2014 Chicago Cubs: Let's Go 2015 Cubs!

[CBStew]

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.

I think that the title of that graph is fascinating.  "Fastball Aging Curve".  There is a message lurking there, trying to get out.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Christian Villanueva has been sent to AA.

[PenFoe]

Christian Villanueva has been sent to AA.

MODS!!

[Shooter]

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.

I didn't think Peterson was saying that the cutter caused fastball velocity to drop. I took him to mean that velocity declines over time for every pitcher, and if you've used the cutter as a "crutch" prior to that, you haven't developed a changeup or breaking ball.

[InternetApex]

Yes, that and the way it's thrown - with your hand on the side of the ball - decreases the velocity of the pitch. And the habit of throwing like that could lead to throwing the fastball the same way, which would make sense if the goal was to make all the pitches look the same coming out of the hand. That should be the goal anyway.

In that way, over time, as the fastball and cut fastball become increasingly similar in delivery, velocity could drop. You know, like, in golf if you learn a half-ass way to hit out of the sand, that works and you no longer blade the shit out of it or bury it into the side of the trap, even though it isn't the way to get the best result, you may keep doing it because... well, you don't know any better. Hitting that way might also work out of the rough. So bam. Now you're getting lower scores but aren't any good at golf. Before you know it you're 50 and don't have any retirement savings and your wife is fucking a hot black guy.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Yes, that and the way it's thrown - with your hand on the side of the ball - decreases the velocity of the pitch. And the habit of throwing like that could lead to throwing the fastball the same way, which would make sense if the goal was to make all the pitches look the same coming out of the hand. That should be the goal anyway.

In that way, over time, as the fastball and cut fastball become increasingly similar in delivery, velocity could drop. You know, like, in golf if you learn a half-ass way to hit out of the sand, that works and you no longer blade the shit out of it or bury it into the side of the trap, even though it isn't the way to get the best result, you may keep doing it because... well, you don't know any better. Hitting that way might also work out of the rough. So bam. Now you're getting lower scores but aren't any good at golf. Before you know it you're 50 and don't have any retirement savings and your wife is fucking a hot black guy.

Bravo.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Yes, that and the way it's thrown - with your hand on the side of the ball - decreases the velocity of the pitch. And the habit of throwing like that could lead to throwing the fastball the same way, which would make sense if the goal was to make all the pitches look the same coming out of the hand. That should be the goal anyway.

In that way, over time, as the fastball and cut fastball become increasingly similar in delivery, velocity could drop. You know, like, in golf if you learn a half-ass way to hit out of the sand, that works and you no longer blade the shit out of it or bury it into the side of the trap, even though it isn't the way to get the best result, you may keep doing it because... well, you don't know any better. Hitting that way might also work out of the rough. So bam. Now you're getting lower scores but aren't any good at golf. Before you know it you're 50 and don't have any retirement savings and your wife is fucking a hot black guy.

On the topic of velocity... Another season, another pitching guru poised to revolutionize the position if the stuffy old-timers in baseball would just let him. With cameos from Tom House (of course) and ChuckD's employer.

And then this:

He has a proponent in Derek Johnson, who as a collegiate coach at Vanderbilt utilized EV tenets to tutor pitchers who have gone on to big league success, including David Price and Mike Minor. Last season Johnson himself moved to the major leagues, becoming the minor league pitching coordinator for the Chicago Cubs.

[Powdered Toast Man]

From Bleacher Nation:

Travis Wood, who does not pitch this series, but could pinch-hit, has accumulated 0.7 WAR this year. On offense. That makes him the Cubs’ fifth most valuable hitter, despite having 36 – 36! – plate appearances.

I heart Travis Wood? Or do I hate the Cubs offense?

[InternetApex]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

[InternetApex]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

Are you serious? He dove and got a glove on it.

[Bort]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

Are you serious? He dove and got a glove on it.

HIS UNIFORM WAS NOT DIRTY ENOUGH

[SKO]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

Are you serious? He dove and got a glove on it.

HIS UNIFORM WAS NOT DIRTY ENOUGH

Not a meatball

[ChuckD]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

Are you serious? He dove and got a glove on it.

Yeah, I don't get this. Not much more he could have done there.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2014_06_23_cinmlb_chnmlb_1&mode=video&content_id=33982483&tcid=vpp_copy_33982483

[InternetApex]

I actually got mad watching the ninth inning last night. I know it didn't matter and I know that Rondon was a victim of some crappy luck (three weakly hit singles) but the wild pitch and the uncontested steal really pissed me off. It's been literally years since I felt like that during a Cubs game. I found it interesting to know that I still give a shit sometimes.

I was annoyed Castro didn't sell out to at least knock the ball down, keep it in the infield, and keep the winning run from scoring with 2 outs in the 8th inning....which is really the 1 time you pretty much gotta do whatever you need to do to get in front of that ball.  Disappointing.

Are you serious? He dove and got a glove on it.

Yeah, I don't get this. Not much more he could have done there.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2014_06_23_cinmlb_chnmlb_1&mode=video&content_id=33982483&tcid=vpp_copy_33982483

I thought it looked like he was even a little bit shaken up afterward. Might have landed on his belt or something or lost his wind or something.

Now you guys have yet another idea what it was like to play softball with Huard.