Tonight in Philadelphia, 6’10” pitcher Chris Young makes his debut as a New York Met, and Brian Costa in The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece about how Young’s size makes his fastball look faster than it is.
Mets’ Chris Young Relies On Optical lllusion
I don’t doubt it. But at the rate Young is losing speed on his fastball -- probably due to his shoulder woes -- I wonder if the optical illusion is going to save him. Not that Young seems particularly worried ...
In 2007, when he was an All-Star with the San Diego Padres, he threw his fastball at an average speed of 90.3 mph, according to the baseball statistics site FanGraphs.com. That figure has declined steadily since then, to 87.6 mph in 2008, 85.8 mph in 2009 and 84.7 mph in 2010.
He bristles at questions about the numbers on the radar gun, though. He says they are irreveland. "Velocity is something for the fans and media," Young said. "You guys seem to be fixated on it."
The guys can’t really help themselves, since there’s a pretty obvious correlation between speed and success. Isn’t it true that as pitchers’ fastballs (etc.) get slower, their ERA’s get higher?
According to the piece, an 84-mile-an-hour fastball from Young looks like 92 miles an hour to the hitter ... But doesn’t it then follow that if Young were still throwing 90 miles an hour, it would seem close to 100 to the hitter? And doesn’t that go a long way toward explaining how he posted a 3.12 ERA in 2007?
Well, part of the way, anyway. Young was pretty lucky in 2007. He gave up a .243 batting average on balls in play that season ... but then again, Young’s always given up exceptionally low BABiPs, with a .254 career mark that (I’m only sort of guessing) must rank among the very lowest among contemporary starting pitchers.*
* Good guess, Rob. Among pitchers with at least 600 innings pitched since 2004, Young's .254 BABiP is easily the lowest. Next on the list are Matt Cain, Jeremy Guthrie and Roger Clemens, each with .270 BABiP.
The real luck that season was probably the home runs, as Young allowed only 10, at essentially half his career rate.
It was just one of those years. Pitchers have them.
It doesn’t seem likely that Young will have another, though.
From 2004 through 2007, he struck out 2.53 times more hitters than he walked.
From 2008 through 2010, he struck out 1.6 times more hitters than he walked. Young was probably lucky to post a 4.13 ERA in those injury-plagued seasons -- we’re talking about only 36 starts -- and he can probably thank Petco Park, too.
If Young can continue to allow exceptionally low batting averages on balls in play, he can continue to pitch well enough in the majors to deserve a spot. But as long as he’s throwing 85 miles an hour, his performance will be hanging by a thin reed.
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