Starting Pitchers

Yonny Chirinos vs Matt Moore

I wrote about Chirinos’s opportunity tonight to claim a rotation spot for his own here.

Matt Moore Scouting Report

Matt Moore is not who he once was, but as happens with all aging pitchers, he’s just different now. Moore is 0-3 on the season after his most recent loss against the Angels last Wednesday, allowing three runs on seven hits and three walks over five innings while striking out two.

Arriving at the Rangers via trade from the Giants (along side international spending money), SF needed to move on from Moore due to roster crunch issues, although I wonder if they miss him now. The answer is probably not, given his 8.76 ERA.

Moore’s 4.63 FIP is in line with last season’s performance. Though he’s a flyball pitcher, he hasn’t allowed many longballs in his first three starts (12.1 IP - yeesh), but his LOB% is a 54.7% so he’s doing about as well as most Rays pitchers.

Pitcher Repertoire per Brooks Baseball

Matt Moore has thrown 13,967 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2011 and 2018, including pitches thrown in the MLB Regular Season, the MLB Postseason and Spring Training. In 2018, he has relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (92mph) and Curve using a Knuckle Curve grip (80mph), also mixing in a Change(83mph). He also rarely throws a Cutter (89mph).

BETA Feature: Basic description of 2018 pitches compared to other LHP:
His fourseam fastball has essentially average velo, results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers’ fourseamers and has slight armside run. His curve is much harder than usual, has a sharp downward bite and results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers’ curves. His change is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers’ changeups, has slight armside fade and has some natural sink to it. His cutter (take this with a grain of salt because he’s only thrown 4 of them in 2018) is basically never swung at and missed compared to other pitchers’ cutters, has well above average velo, has good “rise” and results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers’ cutters.

Pitch Usage

He’s only thrown first pitch fastballs vLHH so far this season, maybe that changes tonight.

Starting Lineups