Muyco and Cales - PITCHf/x

Jake Muyco and David Cales pitched three and two innings, respectively, in Tuesday's Mesa Solar Sox game in Peoria, AZ. Any time Mesa travels to Peoria (home of two Arizona Fall League clubs) or Surprise, it's a chance to get some PITCHf/x data on a few Cubs prospects.

Cales and Muyco are on the Sox pitching staff with Christopher Carpenter and Kyle Smit. Brett Jackson, Ryan Flaherty and Josh Vitters represent the Cubs on the offensive side. Jackson just joined the club, he had been with Team USA in the Pan Am Qualifying Tournament.

Welcome to small sample village. Here's what I can tell you about Cales and Muyco. Muyco has a conventional three-quarter delivery, is about an even six feet tall. Cales is a little shorter, but has an unique delivery. He ends-up winging the ball side-arm but ... well, I managed to see a few games on MiLB.tv when he was with the I-Cubs and I can see why the Cubs like him.

Cales happens to have some experience closing in Chicago. For the UIC Flames, natch. He was born here, and went to Mt. Carmel.

Here are some nice stills of Cales, full-sized at the links. They're from a couple sources, put in approximate order of his delivery. His age and uniform will jump around, and it looks like he's lost some weight.

The leg-kick

Not yet reaching back

All the way back 1

All the way back 2

A look at his two-seam grip

Squared-up

The sinker rolls off the finger tips

Four-seamer?

Just after release

Whipping back around

Cales threw more pitches than PITCHf/x recorded, but of the ones that were (the vast majority), he threw 17 sinkers, 5 four-seam fastballs and 5 sliders. He was around 89 with the two-seam sinker and 90 with the four-seam heater. His sliders averaged 82 mph.

While Cales kept the ball down, working the full width of the zone, Muyco's delivery produced a more up-down pattern. Below are the release point and plate location plots. Cales in Blue, Muyco in red/purply wtvr color Excel uses for Series 2. Both are catcher's view.

The strike zone box is just a reference, it is not at all normalized or representative of any particular player's zone. Void where prohibited. Do not swim within 30 minutes of viewing.





Muyco is yet another converted catcher, joining the likes of Carlos Marmol and Randy Wells. It's a path well worn to Chicago.

Here's a nice shot of Muyco throwing his splitter in 2008. He threw it 3 times on Tuesday, a slow 80 mph compared to his 90 mph four-seam fastball (29 of those). A couple or three of those heaters may have actually been two-seamers, and he also threw 8 sliders (81-ish).

For those of you who speak nerd, here's a spin movement chart. Muyco's splitters are hanging out around the top of Cales' (blue) sinkers. Stuck in around the bottom of Muyco's fastballs are the apparent four-seamers that Cales mixed in.



Peoria's system usually has a few extra inches of movement to the catcher's left, so move it all over a smidge in your mind.