Gio's Debut, Pitch fx style
by iamawesomer on Aug 7, 2008 12:19 AM PDT
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PrintI probably could have/should have done more with this, but I got tired/lazy and wanted to get this out tonight. Hope you enjoy.
http://oakas.blogspot.com/2008/08/go-go-gogo-gio-pitchfx-analysis.html
Gio Gonzalez, 22, made his debut for the A's tonight. Like almost all A's pitchers lately (Oakland is on a 9 game losing streak and have dropped 18 of their last 20), Gio was awarded with a loss. His line for the night:
6+ IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 SO, 1 HR, 95 pitches, 55 strikes, 40 balls.
Not too bad for a pro debut, but what does the PITCHfx data say? First, a review of Gio Gonzalez's path to the majors.
Background
Gonzalez was selected by the Chicago White Sox with the 38th overall pick of the 2004 draft out of Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Florida (the same school where recent A's 2B acquisition Adrian Cardenas attended). He was then traded in 2005 to the Philadelphia Phillies as the main piece to acquire Jim Thome. Aggressively promoted to AA as a 20 year old, Gonzalez had a mixed 2006, while his 9.66 K/9 was impressive, his 4.71 BB/9 was not and he allowed HR at an alarming 1.4 HR/9 and resulted in a 4.66 ERA and 4.80 FIP.
Apparently the White Sox never lost interest in Gio as he was traded back to the White Sox along with Gavin Floyd in December 2006 for Freddy Garcia. The White Sox were rewarded with an outstanding 2007 season from Gonzalez. Repeating AA, he posted an outstanding 11.10 K/9 while cutting his BB/9 down to 3.42. His HR/9 also was more than halved to 0.60. The end result was a minor league leading 185 SO's, a 3.18 ERA and 2.78 FIP, which while not incredible for a pitcher repeating AA it was still very impressive considering he was still only 21. In any case it earned him high marks among prospect evaluators, Baseball America ranked him the 28th best prospect coming into 2008 and John Sickels had him ranked the 11th best pitching prospect.
Despite this, Gonzalez was traded for the third time in 3 seasons, this time along with RHP Faustino De Los Santos and OF Ryan Sweeney for 1B/OF Nick Swisher. Gonzalez has had his ups and downs in AAA this year, having two starts where he went at least 8 IP and struck out at least 12, and then having another where he gave up 10 ER. With Sean Gallagher feeling a "pop in the shoulder during his July 25 start (why was he pitching the following start by the way if that was the case), Gonzalez was recalled from AAA and here we are today.
The Data
Here is what Gio's pitch selection and speed/movement looked like tonight:
|
Pitch |
Number Thrown |
Avg. Speed (mph) |
Avg. Horizontal Movement (in.) |
Avg. Vertical Movement (in.) |
|
Fastball |
63 (66.32%) |
88.51 |
7.46 |
8.35 |
|
Curveball |
16 (16.84%) |
75.99 |
-7.52 |
-10.66 |
|
Changeup |
16 (16.84%) |
81.58 |
9.55 |
3.38 |
His fastball velocity was well below the league average of 91.8 and also quite a few mph below the 92-95 scouting reports said he threw before 2007. While his fastball was a little slow it did feature above average horizontal movement. His curveball is outstanding, featuring more than 10.5 inches of vertical movement, and his changeup also moves quite well to disguise his fastball. If he could regain that extra 3-4 mph fastball speed that previous reports said he had (and his innings pitched count is similar to previous seasons), he could be truly something special.
Here's a scatter chart looking at his vertical vs. horizontal movement for all of his pitches tonight:
The changeup mirrors the fastball pretty well horizontally, but it breaks vertically quite a bit more (almost a 5 inch difference on average) compared to league average of 2.8. Since the difference between his fastball and changeup was only about 7 mph tonight, the additional vertical break probably helps Gonzalez confuse the batters. Again, if his fastball picked up a few mph it could make a huge difference.
And yes that curveball is awesome, the foot difference in horizontal movement between it and his fastball is great.
Results
Besides this huge mistake fastball 
to Rod Barajas in the first that resulted in a 3 run homer, Gonzalez pitched quite well, allowing only 2 baserunners in the 5+ innings he pitched following the 1st. While only 58% of his pitches went for strikes, he only walked 2 batters and was still able to go 6+ innings. I hope we see more of Gio Gonzalez this year and for many more to come.
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Comments
Wow. Cool that you were able to do this so quickly and succinctly.
[Crosby] "Guy that has driven in some big runs for the A's over the years" - Vince Cotroneo
It's too bad the Sox had to give up Gio in that trade
From a Sox fan’s perspective he’s the only one I was really concerned about losing in the long term. His horrible start in AAA this year was quite the surprise after dominating AA last year.
Can’t complain too much with a first place team and Nick Swisher locked up for the foreseeable future at a reasonable rate, filling a desperate need, (along with Ramirez and Quentin) for good, young and cheap position players on the Sox.
Bean usually comes out slightly on top in his trades with KW, luckily KW seems to have better luck against the rest of the league.
Good luck going forward Gio!
If you could have increased velocity on the fastball
or increased “fastball command,” but not both, which would you take? It’s a tough call but my experience tells me go with location over velocity. Still, a couple additional MPH would be great – is there any analysis of why it is down from earlier reports?
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
I don't think it's a tough call at all
Location, location, location.
88 is fine if he could expand the difference we the change a bit (don’t know if taking a bit more off is learnable), but 97 is useless if no one knows where it’s going.
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" -Bill Watterson
obviously location, but that's a moot point
It’s not like Gio throwing softer helped his command. Hopefully there was just a minor mechanical issue with his arm slot or first game jitters and the next time he goes out there, he’ll be back to throwing 92 on a regular basis.
Bu as I said earlier, if his fastball is sitting at 88-89 with little movement, I’m not that impressed.
"Do you know that the guy really doesn't like baseball all that much?" - J.P. Riccardi
My point is that if he could throw 92 MPH with
exactly the command he showed, he’d be fine. So velocity isn’t unimportant, it just isn’t more important than – or even as important as – command.
Your concern about “little movement” appears to be unfounded, if I am understanding the data correctly. It looks like the movement is above average.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
The data does indeed show movement
but to the naked eye, do you think his fastball was moving that well? I’d like to know what the average movement is of fastballs in general. Maybe while Gio’s does have movement it could be league average or below average and that’s why when I watch him pitch it doesn’t stand out.
As far as your other point, absolutely. Throwing harder will allow for more mistakes in terms of command. While throwing 92 isn’t that dominating in the first place, you will be able to get away with a few more mistake fastballs than you are going to at 89.
I’m not saying that velocity is more important than command. The thing with Gio, though, is that we already know he has a history of command issues and you could get a glimpse of them last night as well. If he continues to have such issues while throwing 89 mph, I don’t know how we could be so high on him.
However, he is obviously quite young and has plenty of time to develop, so there is definitely a lot of potential there. All I’m saying is that last night’s performance did not excite me the way I hoped it would.
"Do you know that the guy really doesn't like baseball all that much?" - J.P. Riccardi
Well ...
On August 2nd (A date I just happen to have the data available for), the average fastball thrown had 6.26” of horizontal movement and 8.58” of vertical movement—so Gio seems to be a bit better than average.
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
That includes 614 fastballs, btw ...
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
good to know, thanks
I guess looks can be deceiving, especially to the untrained eye
"Do you know that the guy really doesn't like baseball all that much?" - J.P. Riccardi
You may not necessarily be wrong
There is a difference between total movement and when that movement occurs. Less movement later is better than more movement that is consistent and can be anticipated by the batter.
by BlameChannel53 on Aug 7, 2008 11:31 AM PDT up reply actions
Because of the camera angle,
it is much more difficult to see movement on pitches thrown by a left-handed pitcher on a conventional TV broadcast. Fastballs and changeups appear straight when they are actually moving away from the hitter.
I can usually easily tell the difference between a 2-seam fastball and a cut fastball from a righty on TV, but I have all kinds of problems seeing it from a lefty.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
In my experience
Velocity reports ALWAYS overstate how hard a guy can actually throw. They go with the biggest number a guy’s ever put on a pitch rather than what he consistently works at. Remember when Mulder was coming out of college and everyone was saying he threw 95? Then we actually see him and he’s working around 90.
Surprisingly, of the big three Hudson ended up throwing the hardest – which was hinted to be part of his reoccuring oblique issues – he could rotate faster than his body could handle. He was getting it up to 95 on the 4-seamer on 03-04.
And I’d take location over velocity anytime. Though velocity is sure nice.
Partially true
Publicly available scouting reports often only give peak velocity. However, real scouting reports contain two different velocities: those a pitcher “sits at,” and those he “touches.” Occasionally, you will see people like Goldstein, Callis, or Law use these terms. Most fans simply look at the biggest number and incorrectly assume that is what the pitcher will throw in the majors.
Two other factors need to be considered when evaluating velocity of pitchers in the minors. First, many pitchers are taught by pitching coaches/roving instructors to give up velocity for the sake of health/command. This often involves smoothing out deliveries from max effort to repeatable, and loss of velocity is a common result. Second, a personal pet peeve of mine is the general assumption of fans that all young pitchers are projectable and will automatically gain velocity as they age. This assumption is applied way too broadly by most fans, and just as many pitching prospects lose velocity as they age and build up adhesions in their joints as mature and throw harder.
by BlameChannel53 on Aug 7, 2008 10:53 AM PDT up reply actions
I think I've read
That 95% or so of pitchers don’t add any velocity after age 20-21 or thereabouts.
Also, it seems to me that the “sits at” reports are also pretty much always a tough high.
The A's colors are green and gold.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/preliminary-aging-curve-for-fastball-speed/
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
Interesting graph & article
What I would be more interested in, however, is some sort of running data (obviously will have to be over a period of years) that will compare how each individual pitcher ages. This chart reflects the average fastball of current pitchers in these age groups. What this graph doesn’t tell us is how hard the 29 year-old pitchers in this graph pitched when they were 24.
It would be interesting to see a graph next year and see whether the 29 year-old group is still the peak, and whether dips like the 27 year-old age group are still there or whether the dip is now at the 28 year-old group. In other words, are the current crop of 29 year-old naturally harder throwers that will still throw hard when they are 30, and are the 27 year-age group naturaly softer tossers who will continue to throw softer at age 28? A few successive years of data on this will be interesting if THT or someone else does this over the next few years.
One of the things I have been intrigued for a few years is the possibility of “reverse projection.” What I mean by that is that scouts project increased velocity based on particular factors; the corollary of that projectability is that there may be factors that will allow either a scout or a sabremetrician (or both, working in tandem) to project reduced velocity for particular pitchers.
There are obvious examples of where it easy to predict reduced velocity, for example, when a guy has a violent, max-effort delivery that is likely to be changed—few scouts believed that Craig Italiano would throw as hard in the majors as he threw in high school because his mechanics in high school were unlikely to get him to the majors. What interests me are the more subtle examples, the Barry Zito types. It was blatantly obvious to most non-Sabean baseball people that Zito was in a downward velocity spiral before he became a free agent, but would it have been possible to “project” that reduced velocity prior to it actually happening?
If reverse projection could be done with any sort of accuracy, the competitive advantage for the team who figured it out would be pretty large. I have identified a few factors over the last few years that I think might predict decreased velocity, and I have wanted to do some sort of predictive model and test it for a couple of years. Eventually, I would like to do an article on it that is similar to what Hollinger did when announcing his NBA drafting model and show the results of the predictive model based on past predictions as well offer current predictions by which others can assess how accurate the model is.
The problem I have is that as my legal career becomes more successful, my time to goof around with baseball decreases. My idea to quantify scouting data died a few years ago because I didn’t have time to kiss ass to get the data, compile data, and do an actual model and evaluate it. This project woud be smaller in scope, but finding time is going to be a real issue.
by BlameChannel53 on Aug 7, 2008 2:54 PM PDT up reply actions
poor Zito
Once hitters realized that he had difficulty throwing his curveball for strikes his career path changed completely. He used to throw the curve, then throw the high fastball right behind it and get them swinging, thinking it was another curve. Then when they realized that even if it was a curve it was probably going to be a ball they just stopped swinging at everything high. That was the big hit, and then the velocity loss just added on.
I don't think it is really down from earlier reports
or at least this is about what I expected from the reports I’d seen. BP said 89-91 before the year, and these reports tend to be a tad higher than what the pitch f/x winds up as. I guarantee you the number iamawesomer cites is lower than reports from the minors for pretty much every single pitcher. Also, velocity tends to peak very young. So I really don’t think that he’s lost velocity from some prior time when he had more, unless it was awhile ago.
The A's colors are green and gold.
He can be extremely successful with that stuff.
Especially the movement on the fastball. Another edge he has in the comp to Zito.
"PECOTA can pretty much kiss my ass."-Nico
I'd say Zito in his first few years was about the same
not sure, though.
The A's colors are green and gold.
I just remeber seeing Zito touch 90 every now and again.
"With 16-year-old Dominican righty Michel Inoa in tow, Gio Gonzalez improving at Triple-A and lefty Brett Anderson carving up Double-Abatters along with Simmons and Trevor Cahill, Oakland’s pitching depthis officially the envy of baseball." - BaseballAmerica.com
Zito in his first years
would sit at 86-88 very reliably. I was going to thirty-plus games a year then, so I remember it well. He might hit 90 once a month.
"PECOTA can pretty much kiss my ass."-Nico
Too bad we don't have fx data from then to verify your memory
I can tell you, however, that I had access to seats in Raley Field when Zito was in Sacramento that allowed me to sit with the scouts, and their guns had him at 90-91 on fairly routine occasions, although Zito would definitely throw a number of pitches that registered at 86-89.
Overall, I agree with you that Gio does throw a bit harder than Zito at 22, but Zito threw a bit harder than you suggest.
by BlameChannel53 on Aug 7, 2008 2:59 PM PDT up reply actions
He threw 92 in MVP Baseball 2005...
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
+1
"With 16-year-old Dominican righty Michel Inoa in tow, Gio Gonzalez improving at Triple-A and lefty Brett Anderson carving up Double-Abatters along with Simmons and Trevor Cahill, Oakland’s pitching depthis officially the envy of baseball." - BaseballAmerica.com
The computer version is still updated
And is far better than anything that’s come out since
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" -Bill Watterson
not being barry zito
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
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