This from Newsday:
Leiter stressed that although he does not see Wang daily, as pitching coach Dave Eiland does, Wang must develop backup plans when his sinker isn’t working.
Dolan’s Cadillac film “You have to have a plan B, even a C. I can tell you in my career, I pitched plenty of games where I had plan C working, maybe even D,” Leiter said. “He’s got to be able to throw his slider or some other second pitch for called strikes in fastball counts, behind in the count, in hitter’s counts.”
Quite frankly, I find the idea that he is struggling because he is dependent on one pitch ridiculous. (Although Leiter is not explicitly stating that point here, he is referencing a point that he has made repeatedly on YES). It does not take years for a league to catch up to a player. If a player is getting by on gimmicks or subpar stuff, scouting is advanced enough in this day that he normally fails to get through one season without getting exposed, let along four. Wang pitched to a 3.79 ERA up to this point with the stuff that he has, although he has implemented a slider that has decreased his groundball rate but increased his K-rate. Outside of that pitch, which he possesses at this point, I see no reason to further mess with a previously successful pitcher by tinkering with new pitches. As Joel Sherman states, sometimes these mechanical issues just happen, and some hard work can snap you out of your funk:
Olney focused heavily on Aaron Cook and how the righty went from having lost his signature sinker to doing video work that enabled Cook to rediscover the pitch. I point this out because Chien-Ming Wang, like Cook, depends so thoroughly on a sinker to get groundballs. You could argue that no two starters in the majors so thoroughly rely on sinkers and grounders more than Cook and Wang.
I went and looked it up: Through three starts (April 18), Cook had a 10.22 ERA. The only pitcher in the majors with three starts who had a worse ERA at that moment was Wang (34.50). Since then — his sinker rediscovered — Cook has gone 5-2 with a 3.11 ERA in 10 starts.
In his last start, CMW had his velocity and movement back, but his location remained lacking. Hopefully he can recapture his old form starting Wednesday night.
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7 Responses to Leiter: Wang Needs Another Pitch
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TIQ IQ
Wang doesn’t need another pitch. He already throws a 4 seamer, the sinker, a slider, a changeup and once in a while he will toss a splitter. The problem is this, everybody in the league knows that Wang is going to go out there trying to establish his sinker. This leaves almost no room for error on his part. We saw in his last start against Boston that they almost fell over themselves everytime he’d throw a slider as they were no doubt loaded up for the sinker in every count.
I think Wang just needs to go out there assuming he’s not going to have his best sinker working and throw the slider and changeup early. If you do that the first time through the order, I’d imagine that 95 mph sinker is going to be almost unhittable even if he misses by just a bit once they start thinking about the slider and/or changeup
I didn’t know he had a dependable change-up!
He needs the old “Adapt & Improvise”, attitude (as you stated). Changing his style is out of the question, changing his sequence is a good approach.
If he has a change-up, he should use it more often, all his other pitches are hard (90-95). He really needs the change or curve, anything slow, must keep them off balance. When one steps into the box looking for nothing but hard stuff, it makes your job easier.
His problem is in his mechanics…it looks like that to me…long lay-off etc., that will do it. Remember he has lost it a few times before, the difference is, his injury prevented him from picking up a ball for almost a year…he’ll find it soon. Of course I am an optimist!
I don’t know how “dependable” that change-up is but I know he’s got it. He actually used it very effectively in that game where he struck out so many Red Sox before he got hurt. I don’t even care if it’s a bad change-up, at least flash the pitch more often to keep hitters honest
True!
I think there’s only one thing he needs-to get his sinker back to where it was. When he has his good velocity, movement, and location (which is a pretty good percentage of the time), he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball.
The slider is a nice change of pace, but he had far too much success without even having that to conclude that he ‘needs’ another pitch.
Even without using the word, WAS is a key word here. CMW WAS one of the best pitchers around, he will be again. Mo was a one pitch pitcher…remember? He became a closer with only two pitches…cutter and 4 seamer. Being a starter one needs more then one or two pitches, specially when they are almost the same speed.
His slider helps change the speed and angle of the ball. He needs that slider to go along with his other two pitches. What I am getting at is; IF he had a slow pitch to go along with his other pitches, it would help him stay among the top pitchers for a lot longer. Not saying he has to have another pitch, just that it would help! Does he have a change-up, if he does, I may have missed it?
Moshe I am happy Veras is gone hooray! lol