Posts Tagged “pitch fx”

Wow. Why didn’t anyone wake me up and tell me the news? MLBAM has PITCHf/x camera systems operational at the Surprise and Peoria parks. This is great news for folks like me who can’t afford to fly out to the desert in order to scout some of the Cardinal players participating int he Arizona Fall League.

Here is a look at Scott Gorgen, “it’s just one inning” caveats apply. This is from the 15th.

A little wackiness on a couple of pitches and the way they were classified, but you get the idea.

A 90 MPH fastball out of the bullpen is not so nice, but we know Gorgen’s meal ticket is his circle change-up. It’s a beauty of an offering, coming in 10 MPH slower than his fastball with all sorts fade and sink. This jives with his scouting report from draft day.

Gorgen’s fastball generally scrapes 90 but sits more comfortably in the 86-88 range with excellent command. His circle changeup is a plus pitch he locates at will, and it has late tumble, making it resemble a split-finger fastball. Gorgen’s breaking ball and body are both short but he competes, is athletic and has shown durability, having surpassed 320 innings already in college. On the down side, he has little projection left.

After seeing this change-up in Pitch F/x, I like Gorgen’s future more than ever before.

EDIT: Pitch FX wonk Steve Sommer emailed me some comparisons to Gorgen based on his pitches. Gorgen’s fastball comps with Doug Brocail, Brian Sanches, Alfredo Aceves and Joe Blanton, among others. His change-up compares with Al Reyes, Duaner Sanchez and Joe Nelson (known for his “vulcan” change). His curve compares with Frank Francisco.

Here’s 26-year old Mike Parisi, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery.

This is from Saturday. Parisi went 4 innings, allowed one run and struck out three while inducing 7 ground-outs. What jumps out immediately that Parisi has added a cutter to his arsenal, I don’t remember reading anywhere he was throwing a cutter before. This is a good thing, adding the cutter is a pitch that has helped a lot of otherwise so-so pitchers. His sinker has decent “tail” (horizontal movement) but not a ton of sink. Meh. Parisi topped out at 93 MPH.

We’ll look at Reifer and Daley in a seperate post.

I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see Luke Gregerson make the Padres out of spring training. So far he’s made a nice jump from AA – no runs and 3 strikeouts in 3 innings pitched.

Let’s take a look at Gregerson through two games through the lens of pitch f/x. I should warn you, I’m no Mike Fast or Harry Pavlidis. In fact, I just learned how to chart some of this stuff yesterday and know enough to be dangerous…just thought it would be fun to try out on with Gregerson.

Pitch fx’s pitch classification is pretty poor at times, Gregerson is more of a sinker/slider guy and I’m sure some of those four-seams should be classified two-seam. I was just too lazy to change them.  That is a nice slider, as advertised.

Here is where his pitches went -

And now for his release point -

Overall, I think Gregerson will fit in nicely with the Padres. He’s not a world-beater and probably is no more than a middle reliever, but he has a nice sinker/slider combo and will keep the ball on the ground and in the park. Especially in Petco.