David Price's High Heat Location

by RZ on Jun 11, 2010 1:03 PM EDT

David Price throwing his lone changeup in his start against the Blue Jays. (Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images)

There was something different coming from David Price's arm in his last start on Wednesday. In that start against the Toronto Blue Jays, Price went six innings on 104 pitches, allowing only one run with a 5:4 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Maybe his arm was feeling really good that day or maybe he wanted to attack the homer happy Blue Jay hitters as he threw the highest percentage of four-seam fastballs since a start a year ago today against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. On Wednesday, Price threw a total of 83 fastballs averaging 94.9 mph with a total run value of .15 and three swinging strikes. You can read a little more about Price's pitch usage in this post.

There were three left-handed hitters in the Blue Jays' lineup, so here are two plots of Price's fastballs. Bold points are strikes, takes are in light blue, pitches made contact with are x's, and swinging strikes are marked with a circle.

David_price_6-09-10_fastball_medium

Price worked the fastball both low and away and up and in to the left-handed hitters, getting them to make a lot of contact over the plate. To right-handers, Price threw his fastball primarily up in the strike zone with a lot of pitches missing high and away for balls. The three swinging strikes were against the righties, with three located around the upper middle part of the zone.

Since I already started looking at pitch location, here is a sweet heatmap showing the run values for David Price's fastballs in his career by location.

I see a stork.

I didn't divide this up by batter handedness but it does show that Price's fastball works best up in the zone and towards the edge of the plate on both sides.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 2 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

This is great analysis. A few questions

Where can I find some data on the calculation of run value for pitches? Is it as simple as taking the number of time a pitcher threw a pitch and dividing that by the total runs scored off of it.

Second, has there ever been analysis of this type with pitch sequencing. For instance: “After a curveball strike, the run value of a fb vs a cutter vs a change … whatever is X”. Maybe the sample sizes just begin to get too small.

by wtbudlight on Jun 11, 2010 1:23 PM EDT reply actions

Run values are based on the count and outcome of the pitch

and the runs are in linear weights based on wOBA. It is not necessarily based on the actual runs score but rather the expected run value. For example a double will have a higher run value than a strike. Here is the methodology on how run values are calculated.

As far as the second question, did you read my post last week? I looked at the pitch sequencing based on run values for James Shields.

Fuzz

by RZ on Jun 11, 2010 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions

this might be off topic but i really think the rays should cut Blalock and Kapler

and call up Ruggiano and Dan Johnson

one more year Brett Favre!

by RaysOfHope on Jun 11, 2010 1:48 PM EDT reply actions

In the game vs the Jays 2 days ago

He was throwing fire – but lacked control. Part of me wonders if that is because he saw the hype surrounding Strasburg and wanted to show that he is a premier talent deserving of hype, too.

by TheRevTy on Jun 11, 2010 2:42 PM EDT reply actions