Second Series, First Game: Joe Saunders f/x

Weather problems bumped the Diamondbacks/Rockies game off the calendar on Sunday, so Kirk Gibson decided to just shift his rotation and stay in order. As a result, left-handed Joe Saunders gets the start Monday at Wrigley against Randy Wells.

The Cubs are coming off a tough defeat in the rubber game against Pittsburgh. Let's take this moment to remind Starlin Castro to PUT THE BALL IN YOUR POCKET ONCE IN A WHILE.

Ahem. Alan Trammell is in town as Gibson's bench coach, so do your old coach proud, Starlin.

Anyway, back to Saunders. This changes Mike Quade's plan to start Kosuke Fukudome back in the lead-off spot.

Saunders racked up a lot of wins in his days with the Angels, so the Snakes picked him up. Oops. Turns out he's a mediocre back of the rotation guy, which is still the above murky lands of replacement level and fungible asset. So he's got that going for him.

He's making $5.5 million this year, his second of arbitration eligibility. Can you say non-tender candidate? If he's due a raise, the cost of this innings eater is going to out pace his value.

This may sound harsh on a guy who once put up a 3.41 ERA, but the AL West has some pitcher's parks. He's also lucky. In 2008, that 3.41 ERA was offset by the alternate realities of his 4.36 FIP and 4.60 xFIP.

Averaging around 5 strikeouts and 3 walks per 9 innings per season, he's just above average in terms of getting ground balls. Not many walks, not many strikeouts, and a pretty mundane batted ball distribution. It all comes from a five-pitch mix of fastball (four- and two-seam), change-up, slider and curve. Saunders makes things difficult on PITCHf/x-ers by blending his slider and curve, but his two fastballs tend to differentiate nicely.

This spin deflection graphs are no longer just spin deflection, as gravity as been added back into the pfx_z values and the distance covered has been increased from the standard pfx range of 38+ feet to 48+ feet. For Saunders, this is particularly helpful in dealing with his two breaking pitches.


Above you can see a few pitches that were not thrown by Saunders, as it includes all raw data. Below, those pitches are excluded once everything has been classified by yours truly.



Saunders averages around 91-92 mph with his fastballs, and the sinker is a solid ground ball generator. As noted above, he doesn't miss bats but he also isn't a persistent strike thrower.

63% of his 0-0 pitches are one of his fastballs, but he will drop a change in to lefties and a curve to righties. When he falls behind he's even more likely to throw a fastball.

Both righties and lefties see a plurality of two-seam sinkers overall, with a greater tilt away from four-seamers against lefties.

If Saunders does throw a slider instead of a curve, it will be to a lefty. Lefties also see more curves than righties, but virtually no change-ups.