http://tinyurl.com/667u4 July 25, 2008 – 8:38 am Introduction Scherzer’s Repertoire Max Scherzer is a three pitch pitcher; four seamed fastball, slider, and change up. Here is a look at the movement of those three pitches. Let’s take a look at these pitches one at a time starting with Scherzer’s fastball. While Scherzer throws a four seamed fastball his 3/4 arm angle gives his fastball more horizontal but less vertical movement than league average. Scherzer also will drop down even further than that on occasion and unload a fastball that has huge horizontal movement in towards a right handed batter. You can see how his arm angle directly changes the movement on this pitch as his arm angle lowers. Most pitchers who throw from a lower arm angle like Scherzer don’t have quite the same giddy up on their fastballs trading some velocity for increased movement. Velocity though isn’t a problem for Scherzer who is average 94.5 MPH with his fastballs this year. That combination of extra horizontal movement and plus speed is uncommon and really makes things hard for right handed batters. Because Scherzer threw both in the rotation and in the pen this year we can check his wear pattern to see how that transition affected his fastball. Even though Scherzer wasn’t on the roster in the beginning of the year and has since been optioned back to AAA and then the DL I still am keeping a full view of the current MLB season to give you a better idea of when Scherzer was pitching and how his usage pattern once moving into the bullpen. The first data point was Scherzer’s major league debut which was in relief but was 4 1/3 innings. The next three appearances were starts followed by six relief appearances when the D’backs moved him back into the pen. Notice that the move to the bullpen didn’t really change Scherzer’s fastball much at all. He generally was throwing a few innings at a time so while he wasn’t in short relief he also wasn’t exactly going a long distance either. Generally, when a pitcher moves into the bullpen his velocity will go up a tick or two but that has happened here. This is likely because either Scherzer was still pacing himself like he was in the rotation or he was concerned that he might lose control if he threw closer to a max fastball. Obviously, Scherzer doesn’t really need a velocity bump as the difference between a MLB average fastball (about 91.5 MPH) and Scherzer’s fastball is a much more important differential than the differential from 94.5 MPH and say 97 MPH. Scherzer’s slider is considered his best off speed pitch with some excellent late break. I have to say I completely agree with this. Now, as every good first year physics student knows, while the baseball is in flight it should be breaking the same amount during the whole trip to home plate so what do I mean by late break. Hopefully, what I mean by late break is the same thing that scouts mean by late break. Specifically, that the off speed pitch appears very similar to the fastball until close to home plate when it diverges and creates the appearance of late break. Scherzer’s slider is a fantastic example of this. Here is an averaged view of all his fastballs and sliders from the top view. Look at how similar the fastball and slider look until about 15 feet from home plate (home plate is at 55 feet here and 0 is 5 feet 6 inches from the rubber) when the slider bends away from a right handed batter and the fastball bends in to a right handed batter. If the arm action and the spin don’t give the pitch away the batter will already be swinging before any discernable difference appears. When scouts watch a game they are likely not close enough to pick up the spin of the ball so to them it looks like Scherzer’s slider isn’t breaking until right near home plate when it leaves the plane of the fastball. One other thing I want to mention is because Scherzer stands on the far right of the rubber (from his point of view) and because he throws 3/4 arm angle the ball really looks like it is coming from the right handed batters box. This is very similar to the effect you see with many LOOGY pitchers who are so tough on left handed batters. Scherzer was absolutely deadly against right handed batters in the show hitting only .172/.289/.234 against him. This combination of late break on his slider and pronounced release point is why. A similar thing occurs with Scherzer’s change up. Here is a side view of that pitch. Look at how tight Scherzer’s change up sticks to his fastball until they diverge 20 feet from home plate. PITCHf/x can’t tell arm action but when I studied change ups I found three things to be important: A similar release point between the change up and fastball, a high speed differential, and a change up that moves down and away to opposite handed batters. Scherzer has these in spades. His release point is a perfect match, his change up is nine MPH slower than his fastball, and his change has some crazy down and away movement to a left handed batter. In fact, Scherzer’s change up has some crazy downward movement almost producing negative vertical movement which would indicate a screwball not a change up. You can see the downward movement on the plot above. Not only should this produce a lot of swings and misses against left handers but he should be able to keep the ball down with ease. This means he has the option of throwing that change up to right handed batters which is something he is currently doing about 5% of the time. The worst thing that a power pitcher can do is leave up a change up against a right handed batter because that results in a BP fastball speed middle in and that pitch usually gets crushed. Because of that, few pitchers throw a change up to a similarly handed batter. Scherzer has shown a willingness to do this however, and I think that is something that will help him in the future. Because few right handed batters see change ups from right handed pitchers there is some extra deception and it puts something in the back of hitters minds as well. In any case, if Scherzer is going to make it as starter he is going to need to hone that change up. Left handed batters hit .298/.386/.426 against him and the only thing in his arsenal that is going to substantially lower those numbers is a better change up. The tools are there for him to have a good change up he likely just needs more time with the pitch. While I can’t speak about the questionable mechanics that might prevent Scherzer from starting in the big leagues I can say that he definitely has the stuff to start. Many starting pitchers have reached elite levels with “only” three pitches (CC Sabathia for instance throws almost identical stuff from the port side) and Scherzer already has a plus, plus fastball to go with a plus slider. If he can improve his change up that will give him a real weapon against left handed batters and he should have no problem against batters the second or third time though. --

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