Comments on: Lefties, Fastballs and Jonathan Niese

By: WC

WC — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:06:51 +0000

pitchfx data on movement for a sample size of 10 major league innings is hard to judge by, this year shows decent movement, last year shows awful movement, the kind of fastball that can be spotted on the inside corner of the plate and get ripped up the gap by an opposing pitcher

seeing him in buffalo recently, what did you think of the life on his fastball? His velocity isn’t so important to me, whether or not his ball is moving is. If he’s doing something differently now to make his fastball move more, great for him, but if his good stretch is just him spotting/mixing his pitches better, I’m still betting against him being good

By: NickM

NickM — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:43:57 +0000

his curve is a plus pitch.

By: big baby

big baby — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:37:47 +0000

niese has a bad fastball, no change-up and an average curve.

scintillating arsenal.

By: WC

WC — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:32:31 +0000

Niese has been scouted as having a straight fastball since he first started pitching in the system.

It’s a bad pitch. He doesn’t have a usable #1. He would need the cutter to lean on and he would have to locate perfectly to be anything approaching decent in the majors.

By: Not4Nuttin

Not4Nuttin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:05:16 +0000

Toby, thanks for the post. Talk about an interactive site! We talk about it, and you take it to the next step and post facts and details. Nice job!

By: Not4Nuttin

Not4Nuttin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:02:48 +0000

Beautifully put! Wow!

By: adropofvenom

adropofvenom — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:31:07 +0000

Do I sense I follow-up coming? Would be good reading…

By: theperfectgame

theperfectgame — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:01:30 +0000

Give up the fight, Nick, it’s like playing tennis against a wall. No matter how good you are, you’re never going to score any points. The wall isn’t better, but it is denser, and entirely unmovable from its current position. All it does is takes everything you send its way and spits it back at you, without adding anything of its own. You’re just going to end up frustrated and exhausted.

Analogy aside, I did appreciate your movement comps.

By: Toby Hyde

Toby Hyde — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:46:48 +0000

Yeah, our spam filter seems to think anything with more than one or two links is spam, but sometimes it even catches those as spam so I have to approve comments with links manually. Adding the movement is a nice extension of the piece. Thanks for that. Maybe that belongs in the original table too.

By: Toby Hyde

Toby Hyde — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:42:10 +0000

Yeah, that was an edit, I put up in response to your question. I thought it deserved to go at the end of the article anyway. Sorry for leaving that out in the first place.