The Hardball Times:All about Ben Sheets
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The Hardball Times found this 5/2/2008 on www.hardballtimes.com [flag] |
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MLB
Ben Sheets
Comments (4)
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David Gassko He has. Are you sure that he has typical horizonatal movement, though? Josh's data last year showed similar horizontal movement to what I found.-
joshkalk Sheets shouldn't have too much horizontal movement because of his over the top throwing style but the data that John is talking about would actually be a cut fastball because it is actually moving away from a RHB. You can see that on your plot the fastballs that are in the positive x movement. Those should be shifted over to the other cluster which is where Sheets normally throws his fastball. That cluster matches up very well with teh 2007 data so in a sense, everyone is right.
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joshkalk Yeah John is 100% correct about the Cincy data really being the problem. His start in Chicago a few days ago also looks not quite in line with the rest of the data but that could be him and not the camera.
Links (7)
Links: Hardball Times Articles on Pitching Mechanics
Published 5/2/2008 by Kyle at Driveline Mechanics
... The second article is about Ben Sheets. David Gassko does a great job (as usual) breaking down the performance analysis side of Sheets, but Dan Loeterman breaks down his mechanics with a few things that are wrong. First, he shows this picture of Sheets compared to Beckett and says Beckett is in a better position to throw the ball since he is more “closed off.” ...
TGIF Reading: That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Published 5/2/2008 by Sarah Green at umpbump.com
... gives Mindy McCready’s dad an Inigo Montoya Award. Any cross-pollination between baseball and The Princess Bride is always appreciated. I like the Brewers. I have three of them on my fantasy team. I picked them to upset the Cubs for the NL Central title. But I don’t see how they’re going to do that without Ben Sheets. His first three starts filled me with hope. His subsequent triceps strain, despair. Now I don’t know what to think. Fortunately, I have the Hardball Times and pitch FX to tell me what’s what. Unfortunately, they also think the triceps tightness could be related ...
Breaking down Benny Boy
Published 5/2/2008 by TCW at Four Blocks to Miller Park
... Hardballtimes.com is an awesome baseball site. Lately they've become "awesomer" with their cogent and dead-on profiles of the Brewers top two pitchers, Yovani Gallardo and Ben Sheets. ...
Ben Sheets Player Spotlight
Published 5/2/2008 by Fantasy Sports PT at The Disabled List Informer
... David Gassko asked me and Dan Loeterman to help contribute to a Ben Sheets player spotlight over at The Hardball Times. Here it is. ...
Friday's Plastic Cup is Pro-Joe
Published 5/2/2008 by Jeff Sackmann at Brew Crew Ball: Front Page Posts
... A few writers at The Hardball Times ganged up to write a massive profile of Ben Sheets, including pitch f/x data, mechanics analysis, and injury commentary. ...
In the News (5/4)
Published 5/5/2008 by Jared at Right Field Bleachers
... - Hardball Times analyzes Ben Sheets. - Could the Sounds' Mark DiFelice be an option if the Brewers need another starter? He's 3-0 with a 2.65 ERA and has struck out 25 batters in 17 innings without allowing a walk. Pretty impressive ...
Reader Poll Results
Published 5/7/2008 by Fantasy Sports PT at The Disabled List Informer
... 50% wanted individual "Player Health Spotlights", and I plan to start writing some of these up in the coming weeks. You can check out The Hardball Times for a spotlight on Ben Sheets that I wrote with David Gassko and Dan Loeterman. ...
Good work, David.
One comment about Sheets' pitch-f/x data: the second plot you show is clearly affected by poor data. The tip-off is the fastballs that appear with positive horizontal movement -- that essentially never happens. Those upper-right quadrant fastballs should be shifted to the left, where they'd overlay with the other ones. In fact, if you look closely, you'll notice some changeups and curveballs that appear too far to the right as well.
The pitch-f/x system in Cincinnati is known to have some issues like this: I'm guessing the Sheets has made a start in Cincy?
Note that this problem causes you to underestimate the average horizontal movement on Sheets' fastball. It looks to me like he has typical horizontal movement.
One last comment: Keith Hernandez in Pure Baseball notes that the tailing action is a two-edged sword -- it makes it hard to come inside to opposite-hand batters. In fact, he admires the fastball of several pitchers (of which Kevin Brown is one, I remember) who had straight fastballs that were effective inside against lefties (in the case of the righty Brown).