Andy Sonnanstine: Too Many N's, Not Enough K's

Andy Sonnanstine throws junk. Guys like this are tough to deal with when the data is noisy. By "like this" I mean a 25-year old, right-handed version of Jamie Moyer. So, I stripped down to games with cleaner bunches, and dealt with it from there. Who knows what kind of interesting stuff I obliterated (like all of his home games). Moving on....

Sonnanstine throws a lot of cutters, but sits around 88 with his fastballs. He'll change speeds and try and keep hitters off balance, but hasn't had a whole lot of success.

He started out OK in 2008, but worked some high pitch counts, after which he became more inconsistent from start-to-start. His last quality outing was May 16, and hasn't gotten out of the 6th inning since May 21.

He rarely walks anyone, and pitched better in his last two starts, but was yanked with just 86 pitches in both games. With just 14 walks in 14 starts his 54 K's still do not impress.



Against righties, he's just cutter and slider. Lefties see plenty of cutters, but a whole mix of everything else.

cfx	L	R	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm	B:CS	corner%	Sw%	Whiff%	SwOZ%	TaIZ%	HR%	NKS	G:AO
CH	43	2	80.9	-4.4	6.7	210	1,010	1.9	15.56	55.56	32.00	48.00	25.93	2.2	0.583	1.2
CU	38	17	71.7	9.0	-3.4	250	984	1.7	16.36	50.91	28.57	36.11	14.29	0.0	0.000	1.4
F2	53	11	87.5	-6.9	4.9	235	1,073	2.6	23.44	43.75	7.14	28.21	20.00	0.0	0.462	1.0
F4	26	5	88.0	-3.5	8.7	203	1,175	1.4	6.45	38.71	0.00	20.00	38.89	6.5	1.600	2.2
FC	148	131	87.9	0.0	7.5	180	961	1.5	13.98	45.52	7.09	20.00	28.28	0.0	0.349	1.0
SL	24	65	77.7	7.0	1.3	134	799	1.9	5.62	57.30	29.41	42.11	28.57	1.1	0.750	0.6
	332	231	84.1	0.7	5.2	189	966	1.7	13.68	48.13	15.50	28.94	26.70	0.7	0.480	1.0

He doesn't seem to do much other than throw strikes, get grounders, and give up home runs.

As you can expect, he stays ahead in the count. He only gets behind on the first pitch in 1 of 3 match-ups. Here's how he did, by pitch, in 0-0 counts.

#	cfx	strike	ball	X + HR
13	CH	46.2	30.8	23.1
11	CU	54.5	36.4	9.1
28	F2	46.4	39.3	14.3
9	F4	44.4	33.3	22.2
74	FC	56.8	33.8	9.5
22	SL	54.5	45.5	0.0
157		52.9	36.3	10.8

Here's what he throws in all situations.

cfx	#	first	ahead	behind	even	full
CH	45	13	14	8	10	0
CU	55	11	28	2	14	0
F2	64	28	16	9	10	1
F4	31	9	10	7	4	1
FC	279	74	75	78	42	10
SL	89	22	34	8	21	4
	563	157	177	112	101	16

So, that's cutter in any count, and it's his go-to pitch when behind. 78 out of 112. 10 out of 16 on full counts. Early in the count, and when he gets ahead, he will throw his other pitches. Still, the cutter accounts for almost half.

OK, now that I'm done with Mr. N's, I'll cover the bullpen, followed by Jame Shields. I should have until about 8pm tomorrow night before worrying about relief pitchers.