Yesterday at RAB, Joe mused wonderfully about Phil Hughes and his troubles putting hitters away when he’s up in the count:
One result of Hughes’s control is that he often works ahead in the count. He has faced 341 hitters this year, of which 83 have gone to an 0-2 count. That’s 24.3 percent of all hitters he’s faced. The AL average is just 19.3 percent of all PA. Yet hitters have had a field day once they’re this far behind. The average AL hitter has a .166 BA and .250 SLG in PA when they’ve seen an 0-2 count. In PA when Hughes has gotten ahead 0-2 hitters have a .253 BA and .494 SLG. Even worse, when the count is 0-2 AL hitters have a .146 BA and .222 SLG. Against Hughes with an 0-2 count they have a .294 BA and — I’m not even kidding — a .618 SLG. When Hughes is ahead in the count, opponents have hit .236/.242/.394 against him. The average AL pitcher holds opponents to a .201/.210/.300 line while ahead.
That .618 SLG is just…what? How? Well, let’s take a look at how, using the pitch f/x data we can gather from Brooks. Per Brooks’s data, Hughes has thrown 102 pitches while ahead 0-2 in the count. 63 of them have been fastballs, two have been sinkers (probably mislabeled cutters), three have been cutters, 27 have been curveballs and 6 have been changeups. As has been his M-0 for a while, Hughes is essentially a two-pitch pitcher when up 0-2.
The fastball isn’t all that much of a problem. After all, a 33.33% whiff/swing rate is pretty solid. However, it’s pretty evident that Hughes leaves the ball up in the zone in 0-2 counts. Why? He gets grounders on only 18.18% of the fastballs put in play; and, his HR/(FB+LD)% on fastballs in 0-2 counts is 12.5%. That’s not outrageous, but it’s still above the overall league average (~10.6) and looks pretty bad considering the heavy count advantage.
The curveball is slightly better in that it gets grounders 33.33% of the time that it’s put into play. But, that doesn’t tell the entire story. When batters hit Phil’s 0-2 curves, they hit those suckers HARD, evidenced by a 33.33% LD/BIP rate and a staggering 50.00 (!!!!!!!) HR/(FB+LD)%. I think it’s safe to say that Phil is hanging his curves on 0-2 like it’s going out of style.
The fix for all this seems rather simple, and it’s to get the ball down in the damn zone. But as we’ve seen for years, Hughes struggles to do that on a consistent basis and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon. If he’s going to insist on working up in the zone with his fastball, he needs to make sure it’s crowding the hitter. As for the curve, maybe try and waste it a bit more, or work in more pitches that are effective low in the zone, like the changeup. Mike E said this in our email conversation yesterday, and I think it rings pretty true:
It seems, at this point, that Hughes needs the absolutely perfect conditions to pitch, and that his delivery is very delicate. He clearly has some serious upside in the tank, but it seems that we’re constantly reminded that a 25/26 year old rarely has perfect mechanics. This is definitely the case for Hughes.
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4 Responses to On Hughes and 0-2, quickly
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TIQ IQ
Love the column but just a question about the email from “Mike E.” at the end.
Your conclusion — one I agree with — is that Hughes should “get the ball down in the damn zone.” But Mike’s email suggests that it’s a mechanical issue. Is it though? He seems to throw as many curves up in the zone for both called and swinging strikes as he does down in the zone so it seems like it may be less an inability to keep the ball down than it is simply his choice to keep the curve high in the zone as well.
Now, as to why Girardi, Rothschild, Martin and Hughes all think this is the best course of action, I have no idea. But, as valid as the mechanical question might be, I think it’s an equal question of Hughes doing what he’s comfortable with and not realizing that living up in the zone with all of your pitches isn’t the best gameplan.
he is a good picher,but if the team don’t make runs he can, win ,hapenns the same whit the other pichers
Hughes’ biggest problem is his lack of control in the zone. People think just because you don’t walk a ton of batters means you don’t have control problems. Hughes can get the ball in the zone with consistency, he has a hard time consistently getting the ball in the spot it’s suppose to be in. I don’t know if it’s mechanical or what but it’s been him MO since before he went to the pen. Now in the pen he had the added velocity to get away with it more, but as a starter he can’t get away with very little control around the edges of the strikezone. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he’s come any closer to fixing.
I would find it astonishing that no one would sit w Hughs and actually create a strategy for what to do after an 0-2 count. Throwing a change up for a ball can be very effective, especially low….even more effectively low and away to lefties, low and in to righties.