Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Mark Buehrle: World Class Nibbler

To appreciate Mark Buehrle you really need to do one thing--look at where he puts the ball. To set the stage, however, a quick refresher on his stuff.

First and foremost, he does not throw hard. He throws five pitches--the rare slider (crammed into his cutter and curve below) and possibly a second look on his change-up (crammed into his change-up and cutter below) aside.

His pitches can be a pain to classify at times, but it's worth the effort to get to the heat maps shown below.

Fastball (FA)  87.0 mph
Cutter   (FC)  82.6
Sinker   (SI)  86.0
Change   (CH)  79.5
Curve    (CU)  71.6
Buehrle is throwing fewer sinkers these days, and fewer groundballs are coming as a result. His pop-up rate has increased, but that's for another day.






See what I mean?


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