Randy Wolf PITCHf/x

Rejected titles for this post included "Are the Cubs Hungry for the Wolf?". Self-censorship is a must.

Randy Wolf is, according to Bruce Miles, on the Cubs radar screen. Looking to keep Sean Marshall in the swing, the Cubs could add the lefty as their 5th starter.

I've taken looks at Wolf before, mostly because he has a big, slow yakker of a curveball. Now I'm caught up through the end of 2008, so it's time for an update.

Wolf throws a four- and two-seam fastball (not many sinkers to the lefties, though), slider, change and the curve.

cfx	#	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm
CH	374	79.2	8.5	5.5	127.2	1,155.9
CU	740	68.0	-6.0	-7.0	139.1	889.4
F2	1132	89.7	8.7	7.5	130.6	1,470.3
F4	1264	90.0	5.0	9.5	152.3	1,379.0
SL	509	81.1	-1.4	1.1	189.2	337.6

Obviously, Wolf doesn't throw very hard. But that curveball takes .6 seconds to reach the plate - so these flight paths are extended about a tenth of second more than usual.



The slider gets a little slurvey, and even slutterly at times. In any case, I'll treat him as a straight five-pitch guy.

cfx	#	LHH	RHH	Swing	Whiff	B:CS	ISZ	Paint	Chase	Watch
CH	374	11	363	0.4866	0.1538	4.8	0.3422	0.1043	0.3780	0.3047
CU	740	63	677	0.3784	0.2179	2.5	0.3649	0.0838	0.2468	0.3926
F2	1132	38	1094	0.4417	0.1240	1.4	0.5212	0.1263	0.3063	0.4339
F4	1264	516	748	0.5158	0.2147	2.2	0.4106	0.1155	0.3584	0.2582
SL	509	194	315	0.4754	0.2025	3.6	0.3084	0.1139	0.3125	0.1592
	4019	822	3197	0.4618	0.1832	2.2	0.4140	0.1115	0.3193	0.3365

So, you can see that the pitch mix is quite different by batter hand.

A little more on the effectiveness (this is mostly new stuff, you can find more at Beyond the Boxscore)

cfx	ISZ	FatIns	FIISZ	Swing	InPlay	HR	Foul	Whiff	nkSLG	TBP
CH	0.342	0.184	0.539	0.487	0.511	0.0220	0.313	0.154	0.515	0.134
CU	0.365	0.249	0.681	0.378	0.432	0.0143	0.336	0.218	0.504	0.085
F2	0.521	0.351	0.673	0.442	0.412	0.0120	0.452	0.124	0.491	0.092
F4	0.411	0.277	0.674	0.516	0.298	0.0123	0.475	0.215	0.550	0.088
SL	0.308	0.232	0.752	0.475	0.384	0.0124	0.401	0.202	0.510	0.096
	0.414	0.278	0.672	0.462	0.381	0.0135	0.422	0.183	0.515	0.094

Here's what Wolf throws by count/situation to each side.

First, to lefties:

type	#	CH	CU	F2	F4	SL
first	204	0.0147	0.0490	0.0343	0.6373	0.2647
even	151	0.0199	0.1457	0.0728	0.4702	0.2914
ahead	203	0.0049	0.1478	0.0493	0.5862	0.2118
behind	215	0.0140	0.0000	0.0419	0.7349	0.2093
full	49	0.0204	0.0204	0.0204	0.7755	0.1633
	822	0.0134	0.0766	0.0462	0.6277	0.2360

Basically a four-seam and a slider, plus the curveball to mix it up.

Now the righties:

type	#	CH	CU	F2	F4	SL
first	845	0.1006	0.1917	0.5408	0.0805	0.0864
even	555	0.1117	0.2991	0.1351	0.3099	0.1441
ahead	868	0.0357	0.3341	0.1025	0.4090	0.1187
behind	782	0.1982	0.0691	0.5550	0.1125	0.0652
full	147	0.2041	0.0340	0.2653	0.4422	0.0544
	3197	0.1135	0.2118	0.3422	0.2340	0.0985

I'm somewhat struck by the usage pattern on the fastballs against RHH. Let's zoom in on that a little



Two Most Likely Pitches by Situation and Batter Hand

          LHH     RHH
First    F4 SL   F2 CU   
Even     F4 SL   F4 CU
Ahead    F4 SL   F4 CU
Behind   F4 SL   F2 CH
Full     F4 SL   F4 F2
All      F4 SL   F2 F4

This raises some questions about how effective he is, same metrics as above, but by batter hand/situation. If the Cubs actually sign the guy, I'll take look at that.