From Chad Jennings (courtesy of RAB Twitter):
For now, Phil Hughes is only throwing fastballs and changeups in his bullpen sessions, and he expects to throw one more bullpen before he mixes in curveballs and cutters. He compared the development of his changeup to last year’s development of the cutter. “I’ll concentrate on it all spring,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll get it to a point where it’s a solid pitch for me. It just comes with repetition.”
Although Hughes does not need a changeup to be successful as a reliever or a decent starter, he may need one to be an upper echelon type starter. The cutter is simply a fastball variant, and I am not sure he can get by throwing a fastball or similar pitch 70-75% of the time. Mixing in a solid changeup, even if he only throws it once an inning, will help keep hitters off balance and will force them to refrain from sitting on the fastball and curve. However, improving a pitch is not an easy endeavor, and there are no guarantees that Hughes’ hard work will pay off. Hopefully, he can experience at least some success with the pitch, and broaden his repertoire in preparation for his eventual move to the rotation.
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10 Responses to Hughes Plans To Work On Changeup
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TIQ IQ
Not sure if my eyes were deceiving me last year but I was not impressed at all by Hughes’s cutter. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching 42 for too long, but it didn’t seem to have much cutting action. I felt like it acted more as a way for him to differentiate speeds on his fastball and that’s what gave it whatever effectiveness it had. Essentially it acted as a sub-par changeup. So, I’m all for this. Hopefully he drops cutter and goes fastball, curveball, changeup
Well, we can’t expect anyone to have to same cutter that Mo throws. I think that because Hughes throws more then one pitch is the reason he didn’t have as much movement on it. Your right when you say it acted in a way to differentiate his fastball but I disagree with saying that he should drop it. A starter in my opinion needs to have at least four pitches. The exception to that though have been Santana and Lincecum. I don’t know where you fall under this topic but my feeling is that if he doesn’t win the 5th starter spot in spring training then he will never be a starter again and will eventually become the closer.
I only say he should drop it because I feel he still has a lot to learn, and think that focusing on keeping or improving his cutter would take away from his focus on learning a plus changeup. If he can work on his changeup and maintain his other pitches then that would be fine with me. Maybe his cutter is just better than what I think it is though, or possibly could improve faster than his development of a change so I could be going in the wrong direction with my argument. I’ll say this, it would be great vs. lefties if he had a change and cutter. All the better if he could throw 95mph as a starter
Going to somewhat agree with Trev’s lack of confidence in Hughes’s cutter. It doesn’t have much movement, and it’s not off-speed enough to give guys a real change of pace.
With an excellent fastball, curve and a good (doesn’t need to be great) changeup, Hughes could eventually move into a #2 starter’s role, but he’ll mire in good-to-mediocrity if he can’t develop that third pitch. I don’t see how he “doesn’t need” a changeup, Moshe.
Sure, AJ can do it with a fastball and curve and really nothing else. AJ’s two pitches are much better in terms of “stuff” than Hughes’s. It’s critical that he develop the change.
I fear him not doing so relegates him to a bullpen role for a long time, and frankly, that’s a bummer considering he was thought to possess front-of-the-rotation potential. Real loss of value.
Firstly, the cutter worked very well for him, and had a 4.6 pitch value. To just discard it seems silly. And I agreed with you- he might just be a reliever or at best a decent starter without the changeup.
Didn’t realize it was that good, although it was thrown fairly sparingly. MY EYES DONT LIE, MOSHE. DONT TRUST THE NUMBERS!
Too strong?
How did that cutter work for him in Oct? I haven’t seen any of those fancy rectangles w/ the dots all around it but when I was watching his bullpen games, I never thought “wow, nice pitch” when he struck someone out. It seemed a lot of his strikeouts came on pitches way out of the zone. Could be selective memory. It seems once Oct rolled around, hitters were more selective and he couldn’t get anyone out. If guys aren’t chasing his pitches that are 6 inches out of the zone, that cutter is almost completely ineffective. Again…I could just be remembering the ugly strikeouts. Thoughts?
De Ja Vu. Its like its 2006. Or 2007. Or 2008. Or 2009. I think I’ve heard this story once or twice before.
Haha!
Seriously, though, if Hughes can get even an average changeup, he’ll be fine. His fastball is sitting nicely, his curve has good movement, it just needs to be used more, and his cutter is solid.
He should have learned a decent change-up by now.