Rick Porcello's struggles (Pitch F/X)

[@Stakesarehigh]

totally unrelated to anything being discussed but JV's strikezone discussion had me digging into pitch f/x data.

It's really interesting to see in plain numbers where pitchers struggles are..

in rick porcello's case his increase in velocity on his fastball would generally be a good thing...but......he is throwing his slider 5!! miles an hour faster than he did in 2009 which has hurt his movement on the pitch and unsurprisingly rates out as one of the FIVE WORST pitches in the entire league. And yet he throws it 16 % of the time. For further ridiculousness opponents hit .400 off his slider!

seems like a no brainer that porcello's slider needs serious addressing going forward regardless of who he plays for and it may need scrapped altogether. I heard he looked at adding the curve more often or a cutter and that may be his saving grace. lord knows his slider sucks.

 

[manchild98]

totally unrelated to anything being discussed but JV's strikezone discussion had me digging into pitch f/x data.

It's really interesting to see in plain numbers where pitchers struggles are..

in rick porcello's case his increase in velocity on his fastball would generally be a good thing...but......he is throwing his slider 5!! miles an hour faster than he did in 2009 which has hurt his movement on the pitch and unsurprisingly rates out as one of the FIVE WORST pitches in the entire league. And yet he throws it 16 % of the time. For further ridiculousness opponents hit .400 off his slider!

seems like a no brainer that porcello's slider needs serious addressing going forward regardless of who he plays for and it may need scrapped altogether. I heard he looked at adding the curve or a cutter and that may be his saving grace. lord knows his slider sucks.

I wonder if anyone in the organization even knows this.

 

[@Stakesarehigh]

I'm sure they do since he's thrown the slider less as the season has worn on. But it makes sense as to why he performs much worse later in games...once hitters get their timing down on him he has no real out pitch. His fastball/quasi-sinker was pretty solid but he's not comfortable throwing the curve enough (apparently) and his slider blows.

 

[kalinecountry]

I'm sure they do since he's thrown the slider less as the season has worn on. But it makes sense as to why he performs much worse later in games...once hitters get their timing down on him he has no real out pitch. His fastball/quasi-sinker was pretty solid but he's not comfortable throwing the curve enough (apparently) and his slider blows.

Good work with the pitch f/x Jimmy,

I do remember reading about the slider as one of the five worst pitches in the league, maybe from fangraphs?
Porcello doesn't have the out pitch, worse problems with lefty bats,
as much as some of us including me to package him in a trade, it won't surprise me that they keep him, due to his age, and all the wins at a young age...which makes no sense.
It's all about his pitches.