Author Topic: Nationals @ Mets, Game 1  (Read 18385 times)

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Offline JMUalumni

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Re: Nationals @ Mets, Game 1
« Reply #25: April 24, 2009, 05:02:57 PM »
Also, looking at the pitchFX data from Olsen's first three starts of the season, I noticed some trends. 

-  Olsen throws three pitches (fastball-slider-change) at a ratio of 60:20:20 respectively.  He has real good life on his fastball (11 vertical, 6 horizontal) and hitters have very little chance at getting a hit off of any of his fastballs with more than 12 inches of break.  Like in his first start, if the fastball is breaking between 8-10 inches then he is in for a bumpy ride.

-  His change up causes him a lot of problems and it may be because as his fastball velocity has dropped over the years, the change's speed has stayed the same.  In the first two starts, he had a lot of trouble keeping his two seamer down, but in his last start it was one of his most effective pitches and stayed in the bottom third of the strikezone the whole time he was on the mound.

-  It doesn't take me looking at graphs to tell any of you that Olsen's main problem has been control and command of his pitches.  He isn't going to be a power pitcher like he was at the beginning of his career, so locating the pitches is key for him.  His walk rate and hit rate are up, indicating (along with the graphs) that he is leaving the balls up at a much higher rate than any other time in his career.

-  It should also be noted, though, that Olsen has a BABIP of .345 that would indicate to me he has been hurt by the defense as well as a fair amount of bad luck.  His BABIP for his career has mostly hovered around .280-.300, so I would expect for him to do more like his last outing more often than his first two.