Here is Erik Bedard according to Inside Edge and Baseball Info Solutions. Inside edge is from espn.com while BIS is from fangraphs: I am going to use 2007 data because the IE data on espn.com is for his whole career unfortunately and not just 2008
Very interesting to see just how much their numbers are off. I guess that goes to show how inaccurate it can be to chart pitches from television. The biggest concern I have with this data is how different the curveball percentages are. From my experience, curves are the easiest pitches to chart.
I will look at the pitch f/x data and update the post later tonight.
UPDATE: To see Bedard through pitch f/x, refer to this terrific article by Mike Fast from January.
To give an example of what Mike and I talked about in the comments, here is a quick look at spin angle vs speed:
Just from eyeballing that data, which is not broken down by pitch type, you can see three clear sets of data: Fastball which has the most speed, changeup which is the smallest set to the right and the curve ball to the left. If you look closely at the fastball data set, you can see the bottom left part of that is starting to break off from the rest of the points. That is the cutter Mike talks about.Bedard is definitly not throwing a slider. The slider would show up around the 80-85 mph range with a spin angle around 150.
Hope that helps anyone who is wondering what the data looks like before it is dissected.
2 comments:
Taking a quick look at Bedard's player card over at Josh Kalk's site, I think he's thrown 240 curves (32%), 24 changeups (3%), and 483 fastballs and cutters (total 65%). I can't separate out the fastballs from the cutters just by looking at the aggregate at Josh's site. I'd probably have to look at them game-by-game.
Last year, I found that Bedard threw 35% curveballs, 6% changeups, 32% four-seam fastballs, and 28% cut fastballs. This year's numbers look pretty well in line with that.
Scouting services like BIS and Inside Edge have a terrible time picking out the cutter. That's much more difficult to do with the eyeball than it is with PITCHf/x data. On the other hand, Inside Edge is just horrible on the off-speed pitches. I don't know what drugs they were smoking. At least BIS gets pretty close except for missing the cutters.
Thanks for commenting Mike.
I saw that article you wrote on Bedard and should have linked to it at the time I was writing the post. I was in a rush and just quickly threw up the BIS vs IE numbers.
It is very unfortunate to see just how much you can miss from charting off TV. I don't know where IE is getting slider from. Every graph I have seen of Bedard clearly shows no slider. Oh well.
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