The David Price Pitchfx Analysis (Part Two)

This is the pure numerical data version.

A quick glossary of terms:

Average velocity is pretty simple.

Top-end is the highest recorded speed, and bottom-end is the lowest; used on breaking/off-speed stuff.

Usage is (Pitch total/total pitches)*100

Ball is (Pitch thrown for ball amount/total amount of pitch)*100

In play is (Amount of times pitch put into play/total amount of pitch)*100

Foul is (Amount of times pitch hit/bunted foul/total amount of pitch)*100

Swinging strike is (Amount of swinging strikes on pitch/total amount of pitch)*100

N = Number of pitch type thrown

Disclaimers:

1. These usage numbers will not add up to 100%. I reclassified the pitches and some were simply too close to call either way. I don't feel comfortable just throwing them in a bucket. The sum is about 97%. So we're talking about 30 pitches.

2. Since I did this on my own, I'm not claiming perfection, but I've dealt with pitchfx enough to know the difference between a change and a fastball, a curve and a slider, and so on. There should be a good level of accuracy involved since I weeded out the ~100 or so pitches I simply didn't feel comfortable calling.  This also means the usage percentages won't match up exactly with the ones on FanGraphs.

On to the numbers...

Fastball

Average velocity: 93.5 MPH

Top-end velocity: 98.6 MPH

Usage: 66.3%

Ball: 38.1%

In play: 15.1%

Foul: 19.9%

Swinging strike: 8.6%

N = 675

Slider

Average velocity: 85.4 MPH

Bottom-end velocity: 80.2 MPH

Usage: 24.1%

Ball: 35.1%

In play: 16.7%

Foul: 24.5%

Swinging strike: 6.5%

N = 245

Change-up

Average velocity: 85.4 MPH

Bottom-end velocity: 80.7 MPH

Usage: 5%

Ball:  33%

In play: 17.6%

Foul: 17.6%

Swinging strike: 9.8%

N = 51

Spike Curve

Average velocity: 76.4 MPH

Bottom-end velocity: 74 MPH

Usage: 1.3%

Ball:  84.6%

In play: 7.7%

Foul:  7.7%

Swinging strike: 0.0%

N = 13

For easier comparison:

In simple terms:

- His fastball is good.

- The slider gets fouled off a lot, not a ton of swings and misses.

- He seems to be using the change-up well, at least that's what the fouls and swinging strike rate suggest.

- Zero spike curves thrown for a called or swinging strike to date. One foul strike, but wow. 85% balls? If we had a definition for a replacement level pitch, the results of this one probably qualify.