Terrific work, Doc. :) My only real additions:
1) The other reason the high-fastball plays up, IMO, and the low fastball gets crushed is because short pitchers have to be willing to pitch up in the zone. At least that's my assessment of it. I think it has to do with the angle off the mound. A tall pitcher can throw down through the zone when throwing the low fastball, but short guys just give hitters a looong time to look at the low pitch, kinda like it was coming out of a pitching machine.
But when you pitch up from that angle it's a look that hitters don't get that much - partly because there aren't a lot of short pitchers - so when the pitch comes from low (relatively-speaking) to high it gives that really good riseball effect and hitters struggle with it.
The problem with throwing up in the zone is that your miss areas are "automatic ball" and "centered HR pitch." Player will swing at the ball in the dirt but rarely at the ball over the shoulders, so you have to be able to throw the high heat where you want. Erasmo does this beautifully in 3/4 of his starts. Farquhar is unafraid to throw the high fastball but I don't know that he has that kind of control over it. Simply showing it scares the pants off the hitters, though - especially if you can drop the yellow hammer on them with the next pitch, like you say and like Farquhar can do.
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2) The other thing about Danny closing is that he probably needs to be more of a killer. The difference between a closer who wants to get you out and a closer who wants to humiliate you WITH an out seems to make a difference in American Baseball (tm). Just throwing random pitchers up there and getting the appropriate amount of outs doesn't seem to work all that well. Maybe it has to do with the pressure of the closing gig, which - despite the best efforts of SABR guys - players seem to take incredibly seriously. I don't ever want Medina closing; he puts insane pressure on himself in that role and I don't think he can take it.
Wilhelmsen has the jitters from the pressure of the role (and perhaps being ill-suited to it on a daily basis). Farquhar has already proven he has good bounce-back from a blown save and doesn't seem to carry them over to the next game (part of the Feng Shui of Closing he's doing out there that you mentioned earlier).
But the curve is a humiliation pitch. Hitters will look bad against it, they know it, and they are looking desperately for any other pitch to swing at to avoid that humiliation. A great closer knows they want the fastball and makes them dine on a humiliation sammich at every opportunity. Farquhar isn't that shark-like yet with his bad intentions. When he throws the curve as the opposition is muttering "nononononoNONONO" at the plate, then he'll be the perfect man for the job.
As it is, he's the best we've got and I like him a bunch. Let him keep learning on the job. Nobody gets a giant contract after 40 IP, but it's hard to have fully settled into the job at that point either. I still like his chances to fully master the learning curve.
~G
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Q. Okay, we know what he SHOULDN'T do with the slider. He shouldn't challenge with it, overconfidently. What SHOULD he do with it?
A. It's a 91 MPH pitch that breaks all the way over to glove side of center. The other guy who does this is, Mariano Rivera. Let's don't undersell that, what say.
From a lefty batter's standpoint, this pitch is coming in at fastball velocity, and then it is swerving in on his hands by about a foot. The width of 3 or 4 baseballs, anyway.
Against lefties, we've seen Farquhar throw it:
- Up-and-in for a horrific jam pitch
- Down-and-in, under the hands, for a garbage swinging strike
- Middle-in, waist high, breaking the bat
- "Back door," way outside, coming back to nip the black, and BOY do the umps LOVE to give him this call
Farquhar's giving up an AVG of only .217 to lefties on this cutter/slider, and .... well, we've all been round and round on this subject of RH sliders to LH batters.
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Against RH, the slider can be really good also. If only he wouldn't be so overconfident with it!
And he's putting wayyyyy too much pressure on the pitch. When he's even in the count or behind, here comes the cutter/slider, 44-50% of the time. And it is his 3rd-best pitch!
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Q. Oh yeah, he does have 3 pitches, huh. THAT's unusual for a closer.
A. Given even a leeeetle teeeeny tweak in the over-challenging factor, that cutter/slider is a fearsome weapon for him. Not "will be some day," as with Wilhelmsen's changeup. Farquhar's 3 pitches are the basic reason he is fanning 14 men per game. Dr. D's quibbles aside, the bottom line is that Danny can throw any of the 3 pitches at any time, and make you look bad with ANY of them.
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Q. You got a list of legit closers who legitimately mixed three legit pitches?
A. It ain't a long one, not in my memory, anyway. How about:
- Jason Isringhausen
- Justin Duchscherer
- Ryan Franklin
- Keith Foulke
- Mike Marshall is the icon
Sean Marshall, Mark Melancon, and a few other guys star in setup with 3 pitches. Earlier Mike Stanton. Not a whole lot of guys, but it's not impossible. Carlos Villanueva has been a pretty good swing man that way ... Ryan Franklin, now that you mention it, was a swing guy.
It is EXTREMELY out of fashion, to allow a 3-pitch man to close games for you. Time and again, Jack Zduriencik has demonstrated a real enthusiasm for kicking over the Good Ol' Boyz traditions. And the man is on the other side of 60 years old. You've got to love his openness of mind.
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Q. Rivera has a 91-MPH "cutter" ... does HE challenge with it, out-and-over?
A. He does not.
Rivera throws 90% cutters, and he's thrown them for two decades, and he's a master of hitting his spots. He likes to go right to the top of the zone, like Iwakuma does. Or he'll get in on the hands. Or down just below the knees. Mariano Rivera does not just huck a 91-MPH "slider" onto the barrel of the enemy's bat, up and away.
And he throws the same 91 MPH -- he doesn't "set it up" with a 95 MPH that gets the bat started, and then batting-practice the cutter in -4 MPH so it looks slow.
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Then again, Rivera's 91 MPH cutter/slider isn't his 3rd pitch. As a 3rd pitch, used coherently, Farquhar's cutter could get him like 14 strikeouts a game or something....
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Q. OK, you haven't talked fastball. He's 93-94, has touched 97. An overwhelming pitch, yes?
A. An overwhelming pitch, NO. It's a lot like Erasmo Ramirez' -- it plays up, depending on how well he sets it up and deploys it.
The splits between "sinker" and "four-seam" (rising) fastball are huge:
| Pitch | # thrown | AVG | SLG |
| Rising 4-seamer (LHH and RHH) | 204 | .127 | .218 |
| Sinking 2-seamer (LHH and RHH) | 194 | .412 | .559 |
Those aren't BABIP flukes. The swing-and-miss rate is 27% on the riser, 9% on the sinker.
That .559 SLG gives you a feel for it. Farquhar's fastball can be very straight, poorly angled, and hittable, if it's low in the zone. But! Properly whipsawed against his other two pitches, he can throw it Right. By. them, night after night.
Don't skim past that splits chart. That's how good, or how bad, his fastball can be. Depending. You remember Kazuhiro Sasaki being horrible, and then being great. With the same pitches.
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Q. Why would that be?
A. It isn't that Farquhar's four-seamer and two-seamer are unusual. They are not! He has a perfectly normal rise and run on each pitch.
The thing is, the RISING fastball thrown HIGH in the zone -- that "plays up" due to the terrifying threat of his curve ball, which starts on the same plane as the rising fastball. That hesitation as the batter processes, that's all the difference.
This isn't Dr. D's discovery, and it's not controversial. Any pitcher who can twirl a great yellow hammer, and throw a hot fastball UP in the zone, Thass' A Pro-Blaim.
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But, again ... he hasn't been real coherent about exploiting this. Like we say. It's weird to watch a guy rack up 14 strikeouts a game, despite not knowing what he's capable of.
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Q. Does he close for you, Opening Day 2014?
A. Yes.
We led off with, "suppose you traded for Asdrubal Cabrera, Matt Kemp, and Trevor Hoffman this winter." I'm liking Danny's chances to hold up his 1/3 of the bargain.
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Comments
You've gently pressed this point, with respect to Ramirez and Snell and others, and the evidence is sure accumulating isn't it?
It's not quite clear to me, either, exactly why this would be, but intuitively it makes a lot of sense. Will continue to think about it, the more so after THIS reminder :- )
Once knew a very good boxer who liked to get punched low by short guys. He just bent his knees and it was that "I go down there WITH him." Maybe it's about starting low and staying low; maybe it's about the pitch being inherently angled onto the bat's swing plane more, as you also suggest.
Hence Fister's anti-KBIZLT success.
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Ya, Farquhar's sinker has all of 11" on the run but still gets crushed. Hopefully somebody gets the 4-seam / 2-seam splits tacked into his locker.