A Look at Jeff Samardzija

[Outshined_One]

This is one of my new favorite blogs.

 

Link

 

As you can see Samardzija has thrown three pitches in the big leagues, a sinker, splitter, and slider. His sinker is kind of an oddity in the world of sinkers with nearly ten inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of vertical rise. That just barely can be called a sinker at all. The other unusual thing about his sinker is he throws it over 95 MPH on average. That is huge speed for a two seamer with the league average around 90 MPH. You would expect that he wouldn't get a lot of groundballs with a sinker like his and that is generally what he has shown in the minors.

 

Samardzija's off speed pitches are not quite as dominate as his sinker. Samardzija's slider has barely any movement at all (-1 inch horizontally, slightly away from a right handed batter, and 1.7 inches vertically). While this does generate a large horizontal difference from his fastball because the pitch barely moves at all Samardzia can't start the slider on the outside corner and have it move away like you see many other pitchers do with their sliders. Samardzija must throw this pitch for a strike and the best time to do that is early in the count. It appears he has figured that out throwing ten of his eleven sliders tracked by PITCHf/x on 0-0 or 0-1 and all but two of them to right handed batters.

 

Samardzija's strikeout pitch is his splitter which he throws around 86 MPH generating nearly nine MPH differential from his sinker. His split has only slightly less horizontal and vertical movement so the speed differential really is the key here. Samardzija is throwing his split almost exclusively when the count gets to two strikes and the majority of his strikeouts have come with that pitch.

[Jehrico]

This is one of my new favorite blogs.

 

Link

 

As you can see Samardzija has thrown three pitches in the big leagues, a sinker, splitter, and slider. His sinker is kind of an oddity in the world of sinkers with nearly ten inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of vertical rise. That just barely can be called a sinker at all. The other unusual thing about his sinker is he throws it over 95 MPH on average. That is huge speed for a two seamer with the league average around 90 MPH. You would expect that he wouldn't get a lot of groundballs with a sinker like his and that is generally what he has shown in the minors.

 

Samardzija's off speed pitches are not quite as dominate as his sinker. Samardzija's slider has barely any movement at all (-1 inch horizontally, slightly away from a right handed batter, and 1.7 inches vertically). While this does generate a large horizontal difference from his fastball because the pitch barely moves at all Samardzia can't start the slider on the outside corner and have it move away like you see many other pitchers do with their sliders. Samardzija must throw this pitch for a strike and the best time to do that is early in the count. It appears he has figured that out throwing ten of his eleven sliders tracked by PITCHf/x on 0-0 or 0-1 and all but two of them to right handed batters.

 

Samardzija's strikeout pitch is his splitter which he throws around 86 MPH generating nearly nine MPH differential from his sinker. His split has only slightly less horizontal and vertical movement so the speed differential really is the key here. Samardzija is throwing his split almost exclusively when the count gets to two strikes and the majority of his strikeouts have come with that pitch.

Maybe he should talk to Z. When Z would get excited, he would overthrow and get hit hard when he was younger (still does it sometimes, though not as much). Z can dial his sinker up into the mid to high 90s if he wants to, but it straightens out. He really started dominating with it when he realized he needed to keep it around 90-92 to get the best effect from it. I wonder if the same lesson would apply to Samardzija... :-k

[Cynosure]

Samardzija 1.06 17 2

[CubbieBum]

I don't care what he throws as long as he continues to get the outs.

[CubinNY]

His 2-seamer was sick today.

[Outshined_One]

His 2-seamer was sick today.

 

He had it up to 98 on the gun!

[Jon]

His 2-seamer was sick today.

 

He had it up to 98 on the gun!

The pitchf/x system had it at 98.5. It didn't have quite as much movement as most of his others, but it was still over 9".

[Tracer Bullet]

This is one of my new favorite blogs.

 

Link

 

As you can see Samardzija has thrown three pitches in the big leagues, a sinker, splitter, and slider. His sinker is kind of an oddity in the world of sinkers with nearly ten inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of vertical rise. That just barely can be called a sinker at all. The other unusual thing about his sinker is he throws it over 95 MPH on average. That is huge speed for a two seamer with the league average around 90 MPH. You would expect that he wouldn't get a lot of groundballs with a sinker like his and that is generally what he has shown in the minors.

 

Samardzija's off speed pitches are not quite as dominate as his sinker. Samardzija's slider has barely any movement at all (-1 inch horizontally, slightly away from a right handed batter, and 1.7 inches vertically). While this does generate a large horizontal difference from his fastball because the pitch barely moves at all Samardzia can't start the slider on the outside corner and have it move away like you see many other pitchers do with their sliders. Samardzija must throw this pitch for a strike and the best time to do that is early in the count. It appears he has figured that out throwing ten of his eleven sliders tracked by PITCHf/x on 0-0 or 0-1 and all but two of them to right handed batters.

 

Samardzija's strikeout pitch is his splitter which he throws around 86 MPH generating nearly nine MPH differential from his sinker. His split has only slightly less horizontal and vertical movement so the speed differential really is the key here. Samardzija is throwing his split almost exclusively when the count gets to two strikes and the majority of his strikeouts have come with that pitch.

Maybe he should talk to Z. When Z would get excited, he would overthrow and get hit hard when he was younger (still does it sometimes, though not as much). Z can dial his sinker up into the mid to high 90s if he wants to, but it straightens out. He really started dominating with it when he realized he needed to keep it around 90-92 to get the best effect from it. I wonder if the same lesson would apply to Samardzija... :-k

 

Maybe as a starter to preserve strength. But as a reliever, he regularly gets a lot of movement on that 95 mph sinker. Not sure why you'd want to slow it down.

[MPrior]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

[bukie]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

 

He's been working on a splitter since the Cubs drafted him as a strikeout pitch. Since he's gotten the hang of it, he's been really good. Remember, Samardzija's only been a full-time pitcher for about 2 years.

[biittner77]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

 

I think the most plasusible explanation for his poor K numbers until recently is that when he signed he was given strict instructions to work on his secondary pitches. This with the understanding that he would move up the ladder faster once he showed progress with his breaking stuff. Apparently he did just that and the organization liked what they saw enough to give him a chance.

 

Whether he can sustain the success- who knows. Someone on XM (Sickels?) compared him to Farnsworth but I think that's a little unfair.

[GoCubsGo1679625768]

He's a good 'ole Notre Dame boy, his success should be no suprise. GO IRISH!

[Guest]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

 

He's been working on a splitter since the Cubs drafted him as a strikeout pitch. Since he's gotten the hang of it, he's been really good. Remember, Samardzija's only been a full-time pitcher for about 2 years.

 

Actually, he started working on the splitter this year. The slider started after he was drafted. He threw a curve at Notre Dame that was scrapped.

[CubsWin]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

 

He's been working on a splitter since the Cubs drafted him as a strikeout pitch. Since he's gotten the hang of it, he's been really good. Remember, Samardzija's only been a full-time pitcher for about 2 years.

 

Actually, he started working on the splitter this year. The slider started after he was drafted. He threw a curve at Notre Dame that was scrapped.

When it comes to following our minor leaguers, I'm a big stat guy because, unless we can get our hands on a scouting report, that's all we have to go on, but the Shark is the perfect example of how stats don't tell the whole story.

 

There were rumors that he was not throwing his best pitches and working on stuff and it made sense when you tried to true up his performance and what Cubs management and certain scouts were saying about him. But the front office could always just be covering their butts or talking up a guy to inflate his trade value. And scouts are often wrong. In this case, however, Wilken and company have been proven right...

[Jehrico]

This is one of my new favorite blogs.

 

Link

 

As you can see Samardzija has thrown three pitches in the big leagues, a sinker, splitter, and slider. His sinker is kind of an oddity in the world of sinkers with nearly ten inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of vertical rise. That just barely can be called a sinker at all. The other unusual thing about his sinker is he throws it over 95 MPH on average. That is huge speed for a two seamer with the league average around 90 MPH. You would expect that he wouldn't get a lot of groundballs with a sinker like his and that is generally what he has shown in the minors.

 

Samardzija's off speed pitches are not quite as dominate as his sinker. Samardzija's slider has barely any movement at all (-1 inch horizontally, slightly away from a right handed batter, and 1.7 inches vertically). While this does generate a large horizontal difference from his fastball because the pitch barely moves at all Samardzia can't start the slider on the outside corner and have it move away like you see many other pitchers do with their sliders. Samardzija must throw this pitch for a strike and the best time to do that is early in the count. It appears he has figured that out throwing ten of his eleven sliders tracked by PITCHf/x on 0-0 or 0-1 and all but two of them to right handed batters.

 

Samardzija's strikeout pitch is his splitter which he throws around 86 MPH generating nearly nine MPH differential from his sinker. His split has only slightly less horizontal and vertical movement so the speed differential really is the key here. Samardzija is throwing his split almost exclusively when the count gets to two strikes and the majority of his strikeouts have come with that pitch.

Maybe he should talk to Z. When Z would get excited, he would overthrow and get hit hard when he was younger (still does it sometimes, though not as much). Z can dial his sinker up into the mid to high 90s if he wants to, but it straightens out. He really started dominating with it when he realized he needed to keep it around 90-92 to get the best effect from it. I wonder if the same lesson would apply to Samardzija... :-k

 

Maybe as a starter to preserve strength. But as a reliever, he regularly gets a lot of movement on that 95 mph sinker. Not sure why you'd want to slow it down.

Right now, I wouldn't mess with it (i.e. don't fix it if it ain't broke). But the article suggests his sinker doesn't sink that much, and as Z has proven, a slightly faster, straighter sinker is easier to hit than a slightly slower one with alot more drop. If he slows down, then maybe this is something worth looking at (possibly in next ST).

[javy knows my name]

what does the author mean by "vertical rise?"

[Soul]

I asked this in another thread, but I think I wound up killing the thread instead. Is Samardzija for real? I mean, he seemed to go from awful to dominant in a heartbeat. He couldn't strike out anybody for a long time in the minors, and all of a sudden he became a strikeout machine. That kind of change to me seems to be too drastic to be random fluctuation - so something must have happened. The question, I guess, is do you think the change is permanent or not and why?

 

He's been working on a splitter since the Cubs drafted him as a strikeout pitch. Since he's gotten the hang of it, he's been really good. Remember, Samardzija's only been a full-time pitcher for about 2 years.

 

Actually, he started working on the splitter this year. The slider started after he was drafted. He threw a curve at Notre Dame that was scrapped.

Cool.

 

2 things stick out for me with Jeff: much better control than @ AA, and much better use of off speed stuff.

 

He's been a work in progress, so it doesn't surprise me to see sudden jumps in performance as he ramps up.

[Jon]

what does the author mean by "vertical rise?"

I believe it's measured as the difference between how much the ball falls vs. what the pitch would do with no spin due to gravity. The backspin on the fastball causes it to fall less rapidly than one with no backspin.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

He's a good 'ole Notre Dame boy, his success should be no suprise. GO IRISH!

 

The fact that he's from ND and makes his success all the more surprising....