Cubs Begin Four Game Set in San Francisco - Barry Zito vs. Ted Lilly PITCHf/x Preview

Note: My latest look at Zito breaks down his last three home starts and finds a new arm slot.

As a ten game road trip gets on the road in earnest, the Cubs will look to bounce back from a sweep on the South Side. A four game set against the Giants kicks off with Barry Zito, who will be the last lefty starter the Cubs face on the trip.

Ted Lilly will make it lefty-lefty match-up on Monday night. Like Zito, he's known for his curveball. Zito comes right over the top, more so than Lilly, and gets one of the truest, and biggest, 12-6 curveballs in the game today.



Here's Lilly spin movement chart, for reference.



Here's Lilly and Zito together, with Zito faded out.



You can see Lilly's curves is more of the 6:45 variety, Zito's slider has more movement and the fastballs are very similar, in terms of spin movement. The change-ups differ radically. Lilly throws the circle change, and I suspect Zito's is more along the lines of splitter.

Back to Zito, this is what the pitches look like from above and from first.



Zito doesn't throw hard, and his fastball doesn't have a lot of movement. He has a two-seamer that's not sliced out of the grouping yet, and he may toss in some cutters on occasion.

And, again, Mr. Lilly for comparison



Here's the layered/faded look again, tougher read than the last one, unfortunately. Be sure to click to enlarge this, and all other, images.



The curveballs are very close, the sliders are pretty much the same except for the arm angle. The fastballs track closely, but, again, the change-ups differentiate the most. So, Lilly throws harder, with a different change-up, and a different arm angle(s).

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To wrap things up, here's a look at usage and effectiveness for Barry Zito.

cfx	L	R	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm	B:CS	corner%	Sw%	Whiff%	SwOZ%	TaIZ%	HR%	NKS	G:AO
CH	28	563	73.7	7.0	5.1	127	930	2.6	12.86	55.33	22.32	41.34	21.01	0.8	0.485	0.8
CU	120	328	70.7	-1.2	-10.4	172	1,068	2.0	10.27	39.73	16.85	25.10	35.06	0.7	0.519	1.0
FA	386	1232	84.9	4.1	11.0	159	1,463	1.9	13.84	36.40	10.87	25.17	30.54	0.8	0.558	0.6
SL	106	46	77.6	-2.7	1.2	190	432	2.9	9.87	51.32	26.92	44.66	26.56	0.0	0.222	0.8
	640	2169	79.9	3.5	5.8	156	1,232	2.1	12.85	41.72	16.04	29.40	28.92	0.7	0.512	0.7

		#	CU	FA	CH	SL
L	first	164	16.5	70.1	3.0	10.4
L	ahead	171	31.0	38.6	2.3	28.1
L	behind	163	5.5	77.9	6.1	10.4
L	even	111	26.1	47.7	8.1	18.0
L	full	31	6.5	80.6	0.0	12.9

		#	CU	FA	CH	SL
R	first	552	10.5	67.4	21.6	0.5
R	ahead	555	31.0	41.6	22.2	5.2
R	behind	569	1.4	69.8	28.1	0.7
R	even	384	22.4	44.5	30.5	2.6
R	full	109	3.7	56.0	40.4	0.0

Zito throws more curves to lefties, otherwise, the difference is sliders to lefties and change-ups to righties. Both sides get plenty of his fastballs, which are really not all that fast anymore. In his Oakland days, he threw a few notches faster, but, even then, it was his breaking and off-speed stuff that made the difference.

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