A Preliminary Look At Dana Eveland

(Ed. Note: Before I get into my topic for this post, I want to lay out a disclaimer. I am just now learning how to manipulate/play with all the pitch f/x data, not to mention I haven't worked with spreadsheets since my junior year in college. Also, I realize that only comparing two Eveland starts is a small sample size, but I didn't know how else to compare early Eveland 2009 to late Eveland 2008 in another way. Anyway, without further ado...)

After viewing the recent post at BeyondTheBoxscore about Pitch f/x data, I wanted to take a look at Dana Eveland's only start this season. Since I'm new to this process, it was easiest for me to compare his 4/8/09 start to his 9/24/08 start. Again, I apologize for any formatting errors etc., but as it's early in the season for not only the A's, but also myself, I hope you'll forgive me.

I first wanted to take a look at Eveland's release point to make sure nothing funky was going on. In graph form

via img5.imageshack.us

Eveland seems pretty consistent here. I didn't see any significant changes from his last start of 2008 to his first in 2009. So without any real commentary, let's move on. Next on the list is Eveland's pitch velocities. The first bar in each couplet of this graph is 2009 and the second is 2008.

via img26.imageshack.us

Unfortunately, something weird was going on with Eveland's fastball classifications from last year, so the only data I had was labeled as "Fastball". Of course, this says nothing about whether they were 4 seam or 2 seam, so I have to aplogize. What's interesting to note is that his changeup, slider, and cutter velocities were all up this year (esp. the changeup, which was about 6 mph faster than last year's start. However, curveball and "fastball" velocities were just about the same. As far as his changeup is concerned, he is probably going to want a greater velocity difference between his fastball and changeup going forward. My last graph is, for lack of a better word, a disaster. I basically took the average movement on each of his pitches and tried to graph them against each other. Sadly, I'm still a noob at this, so it is kinda hard to decipher. Basically, the shapes correspond with the pitch, and the color differentiates the year.

via img5.imageshack.us

The big changes I see here is the cutter (diamond shape) and the curveball (square). The cutter especially has a huge variance in movement. I'm not sure whether this is mlb's fault or whether Eveland really is getting more movement on his cutter this year. Of course, he only threw 8 cutters in his '09 start and 32 in his '08 start, so it could be a sample size issue too. Anyway, I'll leave the exciting analysis for everyone else. Hopefully this post wasn't too terrible, and hopefully as the season goes on, both my graphing skills and the A's thrive.