With the elimination of the cutter from Phil Hughes’ repertoire, he’s become a three pitch starter who, at times, looks completely reliant on the fastball. If you’re unfamiliar, the 26 year old throws a four-seam fastball, a curveball, and a changeup to lefties. Since removing the cutter from his repertoire, Hughes has pitched to a 3.48 ERA over the last 64.2 innings, but he’s also dealt with a couple games where he’s been lit up. A lack of an out pitch has always been a problem for him, but he’s made some big steps in the last two months in his comfort with the curveball and changeup. Two decent pitches to backup a strong fastball can be enough for a starter, but a problem occurs when you’re missing the command or movement of one of those pitches, and I think that’s where his rough outings are coming from.
In his latest start, Paul O’Neil made an interesting point about the righthander’s curveball, there seemed to be some exaggerated movement similar to an 11-5 curveball thrown in the sixth inning against the Indians. As if Hughes heard the announcers, he threw a perfect 12-6 curveball only 2 pitches later. The assumption in the booth was that he had thrown two different curveballs, and after the game, some even believed he was throwing a slider. Hughes cleared the air after the game.
Apparently there was some thought during yesterday’s game that Phil Hughes was throwing his slider again. Hughes said this morning that he’s been occasionally using a slightly lower arm angle and throwing a harder, tighter curveball that might look a little bit like a slider. It’s not a new pitch, just a different way of using his curveball. I know he’s done it in the past, and he said he’s been working on it the past six starts or so.
Let’s take a look at the pitches in question, focusing on the release point and pitch movement, spin angle, and rotation courtesy of PITCHf/x.
I’ve provided the PITCHf/x data along with the pitches above, and you’ll see that some significant differences exist between both the release point and pitch movement. Hughes called his 11-5 curveball a harder and tighter pitch thanks to dropping his arm angle. Indeed, the release point of the 11-5 curveball is around 2.5 inches lower and an inch closer to the pitcher’s mound. The velocity is around 3 mph faster on the 11-5 curveball, which is complimented by some additional vertical movement and a decrease in horizontal movement. Meanwhile, the rotation and spin angle of the curveballs remain very similar.
If developed, both pitches will be useful tools depending on the type of hitters he’s facing, but I think the new 11-5 curveball looks like the nastier pitch. It could be the small sample size of the two curveballs in question, but the 11-5 is showing additional drop, a tighter spin, harder velocity, and a bigger break into left handed batters. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to isolate these pitches through his last 6 games, and thus can’t provide outcomes like whiff rates or groundball rates. I think it’s fair to be optimistic and excited about the pitch though, if anything, at least Hughes is trying to develop the out-pitch he needs.
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4 Responses to Looking At Hughes’ 12-6 and 11-5 Curveballs
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TIQ IQ
I like the movement on the 11-5 pitch a lot, but I wonder if batters will be able to pick it up from the changed arm angle.
as long as it breaks, I think the best the hitter can do is take it, or hit it into the ground, probably foul.
One quick impression is that the 12-6 was a strike and the 11-5 a ball. If he’s using the 11-5 as a pitch out of the zone, opposing teams will pick up on that and it may have a limited shelf life. Pregame scouting reports will simply mention “if you see he drops his arm angle, don’t swing”. If Phil subsequently adjusts by throwing the 11-5 for strikes, the lesser movement on the pitch may rear its head as a negative. If Phil opts to counteract the SRs by throwing his FB from the same arm angle as the 11-5, it will have less life and that could backfire as well.
Stuff like this is why I’ve been down on Phil for a long time. The good first half in 2010 followed by the poor 2nd half was likely the result of a similar adjustment early that year on his part, where the league eventually caught up with him. At the end of the day, I don’t see how an extreme fly ball righty pitcher can have sustained success at YS3. I still maintain his best use is as a trade chip, and with 1 year of team control after the season I hope he has a good year if only to up his trade value.
He should use both curves. One more thing for the batter to think about. Phils major problem has always been control.