Ben Badler of Baseball America has posted some observations, with contributions from scouts, on Brad Holt and Jonathan Niese’s outings from last weekend.
On Niese:
Niese also looked shaky, though his stuff was more impressive. Niese threw an 88-90 fastball with some sink, though his location of the pitch got him hit around today. Niese elevated his fastball too frequently, leading to several hard-hit balls off the pitch, including a wind-assisted home run to right field by Allen Craig.
It sees to me I recall Niese getting hurt on elevated fastballs in hitters counts in the big leagues in 2008.
Niese’s secondary pitches were better than his fastball today. Niese’s curveball came in at 68-73 mph, a plus pitch with sharp break and two-plane depth. His low-80s changeup was another quality secondary pitch that caught a few hitters out front.
On Holt
It was clear that Holt was there to work on his changeup as he mixed the pitch in liberally today against hitters. Holt’s fastball sat at 91-92 mph, topping out at 93 against Wallace.
Holt has a lot more fastball than that, but at this stage of spring training, that velocity seems fine.
Holt showed an 83-86 mph changeup, a pitch he changed his grip for this summer to a modified circle grip. He threw only a few breaking balls, a 77-79 mph pitch that Holt labeled a curveball.
“I felt all right,” Holt said. “…Location was a little off, left balls up, got behind in counts, but other than that, (I) threw a lot of changeups; only threw two breaking balls. But the changeup has come along tremendously since the summer, and my breaking ball is still there. Overall everything was coming together good.”
Holt’s willingness to dedicate himself to improving his changeup in spring training speaks well of his desire and intelligence.
regarding Holt:
at 86 a changeup is dangerously close to bat speed. Won’t he need to dial that down a bit for the pitch to be effective?
and its never a good sign if the commentator cannot identify the breaking pitch. Must not have enough break to tell.
Of course it is early and he has to start somewhere with these pitches. Should be a very interesting year to follow his progress.
Completely agree about the changeup.
I remember reading an article on the difference in velocity of change up vs fastball, and all the elite change ups were 12-15 mph different. Santana’s being one of the very elite ones with a large discrepancy from his fastball.
If he can keep his changeup at around 83 and his fastball goes back to 85 then there is the 12 mph for a guy in his first full season.
Its still early guys, lets not jump to conclusions until he starts games with more meaning and stamina under his belt. Now’s the time to play around with things that may or may not work.
*fastball goes back to 95