If I told you that Ivan Nova would raise his K/9 by three full batters and his K% by seven percentage points while dropping his BB/9 into the two’s and cut his BB% by almost a full percentage, you’d probably think he’d be having a great year. Add in the fact that he’s increased his strand rate by just over two percentage points and you’d have to assume he was definitely having a fine year. Higher strikeouts? Lower walks? More guys left on the bases? That’s all a formula for run prevention. But of course, those numbers don’t tell us the entire story.
When I last checked in with Nova, he had a HR/FB% of 18.2. I thought there was no way that rate of homers could maintain itself and I was sort of right. Nova’s HR/FB% isn’t 18.2 anymore; it’s 18.8. Since I wrote that article, he’s given up five homers in 25 innings, good for a 1.8 HR/9. There’s been just one start this year, 4/27 vs Detroit, in which Nova hasn’t allowed a home run.
Mike at RAB touched on the overall pitching situation yesterday and I don’t think there’s any room for disagreement right now: something’s gotta give. Nova does deserve another time or two through the rotation to figure things out, but if he hasn’t by now, will he for the rest of the year? Rarely do I say I want a pitcher to strike out fewer batters or be less aggressive, but that seems like the remedy for Nova here, doesn’t it? While he’s got the velocity to do so, pitching up in the zone with his fastball isn’t working and he’s not getting grounders (GB% of around 44%) and he’s obviously getting tattooed. While his slider hasn’t been the most consistent pitch in the world this year, it’s still getting lots of swings and misses. If he can manage to keep it down in the zone (the pitch also has a HR/FB% of 20.59, per Brooks), then he can keep the strikeouts up and hopefully start to correct himself in regards to grounders.
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One Response to On Ivan Nova, briefly
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TIQ IQ
Nova needs to re-establish his approach, as he indicated after that lousy 12 k performance, the one before last. He needs to feature his ground-ball fastball, and spice in the slider and curve and changeup to keep them guessing. He meant to this past start, he may need a bit to implement it.
The Votto homer was the case in point: he had struck him out with the slider in earlier, and he was expecting the same pitch. He either moved up, and got it before it broke much, or it was a lazy slider, but he was expecting it. Ivan wowed them with the slider last year, and he never had cement mixers. Overuse may bring sloppiness.
This stuff is fixable through mere determination, and Ivan has shown the trait.
PS. I sawe Soriano throw the identical slider in on a lefty to whiff him. Wonder if he learned it from Ivan, or more likely taught it to him. Then he practiced it in Scranton.