BP on Harden - Tired vs Hurt

[JGalt73]

Premium content. Here's an excerpt....

 

Let’s look at Rich Harden’s velocity in his first start of the year, when he went a pretty dominant six innings against Milwaukee.

 

AVG Velo: 92.7 MPH

% 89-91: 25%

% 92+: 75%

% less than 91: 14%

% 94 or greater: 32%

 

And now here’s today.

 

AVG Velo: 90.9 MPH

% 89-91: 71%

% 92+: 29%

% less than 91: 42%

% 94 or greater: 2%

 

That’s a pretty stunning difference, and the percentages for the high and low end of things are even more telling then the nearly two mph difference in average velocity.

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So broken, or just tired? I threw this by Will Carroll, who would know better than us, and he thinks it’s just simple fatigue.

[jersey cubs fan]

He's been on a regular rotation so far, and was coming off his highest pitch count. I'd like to see them give him some more 6-7 day rests or skipped starts starting in May. Preventive medicine.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Embarrassing work by BP there.

[Mephistopheles]

He was like this at the tail end of last season and it didn't cause problems.

[17 Seconds]

He was like this at the tail end of last season and it didn't cause problems.

 

Except that he wasn't as good

[nolanwood]

Embarrassing work by BP there.

 

I agree. Harden was coming off an outing where he went deep, and I thought his FB speed in that outing was perfectly acceptable. He dialed it up to 95-96 when he needed to. He is varying the speed of FB by design...

 

Except that he wasn't as good

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7180/splits;_ylt=At1X4QGdnsqX5ez.n.Cx6j2FCLcF?year=2008&type=Pitching

 

?

[17 Seconds]

He was still good because he wasn't giving up hits, but he wasn't as good as he normally is. His BB/K in his last 4 starts was 16/19 (22 IP). Walks were way up and he wasn't striking as many guys out.

[Little Slide Rooter]

How about he had a bad game? Any possibility of that? Could the geniuses at BP take that into consideration?

[TruffleShuffle]

How about he had a bad game? Any possibility of that? Could the geniuses at BP take that into consideration?

 

well his velocity was down and it's rich harden, that's probably why the geniuses asked the question about whether there's a physical issue.

[shnsajax]

How about he had a bad game? Any possibility of that? Could the geniuses at BP take that into consideration?

 

well his velocity was down and it's rich harden, that's probably why the geniuses asked the question about whether there's a physical issue.

 

They have too write about something. Its probably not to hard for them to recycle one of the old Harden articles with a new statistical model.

[Tracer Bullet]

maybe they think some people might be interested and at the same time they didn't expect a bunch of Cubs fans to take offense to the article.

[TruffleShuffle]

maybe they think some people might be interested and at the same time they didn't expect a bunch of Cubs fans to take offense to the article.

 

from now on they should consider LLF's potential reaction to any article before publishing it.

[Warren Brusstar]

Embarrassing work by BP there.

 

Why?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Embarrassing work by BP there.

 

Why?

 

They take his first start and most recent start without any attention to the other two(since it's only two starts it's not like it's a ton of legwork).

 

Harden's repertoire is such that both the data collected and the way they present it is misleading. Harden throws essentially the same pitch at varying speeds. Considering His first start was against the Brewers, a team with several disciplined hitters, it's not surprising for him to throw comparatively more "off speed" stuff against the Marlins, a team whose best hitters are younger and more free swingers. Furthermore, the lumping together of percentages of pitches at a certain velocity, especially bands as tight as a few mph, is misleading. It would not take very many pitches to influence those percentages in a large way, whether they were intentionally thrown with less on them, Milwaukee's Pitch f/x gun is slightly different than Chicago's, or if he were actually hiding an injury. It's a lazily thrown together piece, like someone went looking for data to support a conclusion.

[Soul]

There's never any discussion of why the velocity might be down. It doesn't automatically mean an injury or tiredness. It could just be that the guy is trying to preserve himself.

 

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

[Guest]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

[Soul]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

[jersey cubs fan]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

 

He said the correlation was not 1.0. Just because a guy, or some guys can do it on occasion doesn't mean there isn't a correlation though. By and large, if guys lose velocity, they will lose effectiveness.

[Soul]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

 

He said the correlation was not 1.0. Just because a guy, or some guys can do it on occasion doesn't mean there isn't a correlation though. By and large, if guys lose velocity, they will lose effectiveness.

 

Why can't Harden be one of those guys then? I said it isn't directly proportional, not that there isn't any correlation.

[jersey cubs fan]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

 

He said the correlation was not 1.0. Just because a guy, or some guys can do it on occasion doesn't mean there isn't a correlation though. By and large, if guys lose velocity, they will lose effectiveness.

 

Why can't Harden be one of those guys then? I said it isn't directly proportional, not that there isn't any correlation.

 

I would assume a guy can't until he proves he can. He has looked, to me, far more pedestrian in the games he doesn't have the velocity though. Obviously it plays a major role in his dominance.

[Soul]

Why can't Harden be one of those guys then? I said it isn't directly proportional, not that there isn't any correlation.

 

I would assume a guy can't until he proves he can. He has looked, to me, far more pedestrian in the games he doesn't have the velocity though. Obviously it plays a major role in his dominance.

 

He looks more like he just completely loses the handle on his command to me.

[Guest]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

 

He said the correlation was not 1.0. Just because a guy, or some guys can do it on occasion doesn't mean there isn't a correlation though. By and large, if guys lose velocity, they will lose effectiveness.

 

Why can't Harden be one of those guys then? I said it isn't directly proportional, not that there isn't any correlation.

In my experience...

 

Directly proportional generally means that there is a positive correlation between two variables. Inversely proportional means there is a negative correlation between them. Directly proportional generally doesn't mean that there is a 1.0 correlation factor.

 

As for baseball, pitchers who throw harder are more effective, all other things being equal. If a pitcher is going to maintain equal effectiveness at lower velocities, he has to get better at something else.

[MikeG]

I wonder if the weather had anything to do with Harden's problems. It was raining the entire time he pitched.

[hardcorecubfan]

Also, velocity is not directly proportional to effectiveness.

Yeah, it really is. The correlation is not 1.0, but they are positively correlated without question.

 

So there's never been a pitcher who has lowered his pitch speed and maintained close to the same effectiveness?

 

Yes, we retired two guys that had the number 31 that did pretty well

[Guest]

Rich looked pretty good last night.

 

The only times he really got in trouble was when he couldn't command his fastball.

 

When he's on he certainly makes it look easy.