Yankees Sign Masahiro Tanaka

[Guest]

What kind of situation would involve a lower batted ball speed but a human being describing it as well hit and having that subjective description be more accurate?

 

Maybe there isn't, we as fans don't have that data, if it exists reliably at all. My assumption is that fly balls with high trajectories would have the potential for fooling a raw ball speed number, but maybe the range of ball speeds is low enough that there's even more situations where it isn't great at determining how often a player truly squares up pitches.

[jersey cubs fan]

What kind of situation would involve a lower batted ball speed but a human being describing it as well hit and having that subjective description be more accurate?

 

Maybe there isn't, we as fans don't have that data, if it exists reliably at all. My assumption is that fly balls with high trajectories would have the potential for fooling a raw ball speed number, but maybe the range of ball speeds is low enough that there's even more situations where it isn't great at determining how often a player truly squares up pitches.

 

Shouldn't/couldn't that just be recorded as a fly out and come out in the numbers anyway?

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

 

 

speed does not equal acceleration. if you used velocity (which includes direction) this could account for fly balls. Hitting the ball really hard straight into the ground may not mean its well hit.

 

physics shows that spin imparted on the ball impacts how far it travels, so this is also missing from the measurement.

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

 

 

speed does not equal acceleration. if you used velocity (which includes direction) this could account for fly balls. Hitting the ball really hard straight into the ground may not mean its well hit.

 

physics shows that spin imparted on the ball impacts how far it travels, so this is also missing from the measurement.

Nobody is talking about how far a ball traveles as a measure of how hard a ball is hit. And you provide a good example of why judgment can be a problem.

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

 

 

speed does not equal acceleration. if you used velocity (which includes direction) this could account for fly balls. Hitting the ball really hard straight into the ground may not mean its well hit.

 

physics shows that spin imparted on the ball impacts how far it travels, so this is also missing from the measurement.

Nobody is talking about how far a ball traveles as a measure of how hard a ball is hit. And you provide a good example of why judgment can be a problem.

It is called "well hit", not "hard hit".

 

Direction matters.

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

 

 

speed does not equal acceleration. if you used velocity (which includes direction) this could account for fly balls. Hitting the ball really hard straight into the ground may not mean its well hit.

 

physics shows that spin imparted on the ball impacts how far it travels, so this is also missing from the measurement.

Nobody is talking about how far a ball traveles as a measure of how hard a ball is hit. And you provide a good example of why judgment can be a problem.

It is called "well hit", not "hard hit".

 

Direction matters.

Look at the definition again.

[Guest]

Force = mass X acceleration. There's no need to judge.

 

Measurement is a judgment aid. Judgment is not a measurement aid.

 

 

speed does not equal acceleration. if you used velocity (which includes direction) this could account for fly balls. Hitting the ball really hard straight into the ground may not mean its well hit.

 

physics shows that spin imparted on the ball impacts how far it travels, so this is also missing from the measurement.

Nobody is talking about how far a ball traveles as a measure of how hard a ball is hit. And you provide a good example of why judgment can be a problem.

It is called "well hit", not "hard hit".

 

Direction matters.

Look at the definition again.

WHAV is pretty much what it sounds like -- how often a player ended an at-bat with a hard-hit ball, regardless of whether it resulted in a hit.

So you're going to ignore the name (and how it is actually derived) and go with a high level description from some article?

[Guest]

Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka will meet with the #Cubs & #WhiteSox this week…likely in Chicago.

 

— Luke Stuckmeyer (@LukeStuckmeyer) January 7, 2014

[Guest]

We must not be looking at the same definition. The one I'm looking at involves a guy judging if a ball is softly hit, medium hit, or hard hit. then using hard hit balls as a measue of how well the ball was hit. i trust those guys cannot do that with as much accuracy as we would like. I'm all for plane velocity as a measure though, but we use mph to do that.

[CubsWin]

Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka will meet with the #Cubs & #WhiteSox this week…likely in Chicago.

 

— Luke Stuckmeyer (@LukeStuckmeyer) January 7, 2014

Yea for...news...

[Guest]

@Ken_Rosenthal Interesting tidbit on new posting system: Per sources, the $20M fee will be paid in two installments - $13M the first year, $7M the second.

[SouthSideRyan]

@Ken_Rosenthal Interesting tidbit on new posting system: Per sources, the $20M fee will be paid in two installments - $13M the first year, $7M the second.

 

I mean I guess that helps us, but it's not like it's not a positive for everyone else's budget.

[Backtobanks]

Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka will meet with the #Cubs & #WhiteSox this week…likely in Chicago.

 

— Luke Stuckmeyer (@LukeStuckmeyer) January 7, 2014

 

Thankfully he didn't plan on meeting in Chicago early this week. Nothing like a first impression that includes delayed flights, heavy snow, -59 degree wind chills, impassable roads, and 30 mph winds.

[Guest]

They should seriously just have him meet us in Mesa at the new facility and convince him that that's Chicago or something.

[Cubs Fan Dan]

I wonder if he could be sold on the renovation, the new Wrigley experience and if they will provide insight in the TV potential and some of their plans. Other than a crapload of money they have to be planning a major schmoozing to out do the Yanks or potential West Coast suitors.

[Fro]

I definitely think it's a positive that we're seemingly getting a visit and it's the earliest one.

 

I don't think the weather this week will bother Tanaka... he went to high school in Hokkaido (the northernmost part of Japan) which has a colder climate than Chicago and gets a lot of snow.

 

I wonder if he could be sold on the renovation, the new Wrigley experience and if they will provide insight in the TV potential and some of their plans. Other than a crapload of money they have to be planning a major schmoozing to out do the Yanks or potential West Coast suitors.

 

I'm sure they'll show him all that stuff and how they have a plan, etc, here's all the awesome stuff we are doing to develop you as a pitcher and the technology here's all the stuff at the new Spring Training park. Theo's luckily really good at that. I just hope the translator is top-notch.

[d_money]

They should seriously just have him meet us in Mesa at the new facility and convince him that that's Chicago or something.

Let's hope Ronnie Woo Woo doesn't crash the meeting

[Guest]

I don't think the weather this week will bother Tanaka... he went to high school in Hokkaido (the northernmost part of Japan) which has a colder climate than Chicago and gets a lot of snow./quote]

 

you might be right, but I grew up in Chicago and I am sure glad I don't live there anymore reading about that weather. You forget how miserable it is.

[Sammy Sofa]

It's not like he's forced to live here in the winter, for [expletive]'s sake.

[XZero771679666304]

It's not like he's forced to live here in the winter, for [expletive]'s sake.

 

I'd assume there's a good chance he'd just go back to Japan during the offseason.

[Fro]

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24403196/tanaka-derby-meetings-begin-cubs-dodgers-4-others-known-in

 

Meetings going on now in LA through Friday between Tanaka and various teams, sounds like they will be secretive.

[Soul]

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24403196/tanaka-derby-meetings-begin-cubs-dodgers-4-others-known-in

 

Meetings going on now in LA through Friday between Tanaka and various teams, sounds like they will be secretive.

 

Yeah, I thought I had heard the meetings would be on the west coast. It's easier for him to do it that way.

[CubsWin]

For those who like pitchFX and are wondering if Tanaka will be a bust, here's an interesting article from ESPN on the subject...

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/43300/a-pitchfx-look-at-masahiro-tanaka

 

According to the Baseball Prospectus Leaderboards, there are some real big names with similar stuff. In 2013, no starter touched that amount of vertical movement on their four-seam fastball. Clayton Kershaw gets the closest with 12.18 inches of "rising action," but the lefty only had 0.93 inches of horizontal movement, where Tanaka showed nearly 4 inches in the WBC. The slider, which is regarded as Tanaka's best out pitch, is probably closest to Zack Greinke's in terms of velocity and movement. In 2013, Grenke averaged 85.5 mph on the pitch, 3.87 inches of horizontal break, and 0.66 inches of vertical break. Finally, the changeup/splitter matches best with Yu Darvish, who averaged 88.8 mph on the pitch, with -6.03 inches of horizontal movement and 4.09 inches of vertical movement.

 

Just because these pitchers compare well doesn't mean that Tanaka will have the same success. As I mentioned earlier, we are working with a very small sample size of pitches taken from four years ago. This is at least a look into why Tanaka is so successful though.

[davell]

David Waldstein, a Yankees beat writer, says Tanaka was scheduled to come to Chicago first, but went to LA because of weather.