Jeff Samardzija has been in the spotlight for quite some time after playing football and baseball at Notre Dame.  When the Cubs selected him in the fifth round of the 2006 draft many thought there was no way he would sign opting for football instead.  Samardzija did sign and started pitching in the Cubs farm system before going back to play his senior year of football.  Samardzija had a big arm at Notre Dame but his results were just good there and many questioned if he had the control to make it.

Samardzija has had his ups and downs in his minor league career but the command definitely had shown improvement.  The problem was Samardzija's strikeout numbers were also falling.  After a very mediocre year last year mostly spent in high A ball Samardzija began this year at AA.  Things didn't go well for him with his strikeout numbers just over five an inning and his walk numbers just under that.  Surprisingly, the Cubs promoted him to AAA and after six quality starts where he got his strikeout totals above nine per inning Samardzija got called up to the big leagues.  Samardzija has been put into the bullpen and has been lights out giving up just two runs in 15 innings and notching his first career save.  His strikeouts are through the roof and he has been throwing strikes, which is definitely something he wasn't doing in AA.  Here is a look at his stuff.

via baseball.bornbybits.com

As you can see Samardzija has thrown three pitches in the big leagues, a sinker, splitter, and slider.  His sinker is kind of an oddity in the world of sinkers with nearly ten inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of vertical rise.  That just barely can be called a sinker at all.  The other unusual thing about his sinker is he throws it over 95 MPH on average.  That is huge speed for a two seamer with the league average around 90 MPH.  You would expect that he wouldn't get a lot of groundballs with a sinker like his and that is generally what he has shown in the minors.

Samardzija's off speed pitches are not quite as dominate as his sinker.  Samardzija's slider has barely any movement at all (-1 inch horizontally, slightly away from a right handed batter, and 1.7 inches vertically).  While this does generate a large horizontal difference from his fastball because the pitch barely moves at all Samardzia can't start the slider on the outside corner and have it move away like you see many other pitchers do with their sliders.  Samardzija must throw this pitch for a strike and the best time to do that is early in the count.  It appears he has figured that out throwing ten of his eleven sliders tracked by PITCHf/x on 0-0 or 0-1 and all but two of them to right handed batters.

Samardzija's strikeout pitch is his splitter which he throws around 86 MPH generating nearly nine MPH differential from his sinker.  His split has only slightly less horizontal and vertical movement so the speed differential really is the key here.  Samardzija is throwing his split almost exclusively when the count gets to two strikes and the majority of his strikeouts have come with that pitch.

Many have talked about moving Samardzija back into the rotation next year maybe in place of Jason Marquis.  While Marquis could definitely use replacement I don't think that Samardzija is the answer.  If you look at his career MLEs it sure doesn't look like he is the answer.  But what about his great start in the majors you ask?  Well it has only been 15 innings and looking at Samardzija's stuff you can see why he has been successful.  His sinker just doesn't have the sink to it you would expect so he really needs the added velocity.  Samardzija's off speed pitches are not where they need to be to be successful in the rotation yet.  He is only 23 so he has time to develop these pitches but until he shows a little more I'd want to keep him in the bullpen.

Josh Kalk enjoys breaking down players with PITCHf/x and will work for a Stalker Sport. You can contact him at josh@drivelinemechanics.com.