Brewers Sign R.J. Swindle. LOOGY Herd Thins

The Brewers picked up R.J. Swindle, via a minor league deal. While the Cubs say they need a veteran reliever, and the roster says they need a lefty, they've made no moves.

Swindle's cutter ("FC"), shown below, is not to be confused with his slider. Based on this interview, they're easily distinguished.

RJ: I throw 5 pitches - fastball, curveball, slider, cutter, changeup. My fastball is about 81-84, my curveball that everyone knows me by is about 51-55, all the other pitches come somewhere in between.

It appears he wasn't throwing it when this PITCHf/x data was recorded (July, over three games in Philadelphia).

Change ("CH"), Curve ("CU") and a not-fastball ("FA"). That curveball is slower than slow.

cfx	#	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm
CH	5	74.2	9.1	2.0	102.6	980.8
CU	8	56.1	-8.4	0.2	134.0	661.8
FA	46	84.5	8.8	4.4	124.9	1,196.7
FC	37	74.2	-3.3	5.6	209.5	717.5

The curve is so slow, it really makes for a fun flight path. Since I path all pitches out to the time when the slowest hits home plate, the other pitches go off the chart. The chart extends 20 feet past home plate.



Sidearmed sinker-ball pitcher. With an euphus pitch. Jeez. Is that thing any good? Does anyone swing at it?

cfx	#	LHH	RHH	Swing	Whiff	B:CS	ISZ	Paint	Chase	Watch
CH	5	0	5	0.4000	0.0000		0.2000	0.2000	0.2500	0.0000
CU	8	2	6	0.5000	0.5000	3.0000	0.2500	0.2500	0.3333	0.0000
FA	46	15	31	0.2826	0.0000	1.2000	0.4783	0.1304	0.0833	0.5000
FC	37	15	22	0.5405	0.2500	1.1250	0.5946	0.1081	0.2667	0.2727
	96	32	64	0.4063	0.1795	1.3750	0.4896	0.1354	0.1837	0.3617

Too few pitches to tell for sure, but looks like the fastball is ignored, but the curve is tempting. Go figure.

Beyond the Box Score has some more on Swindle, with a closer look at one game.