Pitcher Profile: Rick Porcello (Part One)
by Kyle Boddy on Sep 8, 2009 7:57 PM PDT
in Pitching Mechanics
13 comments
Rick Porcello has been having quite the rookie year for such a young player - posting a 4.18 ERA (before today's action vs. the Royals) over 135 innings at age 20 is certainly impressive. Though Porcello has given up more than his fair share of home runs (21 HR to date - a rate of 1.39 per nine innings pitched), this is exacerbated by a very high HR per FB percentage - currently at 17.2%. While this number doesn't necessarily regress towards a leaguewide mean, it probably indicates that he's getting at least a bit unlucky in this department.
Porcello's getting a large amount of ground balls with his sinker and secondary offerings, as you would expect from scouting reports. In fact, Porcello's GB% is third amongst MLB starters when you sort by 100 minimum innings pitched (players ahead of him: Joel Piniero and Derek Lowe).
Rick Porcello's stuff tonight looked like this (source: BrooksBaseball - all links intact):
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % | Nibbleness | Time to Plate |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 93.26 | 97.4 | -8.90 | 9.59 | 41 | 25 / 60.98% | 3 / 7.32% | 5.98 | 0.410 |
| CH (Changeup) | 82.54 | 84.8 | -10.03 | 7.37 | 16 | 8 / 50.00% | 1 / 6.25% | 6.49 | 0.463 |
| SL (Slider) | 83.00 | 84.3 | -1.95 | 2.16 | 4 | 1 / 25.00% | 0 / 0.00% | 16.18 | 0.460 |
| CU (Curveball) | 81.80 | 81.8 | -1.98 | -1.67 | 1 | 0 / 0.00% | 0 / 0.00% | 8.24 | 0.471 |
| FT (TwoSeam Fastball) | 91.20 | 93.9 | -11.84 | 5.89 | 20 | 18 / 90.00% | 0 / 0.00% | 6.99 | 0.419 |
| Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and are unfortunately often inaccurate. Clicking individual pitch types will provide individual velocity histograms for each pitch. Nibbleness is the arithmetic mean of the distance of each pitch, in inches, from the edge of a normalized strikezone. Lower indicates "more Nibbley". Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement. |
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What's troubling to me is the following pitch speed graph over the course of the game:
It's clear that Porcello is running out of gas as the game goes on. To see if this was something that happened in the middle of his season, I went back and ran a report from the July 5th game vs. the Minnesota Twins. Here's what that graph looked like:
The decline is there, but if you were to draw a best fit line on both graphs, you'd obviously see a larger slope in the first graph as compared to the second one. This leads me to believe that Rick Porcello is tiring down the stretch and that the Tigers' management should be very careful with him, especially as they approach the playoffs with a likely spot locked up (~90% chance to make the playoffs per Baseball Prospectus Playoff Odds Report).
Here's a two-seam fastball from Porcello that I recorded today against the Royals:
This led to a double in the gap by Mike Jacobs, but the first thing you should notice is the large amount of movement on his two-seam fastball. There's no question that it helps him get a ton of groundballs!
However, before I broke this video down even more, something felt... oddly familiar. Rick Porcello looked a lot like another pitcher in my database - and it wasn't a good kind of familiarity. Take a look beyond the jump to see who I'm talking about...
Remember this guy?
Frighteningly similar arm actions, no?
In Part Two, I'll take a further look at their mechanical similarities. Feel free to sound off in the comments with your ideas.
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Holy crap, that's uncanny!
Homer as awful mechanics, right?
Smoltz.
by vivaelpujols on Sep 8, 2009 8:08 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, it is.
And yes, I don’t like Homer Bailey’s mechanics. Porcello and Bailey have nearly identical arm actions at first glance. Their followthrough phases are much different, for what it’s worth (Bailey’s is terrible, Porcello’s is fine).
Webmaster of Driveline Mechanics
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com - An Unconventional Look at Scouting
by Kyle Boddy on Sep 8, 2009 8:09 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Also, regarding his pitch speeds by inning
Here is his chart for all pitches he’s thrown this year:
There’s definitely a drop, however, that’s to be expected with young pitchers. I’ll take a look at a pitch plot for the average major leaguer in a bit.
Smoltz.
by vivaelpujols on Sep 8, 2009 8:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Nice
I also think that Porcello is losing gas quicker in his starts. If you can datamine that information, that’d be awesome.
Webmaster of Driveline Mechanics
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com - An Unconventional Look at Scouting
by Kyle Boddy on Sep 8, 2009 8:44 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
This chart is my baby, treat it nice like
I split his season up into 5 parts, and graphed out his pitch speeds. You’ll notice that the linear regressions fit your hypothesis. Porcello’s actually been throwing harder in the early innings of the game as the season has gone on, but he’s velocity is declining much quicker.
Smoltz.
by vivaelpujols on Sep 8, 2009 9:44 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Sample size?
Is the sample size large enough for 7th inning pitches to include it in the regressions? And are the differences in slope for parts 1-5 statistically significant?
by Neuge on Sep 8, 2009 10:07 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't know
However, I assume pitch speeds stabilize rather quickly.
The whole point is to see how he does in the later innings, so whether it’s a good sample or not, we have to use it.
Smoltz.
by vivaelpujols on Sep 8, 2009 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
You’re breaking my heart, Kyle. thanks for the bad image in my head before I go to bed.
And now at Beyond the Boxscore and Project Prospect!
by Mike Rogers on Sep 8, 2009 11:15 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Good Eye
Wow Kyle, you are dead on about the Homer Bailey comparison, if you blocked out the faces, uniforms and opponents, it’d be really hard to tell them apart before ball release and follow through.
I think in yesterdays game Porcello didn’t have his best command. I also think that he works backwards to hitters more than the typical rookie, especially late in the game. He is also looking to make contact overall because of his usual 100 pitch limit… even more so as the innings go on. He wants to go late into games and pitching to miss bats is not conducive to that strategy.
He’s young too, but I think he’s the rare young pitcher that backs off as much as others try to ramp up. He hit 98 for the first time as well yesterday, maybe he strained something in the first and pitched through it.
Pressure comes when you're not doing well or you're not prepared. When you're fully prepared, there should be no pressure.
Bob Gibson
by Jacobian on Sep 9, 2009 9:04 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
incomplete
I can’t fairly compare Bailey with Porcello because the clips do not start soon enough. It appears that Porcello gets his left foot well past his post foot, and that Bailey (maybe) does not. This is a key to good mechanics. I think Porcello does get back far enough, meaning he is able to “stand tall and fall,” rather than over stress his arm, as though he were almost throwing from a side step. Please if possible start clips a bit sooner. One cannot evaluate mechanics without seeing the full range of motion.
by jersey city tiger fan on Sep 9, 2009 2:47 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Range of Motion?
I believe what you describe is “reverse rotation” when you say “It appears that Porcello gets his left foot well past his post foot, and that Bailey (maybe) does not.” This is NOT a key to good mechanics – pitchers like Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux did not excessively rotate their shoulders away from home plate. It can increase the time and distance that force can be applied to the arm but often causes a timing flaw at footstrike.
Webmaster of Driveline Mechanics
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com - An Unconventional Look at Scouting
by Kyle Boddy on Sep 9, 2009 3:40 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Porcello's follow-through and deceleration phase are interesting.
With the way he hunches over, I have some concern for his left hip and the left side of his lower back. I wouldn’t be shocked if his velocity is related to fatigue or pain from that area.
by NoNameOnCard on Sep 9, 2009 10:43 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
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