SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
|
Post by jimed14 on May 14, 2014 12:31:42 GMT -5
For me, Owens absolutely has to have good command and control to be a good pitcher because hitters are going to sit on his fastball if he doesn't. That pretty much applies to every pitcher ever. Not nearly as much for pitchers with a 98 mph fastball.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on May 14, 2014 12:43:59 GMT -5
Right now; he seems to me to be a LHP with serious issues locating his fastball who gets by with a deceptive delivery and good offspeed pitches. But those things don't play well together in MLB. You need to work off of your fastball (see Diasuke and Buchholz for opposing examples) and deceptive deliveries only work for a short time. Is that really true, though? Does deception not play up in the major leagues as well as in the minor leagues? I'm not being facetious-- I really don't know. On one hand, command/control/deception pitchers do anecdotally seem to have disproportionate problems transitioning to the majors. On the other hand, major league hitters and pitchers seem to think deception exists and confers a real advantage ( example 1, example 2). And there are plenty of examples of pitchers who have great success "pitching backwards" and relying on a plus secondary pitch to carry a middling fastball. For every Daisuke and Buchholz, I can spit you a Uehara or Tanaka or Cliff Lee. I do think it's a little glib to suggest that none of Owens' deception will carry over to the majors. Sure, it probably won't be as effective, but nothing is as effective in the majors as it was in the minors. Maybe deception is in fact disproportionately affected, but some of it will carry over. Will enough carry over to make him an above-average starter in the majors? Not sure. I tend to be on the side of those who think that he needs to significantly improve his command if he's to be more than a back-end guy, and I'm not terribly optimistic that he does so. But, as mentioned above, a cheap fourth starter is nothing to sneeze at.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 14, 2014 12:52:24 GMT -5
Right now; he seems to me to be a LHP with serious issues locating his fastball who gets by with a deceptive delivery and good offspeed pitches. But those things don't play well together in MLB. You need to work off of your fastball (see Diasuke and Buchholz for opposing examples) and deceptive deliveries only work for a short time. Is that really true, though? Does deception not play up in the major leagues as well as in the minor leagues? I'm not being facetious-- I really don't know. On one hand, command/control/deception pitchers do anecdotally seem to have disproportionate problems transitioning to the majors. On the other hand, major league hitters and pitchers seem to think deception exists and confers a real advantage ( example 1, example 2). And there are plenty of examples of pitchers who have great success "pitching backwards" and relying on a plus secondary pitch to carry a middling fastball. For every Daisuke and Buchholz, I can spit you a Uehara or Tanaka or Cliff Lee. I do think it's a little glib to suggest that none of Owens' deception will carry over to the majors. Sure, it probably won't be as effective, but nothing is as effective in the majors as it was in the minors. Maybe deception is in fact disproportionately affected, but some of it will carry over. Will enough carry over to make him an above-average starter in the majors? Not sure. I tend to be on the side of those who think that he needs to significantly improve his command if he's to be more than a back-end guy, and I'm not terribly optimistic that he does so. But, as mentioned above, a cheap fourth starter is nothing to sneeze at. Uehara, Tanaka and Lee have elite control. And Uehara has ridiculous movement on his fastball. If you don't command a 90 mph fastball, it's going to wind up in the seats too often. If you don't command the other pitches well, hitters are going to sit on the fastball. That doesn't go well if you can't keep walks down.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on May 14, 2014 13:04:48 GMT -5
Fair enough, but there are plenty of pitchers without plus velocity or elite command who do just fine because of their deception and their secondary stuff. Think Matt Cain, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, Mike Minor, Ryan Dempster, Shaun Marcum, Wei-Yin Chen, Jason Vargas, our own Felix Doubront and Chris Capuano, etc. It probably means he won't be an elite pitcher or even a number two, but it doesn't mean he can't be a solid mid-rotation guy.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 14, 2014 13:11:09 GMT -5
Yeah actually, Doubront (the 90-91mph guy, not the 94-95 one) reminds me of what he might become if he doesn't really make strides.
|
|
|
Post by nexus on May 14, 2014 14:06:06 GMT -5
That pretty much applies to every pitcher ever. Not nearly as much for pitchers with a 98 mph fastball. There's a larger margin for error, sure. But the list of players who have had successful careers despite fringe command is basically Nolan Ryan and Al Leiter. I still like Owens. He's 21 and a would-be junior holding his own in the EL. Plenty of time to improve.
|
|
|
Post by raftsox on May 14, 2014 20:58:47 GMT -5
Right now; he seems to me to be a LHP with serious issues locating his fastball who gets by with a deceptive delivery and good offspeed pitches. But those things don't play well together in MLB. You need to work off of your fastball (see Diasuke and Buchholz for opposing examples) and deceptive deliveries only work for a short time. Is that really true, though? Does deception not play up in the major leagues as well as in the minor leagues? I'm not being facetious-- I really don't know. On one hand, command/control/deception pitchers do anecdotally seem to have disproportionate problems transitioning to the majors. On the other hand, major league hitters and pitchers seem to think deception exists and confers a real advantage ( example 1, example 2). And there are plenty of examples of pitchers who have great success "pitching backwards" and relying on a plus secondary pitch to carry a middling fastball. For every Daisuke and Buchholz, I can spit you a Uehara or Tanaka or Cliff Lee. I do think it's a little glib to suggest that none of Owens' deception will carry over to the majors. Sure, it probably won't be as effective, but nothing is as effective in the majors as it was in the minors. Maybe deception is in fact disproportionately affected, but some of it will carry over. Will enough carry over to make him an above-average starter in the majors? Not sure. I tend to be on the side of those who think that he needs to significantly improve his command if he's to be more than a back-end guy, and I'm not terribly optimistic that he does so. But, as mentioned above, a cheap fourth starter is nothing to sneeze at. There are some who succeed, but I think they're more the exception than the rule (I haven't done any research on this subject). I don't dislike Owens, but until he shows some better command of his fastball then I think I'm ranking Barnes ahead of him. I'm one of those people who agrees with old timey pitchers that think a well located fastball is the best pitch that can be thrown.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on May 14, 2014 21:22:30 GMT -5
Fair enough, but there are plenty of pitchers without plus velocity or elite command who do just fine because of their deception and their secondary stuff. Think Matt Cain, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, Mike Minor, Ryan Dempster, Shaun Marcum, Wei-Yin Chen, Jason Vargas, our own Felix Doubront and Chris Capuano, etc. It probably means he won't be an elite pitcher or even a number two, but it doesn't mean he can't be a solid mid-rotation guy. I kinda agree with your overall analysis but wanted to expand on it a little. As you have demonstrated you can be a very good pitcher without plus fastball velocity. However if you can't blow the ball by people the pitcher is at a disadvantage. Spotting a midling four seam fastball is very difficult. This is especially true for lefties who are facing oppo side hitters the majority of the time. Contrary to popular perception even Cliff Lee does not throw his middling four seamer very often and when he does it's mainly to same side hitters. So how does a lefty get oppo hitters out if he can't blow guys out? You hit on part of it, you need a plus secondary pitch, but that will only get you so far. Vargas, whom Owens is sometimes compared to is like that. The lefties who are above average starters like Lee and Wilson have an array of secondary pitches that break to both sides of the plate. When a right handed batter goes to face Lee he has to worry about being busted in with about being busted in with a cutter, a changeup fading away or even a sinking fastball. Not to mention that Lee can always slip his slider, curve and four seam into the mix. Owens just has the changeup. It's swing and miss pitch, but a right handed batter can be pretty sure that he's seeing that in an at bat especially with two strikes. If Owens tries to bust a fastball inside and it's out over the plate it's going to be hit hard. So that's why Owens projects currently as he does. It's not because of flawed traditional scouting methods or a bias against guys who don't throw hard. It's that he lacks the arsenal of successful pitchers who don't throw hard.
|
|
|
Post by ikonos on May 14, 2014 22:05:45 GMT -5
In baseball an average game sees Fastball about 40-50% of the time. So any one who has a better fastball is more likely to have success than the one with out. So I would say at this point Barnes could have a better career than Owens. Either of them can develop and have successful careers but the work is cut out for them.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on May 14, 2014 22:49:58 GMT -5
In baseball an average game sees Fastball about 40-50% of the time. So any one who has a better fastball is more likely to have success than the one with out. So I would say at this point Barnes could have a better career than Owens. Either of them can develop and have successful careers but the work is cut out for them. That's the argument for Barnes. But keep in mind a pitchers arsenal is connected. Owens changeup will likely enable him to get some outs by busting in an unexpected four seamer.
|
|
|
Post by JackieWilsonsaid on May 14, 2014 23:21:41 GMT -5
As Owens moves up, better umpiring also will lead to more strikes/more strike outs.
It's tough enough for a lefty to get a called strike in the majors: it's extremely difficult in the minors.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,924
|
Post by ericmvan on May 15, 2014 3:51:42 GMT -5
If Owens tries to bust a fastball inside and it's out over the plate it's going to be hit hard. And this differs from every other pitcher who has ever lived ... how, exactly? I think there's a good deal of misunderstanding going on here. To begin with, the notion that deception won't play as well in MLB only makes sense if big leaguers have X-Ray vision. When a pitcher has deception, it means that in the natural course of his delivery, the ball is hidden from view for a fraction of a second longer than in an orthodox delivery. Each tenth of a second extra the ball is hidden adds an effective four MPH to velocity. That is absolute; it's written in stone. And that's because it's not pitch velocity that is actually important, but the hitter's reaction time, and that depends on how quickly they are physically able to see the ball, plus the velocity. It is the latter that varies obviously and dramatically between pitchers, but for the pitchers with a significant difference in the former, the end result is precisely the same as if they were throwing harder. It is true that Uehara has been one of the most dominant pitchers in the history of baseball in large part because of his extraordinary control, and because of his devastating splitter. But anyone who has watched him has seen hitters swing right through fastballs thrown over the middle of the plate, the way they often swing through fastballs thrown 98 mph but almost never swing through fastballs thrown 94, let alone his actual 89. If we didn't understand deception, this would be as mysterious as anything we experience. There would be people suggesting that the batters were actually being fanned by a second pitcher on the grassy knoll, or by Edward De Vere, Lord of Oxford. It's pretty easy to conclude that in fact Koji hides the ball for 0.2 or even 0.25 seconds longer than normal. You can be a very good pitcher without plus fastball velocity. However if you can't blow the ball by people the pitcher is at a disadvantage. You typed this as if the two sentences were logically connected. And usually, they are. But Uehara has below-average fastball velocity, and yet he blows the ball by hitters routinely. I don't think that all of this is well understood by most scouts, and even in the front offices where it might be understood, it's not well trusted, else Uehara would have been much more sought after each time he was a free agent. It's as if teams could see what was happening, but they didn't believe in their hearts that it could be sustained, because they couldn't get past the radar gun readings. But they are not what matters, at all; they are an available proxy for what matters. And I furthermore believe that almost all projections of Owens are based on his raw velocity, and his current command and arsenal, with no regard at all to his deception, which is to say his actual effective velocity. You see almost no one projecting him as a possible #1 / #2 starter, and if he threw 95-96 touching 98 instead of 89-90 touching 92, I think that would be almost universally agreed upon. But there is good reason to believe that he does throw as hard as 95-96, touching 98, in terms of hitter's reaction time (although it may also be just 93-94, touching 96. These are all guesses based on his results). There are uncountable number of guys who could throw 95-98 and had no big league success at all because they lacked sufficient fastball command. So factoring in Owens' deception does not alter his floor at all. But it certainly raises his projection. If we project him to improve his iffy command to an ordinary degree and to come up with an OK 3rd pitch (either by improving the curve or, as Buchholz did essentially at the MLB level, adding a cutter), that guy is a good mid-rotation starter, not a back-of-rotation guy. And if he can improve his command as much as we can reasonably hope, and come up with a good #3 pitch, that guy is a #1 / #2 guy, not a #3. 8 AM Edit: If anyone doubts this analysis ... if Koji Uehara didn't exist, I don't think you'd get anyone in baseball to believe he was possible. "A two-pitch guy who strikes out 38% of the guys he faces and walks 3%, with an 89 mph fastball? I don't care how good his control is or or how good his splitter is, that's not humanly possible."
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 15, 2014 8:10:12 GMT -5
You changed my mind Eric.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 15, 2014 8:22:34 GMT -5
As Owens moves up, better umpiring also will lead to more strikes/more strike outs. It's tough enough for a lefty to get a called strike in the majors: it's extremely difficult in the minors. It's more about the batters than the pitchers, no? LH batters have to cover an extra 4 inches outside generally.
|
|
|
Post by ancientsoxfogey on May 15, 2014 8:43:43 GMT -5
There may be two dimensions to "deception." Not having seen Owens, I don't know how much of each he has.
One dimension is "hiding" the ball -- that is, for some reason one pitcher's mechanics doesn't allow batters to "find" the ball as early in his delivery as another pitcher's does, thus cutting the batter's recognition/reaction time. The second dimension is a type of confusion. That is, some pitchers give clues in their motion/delivery about what type of pitch is coming -- arm speed, arm slot, hand position, whatever -- that batters can notice, or sense, as the pitch is being delivered, while others look close enough to identical no matter what pitch they are throwing that, even when a batter is able to "find" the ball, he lacks instantaneous clues as to exactly what he is seeing.
My understanding of Owens, from what I've read about him, is that he seems to be elite in the second aspect of deception. His pitches look identical throughout his motion and coming out of his hand, even though there is a large difference in velocity and movement among them. If that is the case, I don't see why his deception advantage wouldn't carry over to the big leagues. If Owens doesn't provide visual clues to what he is throwing (at least generally, and consistently on his good days), then he doesn't. If there is nothing for batters to see, there isn't. It would seem to be true for hitters at all levels -- you can't see what isn't there.
|
|
|
Post by jdb on May 15, 2014 8:50:43 GMT -5
Owens is still young and can improve that command some. When Barnes was his age he was still in Greenville. I think its good for him he can probably pitch the rest of the year in AA and have a full year in AAA next year. I think we resign Lester and the 5th spot will come down to one of the current AAA guys.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 15, 2014 9:44:43 GMT -5
For anyone who has ever hit in a cage against a batting machine, you may be able to understand the deception thing better. Not seeing an arm move before the pitch comes makes a batting machine seem way harder to hit at the same speed.
|
|
|
Post by aussiesox on May 15, 2014 12:10:39 GMT -5
Can we get Owens into this guys camp? Randy Johnson's BB/9 went from 5.6 before the session in 92, to 2.7 after... maybe you all know of this guy, but it was news/interesting to me
|
|
|
Post by iakovos11 on May 15, 2014 12:26:05 GMT -5
Awesome story. I know he works with Brady, but much of this story was new to me.
Great idea, let's get Owens together with him.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 15, 2014 12:28:53 GMT -5
Can we get every single pitcher in the organization into his camps? That was interesting.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,924
|
Post by ericmvan on May 15, 2014 13:57:55 GMT -5
There may be two dimensions to "deception." Not having seen Owens, I don't know how much of each he has. One dimension is "hiding" the ball -- that is, for some reason one pitcher's mechanics doesn't allow batters to "find" the ball as early in his delivery as another pitcher's does, thus cutting the batter's recognition/reaction time. The second dimension is a type of confusion. That is, some pitchers give clues in their motion/delivery about what type of pitch is coming -- arm speed, arm slot, hand position, whatever -- that batters can notice, or sense, as the pitch is being delivered, while others look close enough to identical no matter what pitch they are throwing that, even when a batter is able to "find" the ball, he lacks instantaneous clues as to exactly what he is seeing. My understanding of Owens, from what I've read about him, is that he seems to be elite in the second aspect of deception. His pitches look identical throughout his motion and coming out of his hand, even though there is a large difference in velocity and movement among them. If that is the case, I don't see why his deception advantage wouldn't carry over to the big leagues. If Owens doesn't provide visual clues to what he is throwing (at least generally, and consistently on his good days), then he doesn't. If there is nothing for batters to see, there isn't. It would seem to be true for hitters at all levels -- you can't see what isn't there. I'll see your two types and raise you one. There is also unorthodoxy, which is sometimes called deception. It's deceptive the first time you see it in a game and/or the first two or three times you see it in a career. Hideki Okajima didn't hide the ball at all, but his delivery was so funky that he had other-worldly numbers against guys who had never faced him (folks may recall Barry Bonds, in his prime, taking a strike three fastball right down the middle). By the time guys were facing him a 4th and 5th time, they killed him. Interestingly, after that, the numbers improved (I suggested to the Sox that whatever adjustment Okajima was making once a guy had hit him hard, they make pre-emptorily after he had faced him a few times). Jered Weaver doesn't hide the ball, but throws it with a strange pair of arm angles -- the upper arm is like a three-quarters guy, and hitters read that and expect armside run, but his forearm is vertical, so in fact he has almost no run and pure rise, like Okajima. That induces a ton of weak contact, but hitters adjust somewhat by the time they've faced him three times in a game. I've read that Owens hides the ball well, and the video I've seen really backs that up, which is the main reason that I think his crazy strikeout rates are best explained by hypothesizing that he has an effective 4 to 6 extra mph due to hiding the ball 0.10 to 0.15 seconds longer. The second type of deception you talk about is almost specific to the changeup, and he definitely has that as well, according to scouting reports.
|
|
|
Post by polarbear91 on May 15, 2014 15:53:56 GMT -5
Awesome story. I know he works with Brady, but much of this story was new to me. Great idea, let's get Owens together with him. You must be young. I remember, vaguely, Tom House as a Red Sox pitcher in the mid 70's. His football throwing workouts for pitchers was met with great suspicion within the industry from what I remember reading. I had to double check to make sure it was the same person once he became a quarterback guru. I think baseball people are still suspicious of him, despite his success.
|
|
|
Post by greatscottcooper on May 15, 2014 17:14:48 GMT -5
Saw Owens pitch yesterday. Pretty much he looked like his scouting report down to a T. worked around 89-90 touched 92, changeup was swing and miss, and he even spun a few nice breaking balls. He had trouble with his fastball though, it didn't get him into trouble because no one was swinging at the high balls but he gave up a lot of walks. Looks very cool, calm, and collected on the mound....which has me optimistic that he will inevitably throw it all together and improve his command enough to become an effective starter in the majors.
I didn't see him last year so I'm just speculating here, but from what I've heard about him the last two years....he seemed more filled out than I envisioned.
I would be interested to hear from someone who has seen a lot of him in the past and this year to see if that really is the case.
I also kind of got a little chuckle when Betts went up to the mound to give him a pat on the back. Owens is effectively two Mookie Betts.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on May 15, 2014 23:10:07 GMT -5
He hasn't changed mine. What exactly does a one inning reliever have to do with a starting pitching prospect? Let's say that Uehara's success is based on a deceptive motion. Uehara can only do it for an inning at a time. He wouldn't be successful as a starter and there is no evidence that whatsoever that his deception would carry over several innings. Personally I think that his motion has a lot less to do with his success than his split anyways. I don't buy that a deceptive motion is suddenly going to turn Owens into Cliff Lee and that the problem is that scouts are too dense to understand this. If he wants to be Cliff Lee he'll need Lee's cutter.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,924
|
Post by ericmvan on May 16, 2014 5:22:24 GMT -5
He hasn't changed mine. What exactly does a one inning reliever have to do with a starting pitching prospect? Let's say that Uehara's success is based on a deceptive motion. Uehara can only do it for an inning at a time. He wouldn't be successful as a starter and there is no evidence that whatsoever that his deception would carry over several innings. In fact, this deception would "carry over" a literally infinite number of innings. When Uehara delivers the baseball, the ball is not visible to the batter for an extra quarter or a fifth of a second, relative to pitchers with an ordinary motion. Period. It cannot be seen. It has nothing to do at all with the hitter getting used to the delivery. They're not failing to pick up the ball as quickly as they ordinarily do because they are unfamiliar with his delivery; they are failing to pick it up because part of Uehara's body is between their eyes and the baseball, and Uehara's body is solid, and people cannot see things when there is a solid object in between. Does that make the concept clear enough? Failing to pick up the ball for a extra tenth of a second adds an effective four mph to the fastball velocity, in terms of the hitter's reaction time. Differences in how long pitchers hide the ball are universal. Every delivery is different. Guys who are "sneaky fast" are common, and they're probably hiding the ball for a twentieth of a second or a fortieth of a second longer than usual, adding an effective 1-2 mph to their velocity. Bard was widely viewed as a guy whose ball was very easy to pick up, probably costing him a mph or even two. Guys like Uehara who hide the ball for two-tenths of a second or more are extremely rare, but they are easy to spot because they get fastball swings and misses that seem supernatural, given their velocity and location. Based on his delivery and his results, there's very good reason to believe that Owens is one of these guys. Comparing him to other "soft tossers" like Lee is not just missing the point, it's failing too understand the entire notion of a pitcher throwing a baseball and a hitter trying to hit it. Why do you think it's harder to hit a 98 mph fastball than an 88 mph one? Does the faster pitch emit vibrations that confuse major league hitters? No, it's because the faster pitch gets to home plate more quickly, and that means the hitter has less time to react. But a pitcher can achieve the exact same effect by hiding the ball for a fraction of a second longer. That reduces the hitter's reaction time exactly like throwing harder does. And this is what Owens appears to do. From the batters point of view, it is exactly as if he is throwing two to six mph faster than his radar reading. So everyone who classifies Owens along with other guys who have his same so-so radar readings are making completely meaningless comparisons.
|
|
|