outs on balls put in play than he has thus far.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

I'm not saying the cutter is not a good pitch, don't misunderstand me. A cutter used effectively is a nice addition to your arsenal. But a cutter thrown 40 percent of the time for a young power pitcher can become a crutch, then your velocity drops and you fail to develop your changeup and a breaking ball that has depth to it.

Well that all seems reasonable. I was all excited about laughing at the crazy Orioles and their wacky pitching theories. Damn.

Linked from the Fangraphs post Eli linked...

But hidden within what Duquette said, and what Rick Peterson said afterwards, is an idea that should be testable. Both Duquette and Peterson made reference to the fact that young pitchers that use the cutter too often adversely effect their fastball velocity.

Peterson was actually very upfront about the relationship he sees between young cutter usage and velocity drops: "a cutter thrown 40 percent of the time for a young power pitcher can become a crutch, then your velocity drops," he said in his followup to Duquette's on-field talk with Steve Melewski.

Let's see what we can find. Using the filters on our leaderboards, I put together a list of qualified starters that used the cutter more than 20% of the time in any given season since 2002. There are precious few veterans that throw the pitch 40% of the time, and it seems folly to make any assumptions based solely on Andy Sonnanstine, Dan Haren, Roy Halladay, Miguel Batista and Jesse Litsch. Since we have two classification methods on our site, I repeated the filter with the 20% cutter threshold for both BIS and PITCHf/x classifications.

The result was a list of 40 pitchers that became our sample. Pitchers that appeared on the list multiple times included Andy Pettitte, Chad Billingsley, Dan Haren, Doug Davis, John Danks, Jon Lester, Mark Buehrle, Mike Leake and Roy Halladay among others. Jeff Zimmerman was so kind as to run an aging curve on the sample:



Well, it certainly doesn't look like cutters, as a monolithic group, lead to fastball velocity drop. But there are a few caveats buried beneath what look like damning results.

Not one of these pitchers threw in their age 21 season. And if you scan the names above, you'll see some late-bloomers on the list. There might be something to the fact, as Peterson says, that "the cutter is a pitch that typically is thrown later on in your career, often after you've been in the big leagues several years." Unfortunately, this isn't something that's easily test-able. Our big league stats on this go back to 2002, and minor league PITCHf/x stats are not readily available. It passes the sniff test, but then again, it still doesn't explain why these pitchers didn't see the velocity loss Peterson predicts.

...

There's little evidence of accelerated velocity loss among the veterans that use either form of the cutter. There is still a chance that the pitch isn't good for the development of a young pitcher — certainly the Orioles are not alone in that opinion — and that the veterans that have turned to the pitch are better prepared, and therefore avoid velocity loss.

But then the question becomes when a prospect is ready for the pitch. The Royals ban it before Double-A. The Orioles seem to want to avoid the pitch until the major leagues. Other teams have similar philosophies. Maybe there's an age at which a pitcher can turn to the pitch without consequence as a fully-formed adult. Maybe we haven't seen the pitchers that turned to the cutter too young because they lost too much velocity and never made it to the big leagues.

Or maybe the pitch doesn't actually lead to velocity loss.