Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A look at Jon Niese
Jon Niese-What have we learned in 2 starts.
Okay, I've been bad....school, work, applications for law school make it hard to do recaps. Those who may have followed this site (1 or 2 of you? Probably just Jules) have noticed the focus on Fmart, well he may have been passed by Wilmer Flores according to Jim Callis (Those curious may note that the Josh (NC) who asked the question of Callis originally is indeed me :-P) Needless to say we'll focus on wilmer flores in the future.
To learn a bit about Jon Niese in his two starts, i've been following the pitchfx analyses of his two starts, and have actually taken the raw data myself and did the graphs myself (I may add a few of these later, but I want to see a third start first).
You can find pitchfx data on Niese's two starts at the following links:
Niese v Milwaukee 9/2, in Milwaukee
Niese v Atlanta: 9/13 at Shea
So what do we learn from these starts and the data.
First: Niese appears to have 3 pitches:
He has a Fastball, that averages around 88-89 MPH* (More on this later) and topped out at 92.9, a changeup that clocks in at around 81 MPH, and a curveball that clocks in at 73.5 MPH.
It doesn't take much analysis to know that Niese's curveball is his best pitch. This is a 12-6 (referring to the hands on a clock) curveball, most famously thrown by the rich dude in SF who likes guitars (err Barry Zito). As the name implies, this type of pitch has little if any horizontal movement, and instead has greater vertical drop.
How effective has Niese's curveball been? Lets look at the #s:
Total Number of Curveballs Thrown: 49
Balls: 13 (2 in the Dirt)
Called Strikes: 9
Swinging Strikes: 6
Foul Balls: 10
Balls Put in Play: 11
Of these 11, 2 fell in for Hits, while 9 were recorded as outs.
As you could guess, the fact that only 13 of 49 were taken for balls is a great sign for Niese, it implies that Niese has good control of this essential pitch and that he is also fooling batters with it (of those swinging strikes, 4 of them missed the strike zone). This percentage might go up a little bit as teams get a scouting report on niese, but that shouldn't affect things too much.
The Balls put in play is especially interesting, On curveballs put in play, hitters have a .182 Batting average. Is this sustainable? Hard to say, but it's a great sign for a pitcher who may not be the biggest strike out pitcher.
(One final note: Niese actually has a slightly different release for his curve ball than his fastball, in that he releases earlier in the wind up, from a higher arm angle. I doubt this is obviously noticable to hitters considering the speed of the wind up as it's obvious enough on tape you'd figure that the pitching coaches in the minors would've helped correct this release point difference. So, despite my previous comments in the met chatroom, i don't think he's significantly tipping his pitches)
How about his fastball?
Well in his two starts, Niese has thrown 124 Fastballs. The breakdown is as follows:
54 Balls, 28 Called Strikes, 3 Swinging Strikes, 18 Foul Balls.
21 Balls Put in Play, 8 of which for hits.
Clearly these stats are not as pretty as the curveball. Over 2 out of every 5 fastballs misses the strike zone and is called a ball. Meanwhile, while Niese has thrown 124 Fastballs, yet only 3 resulted in the good old fashioned Swing and Miss.
The reason for this is that Niese's fastball is simply just not that deceptive. The pitch is very inconsitant in its movement, but it has very little movement on average, moving 3.4 inches in on lefties, which makes it very close to what people improperly label as "the straight fastball". Put simply, when the hitters see the fastball, they are getting good reads on where that pitch is going, and are not missing when they swing.
Niese's success vs atlanta was due to him being able to spot that fastball consistantly on the Outside corner, which resulted in a large amount of called strikes. While this isn't necessarily bad, it relies a lot on an ump giving Niese the outside corner, as well as players not getting lucky and reaching out for that pitch and putting it in play. Remember tommy glavine? The wrong ump could screw Glavine, ,even if he was spot on. And even when he was on, a good team could knock Glavine around if they got lucky at reaching for those outside corner pitches.
Two more comments on the Fastball:
First, 8 of the 21 fastballs put in play resulted in hits, which means when opponents put the fastball in play, they're batting 381! So clearly, Niese should not go fastball happy in a game, even if he is having problems with his curveball. Also because of this, Niese throws the curveball on 3-1 and 3-2 counts, which are typically fastball counts. This is huge, because throwing this fastball in those counts, when hitters are sitting on dead red.
Second, as the game goes on, Niese's fastball's speed drops significantly. The fastball already isn't overpowering anyone, and this just makes it worse.
Then there's the changeup. I won't spend much time on the changeup here, but I will show you the compiliation:
16 Curveballs thrown: 8 for Balls, 1 called strike, 1 swinging strike, 2 foul balls, and 4 balls put in play, 3 of which were hits.
His changeup is obviously his worse pitch as you can see here, and I think Niese knows it...in his second start he threw a ground total of 5 change-ups in 116 pitches.
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So what does all this mean, what should we look for in Mr. Niese? Well, Niese has the opposite problem as Mike Pelfrey right now: Pelf needs to work on an offspeed pitch to accompany his great sinker and 4 seamer, while Niese has a perfect off speed pitch. Niese on the other hand needs to work on his fastball. His curveball is a strong pitch, and he knows it and is not afraid to throw it on 3-1 and 3-2 counts. His fastball on the other hand, is simply mediocre and relies a lot on pinpoint control. For the future, I'd suspect he'll either do some heavy work on reworking that changeup, or ditch the pitch altogether. I think considering how slow his fastball is, Niese would be better off with a slider than a changeup.
For this season, Niese would seem to work really good out of the bullpen, where he could easily survive on 2 pitches. If he starts again, which looks likely, don't expect the same type of response from the last game. He's probably equivalent to at most a 5 starter right now...it's just simply impossible to get by on just a curve ball when teams facing him will know how his fastball looks. (Of course, if he faces the Nationals or another bad team, this point is moot, but you get the idea). Just don't overhype the kid, he's still very raw, and in an ideal situation, would have a full year in AAA next year before being called up for good.
Okay, I've been bad....school, work, applications for law school make it hard to do recaps. Those who may have followed this site (1 or 2 of you? Probably just Jules) have noticed the focus on Fmart, well he may have been passed by Wilmer Flores according to Jim Callis (Those curious may note that the Josh (NC) who asked the question of Callis originally is indeed me :-P) Needless to say we'll focus on wilmer flores in the future.
To learn a bit about Jon Niese in his two starts, i've been following the pitchfx analyses of his two starts, and have actually taken the raw data myself and did the graphs myself (I may add a few of these later, but I want to see a third start first).
You can find pitchfx data on Niese's two starts at the following links:
Niese v Milwaukee 9/2, in Milwaukee
Niese v Atlanta: 9/13 at Shea
So what do we learn from these starts and the data.
First: Niese appears to have 3 pitches:
He has a Fastball, that averages around 88-89 MPH* (More on this later) and topped out at 92.9, a changeup that clocks in at around 81 MPH, and a curveball that clocks in at 73.5 MPH.
It doesn't take much analysis to know that Niese's curveball is his best pitch. This is a 12-6 (referring to the hands on a clock) curveball, most famously thrown by the rich dude in SF who likes guitars (err Barry Zito). As the name implies, this type of pitch has little if any horizontal movement, and instead has greater vertical drop.
How effective has Niese's curveball been? Lets look at the #s:
Total Number of Curveballs Thrown: 49
Balls: 13 (2 in the Dirt)
Called Strikes: 9
Swinging Strikes: 6
Foul Balls: 10
Balls Put in Play: 11
Of these 11, 2 fell in for Hits, while 9 were recorded as outs.
As you could guess, the fact that only 13 of 49 were taken for balls is a great sign for Niese, it implies that Niese has good control of this essential pitch and that he is also fooling batters with it (of those swinging strikes, 4 of them missed the strike zone). This percentage might go up a little bit as teams get a scouting report on niese, but that shouldn't affect things too much.
The Balls put in play is especially interesting, On curveballs put in play, hitters have a .182 Batting average. Is this sustainable? Hard to say, but it's a great sign for a pitcher who may not be the biggest strike out pitcher.
(One final note: Niese actually has a slightly different release for his curve ball than his fastball, in that he releases earlier in the wind up, from a higher arm angle. I doubt this is obviously noticable to hitters considering the speed of the wind up as it's obvious enough on tape you'd figure that the pitching coaches in the minors would've helped correct this release point difference. So, despite my previous comments in the met chatroom, i don't think he's significantly tipping his pitches)
How about his fastball?
Well in his two starts, Niese has thrown 124 Fastballs. The breakdown is as follows:
54 Balls, 28 Called Strikes, 3 Swinging Strikes, 18 Foul Balls.
21 Balls Put in Play, 8 of which for hits.
Clearly these stats are not as pretty as the curveball. Over 2 out of every 5 fastballs misses the strike zone and is called a ball. Meanwhile, while Niese has thrown 124 Fastballs, yet only 3 resulted in the good old fashioned Swing and Miss.
The reason for this is that Niese's fastball is simply just not that deceptive. The pitch is very inconsitant in its movement, but it has very little movement on average, moving 3.4 inches in on lefties, which makes it very close to what people improperly label as "the straight fastball". Put simply, when the hitters see the fastball, they are getting good reads on where that pitch is going, and are not missing when they swing.
Niese's success vs atlanta was due to him being able to spot that fastball consistantly on the Outside corner, which resulted in a large amount of called strikes. While this isn't necessarily bad, it relies a lot on an ump giving Niese the outside corner, as well as players not getting lucky and reaching out for that pitch and putting it in play. Remember tommy glavine? The wrong ump could screw Glavine, ,even if he was spot on. And even when he was on, a good team could knock Glavine around if they got lucky at reaching for those outside corner pitches.
Two more comments on the Fastball:
First, 8 of the 21 fastballs put in play resulted in hits, which means when opponents put the fastball in play, they're batting 381! So clearly, Niese should not go fastball happy in a game, even if he is having problems with his curveball. Also because of this, Niese throws the curveball on 3-1 and 3-2 counts, which are typically fastball counts. This is huge, because throwing this fastball in those counts, when hitters are sitting on dead red.
Second, as the game goes on, Niese's fastball's speed drops significantly. The fastball already isn't overpowering anyone, and this just makes it worse.
Then there's the changeup. I won't spend much time on the changeup here, but I will show you the compiliation:
16 Curveballs thrown: 8 for Balls, 1 called strike, 1 swinging strike, 2 foul balls, and 4 balls put in play, 3 of which were hits.
His changeup is obviously his worse pitch as you can see here, and I think Niese knows it...in his second start he threw a ground total of 5 change-ups in 116 pitches.
----------------------------------
So what does all this mean, what should we look for in Mr. Niese? Well, Niese has the opposite problem as Mike Pelfrey right now: Pelf needs to work on an offspeed pitch to accompany his great sinker and 4 seamer, while Niese has a perfect off speed pitch. Niese on the other hand needs to work on his fastball. His curveball is a strong pitch, and he knows it and is not afraid to throw it on 3-1 and 3-2 counts. His fastball on the other hand, is simply mediocre and relies a lot on pinpoint control. For the future, I'd suspect he'll either do some heavy work on reworking that changeup, or ditch the pitch altogether. I think considering how slow his fastball is, Niese would be better off with a slider than a changeup.
For this season, Niese would seem to work really good out of the bullpen, where he could easily survive on 2 pitches. If he starts again, which looks likely, don't expect the same type of response from the last game. He's probably equivalent to at most a 5 starter right now...it's just simply impossible to get by on just a curve ball when teams facing him will know how his fastball looks. (Of course, if he faces the Nationals or another bad team, this point is moot, but you get the idea). Just don't overhype the kid, he's still very raw, and in an ideal situation, would have a full year in AAA next year before being called up for good.
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