Jeremy Hellickson Is and Was a Bad, Bad Man

There are two elements to command and control – the ability to release consistently, and the ability to spin consistently (there’s really a third in the ability to control the pitching motion consistently, but if you can’t do that, you’d constantly be throwing wild pitches). If you can’t release consistently, your command is going to stink. You’ll be Edwin Jackson, and half the time you won’t know where the ball is going, you just hope it’s going towards the general target. 90% of major league pitchers can release consistently, and those who can’t usually have a walk rate over 4/9. Much more common is an inconsistency in the amount of spin a player puts on a pitch, which leads to inconsistent break. However, when most pitches break more than 6 inches, inconsistent break can lead to missing a lot of spots.

If you can release and spin consistently, then you really don’t have command or control issues. Just my guess based on general observation, is that an average major league pitcher can hit within 9 inches of their spot 90% of the time, which would probably result in a walk rate a bit under 4/9. Guys with better walk rates have better variances – their release points will be more consistent, and their break will be more consistent. Most pitchers’ variance with the fastball will be significantly better than that, and most of the variance would come from secondary pitches.

Nobody tries to throw strikes right down the middle of the plate every pitch. Sonannstine doesn’t do it, Hellickson doesn’t do it, Byun Hyung Kim doesn’t do it except in the all-star game against Cal Ripken. What they do is come closer than most pitchers to hitting their spots, and catchers usually don’t call for a ball to be thrown. Watch a catcher’s mitt and you’ll see that most balls thrown are because the pitcher missed, not because the catcher called it. If someone has a ridiculously low walk rate, it’s because the player is better at hitting their spots. Sometimes, it can be a bad thing that a player hits their spots well, i.e. if it’s because they get very little movement on their pitches, or if they need to take so much off the velocity to do so that it makes their pitches less effective; however, by almost all accounts neither one of those is the case with Hellickson. If you hit your spots, have good velocity and have good movement, you’re going to be a good pitcher. I can probably count on my fingers and toes the number of pitchers in the past decade who have had all three.