With 3 rookies pitching, a starter coming back from injury and super fast radar gun at the K, here are some Pitch FX thoughts from opening day.
The Gun at the K
Much better than last year. Looking at known pitchers and fastball speeds from last season, the velocities are more inline with the rest of the league. If anything, the values are a little lower which may be accounted for by the colder temperature. It is still early to say with 100% certainty that the radar gun is fixed from last year, but it does look that way.
Luke Hochevar
As a whole, Luke's pitches looked good, but he doesn't throw 7 different pitches as Pitch FX is indicates in the following image. It is just 4.
The clustering should be easy to see here with some pitches definitely out of place. He just throws his fastball, slider, curve and change up. MLB classifies these pitches and are supposed to go back and correct them. I will see if they do it this season.
The only item of interest I saw with Luke was that he may be releasing his curve from a higher point
The release point may not be that high because the point is interpolated from data collected after the pitch is released.
Arron Crow
Note: All the following data and images are from BrooksBaseball.net
Not much information is interesting on Crow, but here are his numbers from day one.
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 93.94 | 95.5 | -7.23 | 9.22 | 11 | 8 / 72.73% | 0 / 0.00% |
| SL (Slider) | 85.23 | 86.8 | 3.18 | 2.34 | 8 | 4 / 50.00% | 3 / 37.50% |
Nathan Adcock
Not much interesting information either, but one of his pitches may not be classified correctly. It's values are about half way between has fastball and curve speed as seen in this image:
With that pitched label as a fastball, here are his numbers from yesterday:
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 90.69 | 91.9 | -5.37 | 7.6 | 13 | 8 / 61.54% | 0 / 0.00% |
| CU (Curveball) | 85.86 | 86.7 | 0.49 | 3.72 | 5 | 4 / 80.00% | 0 / 0.00% |
Tim Collins
Tim Collins looks to be tipping his curve ball yesterday. Here are the release points for his pitches:
His release point is about a one foot difference than the rest of his pitches. I am not sure if it from a different arm release point or his positioning on the mound. If someone has the time and MLB.TV on the computer, it might be nice to see if we could see which issue exists.
Otherwise, all seems fine and here is numbers from yesterday:
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 91.78 | 92.6 | 4.16 | 12.15 | 11 | 7 / 63.64% | 1 / 9.09% |
| CH (Changeup) | 81.13 | 81.5 | 6.62 | 11.08 | 4 | 2 / 50.00% | 1 / 25.00% |
| CU (Curveball) | 72.65 | 72.9 | -3.65 | -10.78 | 4 | 1 / 25.00% | 0 / 0.00% |
I don't plan on doing this every game, but will probably look at any new pitchers and keep track of the starters.