(Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images)
So it’s become pretty clear that post-DL Bartolo Colon isn’t quite the same pitcher he was pre-hamstring pull. This is not meant to be an indictment or a complaint about the way he’s pitched; I think most would agree he’s still given the Yankees way more than anyone could have expected. However, though he’s been able to continue to mostly limit the damage, he’s struggled to give the team length.
The most likely answer for this seems to be fatigue, as many expected that Bartolo having thrown more innings than he has since 2005 would catch up to him at some point. To the untrained eye there doesn’t appear to be anything mechanically wrong; for whatever reason he’s just not working as efficiently as he’d been — as I noted in last night’s game recap, he’s only gotten into the 7th inning three times in the 9 starts he’s made since he’s been back, and has a 4.27 ERA in his last 46.1 innings. While that’s reasonable production for a back-end starter, it’s certainly not the Colon who had a 2.96 ERA over 67 innings in his first 10 starts of the year and routinely made it through seven innings, either.
Given how much more hittable Colon has been since returning (.300/.357/.489 compared to .227/.272/.375 pre-DL), I wanted to see if there was anything in the pitchFX data (courtesy of TexasLeaguers.com) that might tell us why Colon’s results have faltered:
- Post-DL, Colon’s been throwing more four-seamers and a lot fewer two-seamers. This is somewhat curious considering how effective the two-seamer’s been for him all season, particularly in racking up called strikes.
- In concert with the dip in two-seam usage is a rise in slider usage. Of course, as we know, pitchFX data is far from infallible, and it’s possible there are two-seamers that have been misclassified as sliders and vice versa, but I can only go off the data that’s made available.
- The average speeds on both fastballs and his slider are identical pre- and post-, so it’s not a velocity issue.
- His strike, swing and foul percentages are both slightly up on both fastballs, and he’s also getting slightly fewer swings-and-misses on his fastballs, both of which lead me to believe he’s probably leaving a few too many fastballs over the plate.
- Location-wise, the biggest eye-opener is the lack of rise on his four-seamer — prior to the DL his four-seamer had a V-break of 9.68 inches; post-DL he’s lost nearly an inch-and-a-half of vertical break at 8.24 inches. Fatigue-related? Maybe. For what it’s worth, the MLB average V-break for righties on a four-seamer is 8.75 inches, which means Bart is a good half inch below that, and so this also falls in line with the conclusion in the previous bullet point.
- For the most part, the results data — strike, swing, whiff, foul and in play % — have remained constant for his fastballs and slider in spite of some slight upticks. However, the changeup, though he rarely throws it, has essentially been useless for Colon, only going for a strike 41% of the time, and as a result batters went from swinging and missing nearly 1/5 of the time to only 5%. But again, the change is such a small part of his arsenal that nothing conclusive can be drawn from the data shifts.
For additional reference, here’s a look at Colon’s pitch locations pre- and post-DL:
It’s pretty hard to eke out any discernible differences with so many plotted pitches, but it looks like Colon’s thrown fewer two-seamers to the inside of the plate against righthanders, and replaced some of them with inside sliders.
Ultimately, it appears as though Colon’s decreased use of his two-seamer combined with an increased reliability on a four-seamer that’s not rising as much as it previously had been are at least partially responsible for why the opposition is now hitting like Michael Cuddyer (.845 OPS) instead of Gordon Beckham (.644 OPS) against him.
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9 Responses to What’s up with Bart?
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TIQ IQ
Considering the big velocity difference between the two-seamer and the slider, it’s hard to imagine there’s a lot of misclassification going on.
I haven’t watched every game since he came back, but his two seamer looks like it’s moving differently. Before the injury, it looked like it was mostly sharp horizontal movement. In the few games I’ve seen since, it has more sink, but horizontal movement doesn’t look the same (less sharp). Could his arm slot have dropped a little due to fatigue?
I agree, Jay, about the reduced horizontal movement. I’ve seen the cute Maddux-like two seam fade onto the left corner; but the major sweeping fader across the plate to the upper right corner is missing. And the latter was a big part of his tactics: he attacked all four corners of the zone with what Bob Lorenz called a “scissors” approach that cut up the batters, both righty and lefty.
Maybe the umps, who don’t like high strikes, have discouraged him; more likely, the two seamer isn’t working as well, so he wants to keep it down.
Considering the clear fatigue, lack of length, but still consistent velocity, wouldn’t placing Colon in the bullpen have obvious rewards? It allows the Yanks to refrain from either absurdly demoting Ivan Nova or messing with Phil Hughes’ identity as a ballplayer by moving him back to the pen. Though Joba’s case is certainly an individual one, you would have to think the Yanks would be fearful a reprise of the situation with Hughes. Colon gave us some great innings early in the year, but can you really ask for much more from a 38 year old who is in awful shape to begin with? At this point, Hughes might be the more effective option for the present anyway. Why risk his future for someone whose career is clearly coming to a close?
No game thread?
I think its time to skip colon once and see what happens
I agree. They’ve skipped Garcia a few times, now once they get past the O’s doubleheader they can skip Colon and see if he gets some of that life back on the FB.
Though as Larry pointed out, there might be some game calling differences as well.
[...] a move to the bullpen. That Bartolo might be on his way back (crosses fingers!) to New York. The Yankee Analysts take a look at Bartolo both before and after his DL stint and find some interesting and encouraging — encouraging if you don’t like the Yankees [...]
Just wanted to add that there’s a huge split with Bartolo between Martin and Cervelli this year, though Frankie has only caught 4 games.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=colonba01&year=2011&t=p#catch
I dug through the game log. The Cervelli games all came before the injury, and were facing a mixed level of opposition (Indians, Angels, A’s, O’s). Not sure if there’s anything there, but I’d like to give Frankie another shot and see if they click. Colon doesn’t shake off his catcher, he throws whatever fingers they put down. Given that there’s not a huge difference in his stuff, I’d like to try someone with a different game plan.
Another thing worth noting. There seems to be some consensus building that Colon should skip a few starts. He had a few weeks off when he tweaked his hammy, and hasn’t been as good since. I’m not sold on that being the answer.