Chris Young: Master of Prestidigitation

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Excellent piece here from WSJ's Brian Costa about Chris Young's deceptiveness.

Especially good is the bit about pitches coming from a higher angle.

Because he is so tall�he wears size-16 cleats and often has to duck his head to fit through doorways�he pitches from a higher angle than hitters are used to seeing. Mets third baseman David Wright said that even when a pitch from Young appears to be moving downward, it still comes across the plate at a higher plane than a hitter expects. "It's tough because as a hitter, when you see a ball up there," Wright said as he held his hand about shoulder-high, "you think it's going to end up kind of here," he said, bringing his hand down to his belt. "But when it kind of stays at that level, it's tough to lay off, and it's even tougher to hit." As a result, hitters tend to swing under his fastball, which causes them to pop it up more often than they drive it with authority. In 2007, Young's last full season, 54.5% of all balls put in play against him were fly balls, which led the majors.

If this bears out-- and it seems to fit-- then all CY has to do is incorporate a little bit of up-and-down movement at the edges of the zone, and guys can be kept off-balance indefinitely as long as he's locating and they don't guess right.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd sure like to see Pelfrey going with the high fastball with two strikes instead of breaking pitches away. He's a giant too and I can see folks having a lot of trouble laying off of that.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Gotta say of all people John Harper did a pretty good job on similar ground today:

PHILADELPHIA - It takes some guts to rear back and throw an 86-mph fastball just above the belt to Ryan Howard with the bases loaded. But Chris Young has been doing it, or something like it, for as long as he has been in the big leagues, and more often than not he lives to tell about it. Tuesday night he did it twice, on his first two pitches to Howard in the fifth inning, and both times the Phillies' slugger misjudged the pitch just enough to foul it off. Hey, it's not easy to get on top of a high fastball thrown when a 6-foot-10 guy is throwing it from the sky, and Young trusts that such deception will make up for batting-practice velocity. "That's the way I have to pitch to be effective," he said Tuesday night. "The high fastball is effective for me." Young also knows when he has a hitter set up. He didn't go to Princeton for nothing, right? So after challenging Howard with the two fastballs, he fooled him with a 78-mph splitter, getting a weak ground ball to second to end the Phillies' biggest threat of the night. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2011/04/06/2011-04-06_chris_young_one_of_sandy_aldersons_bargain_signings_makes_gm_look_good_in_win_ov.html#ixzz1IlVg7ZnV

[Ceetar]

Hopefully Pelfrey can learn something from him.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, um, what's in his pants?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Lozenge?

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: If this bears out-- and it seems to fit-- then all [Chris Young] has to do is incorporate a little bit of up-and-down movement at the edges of the zone....

Even I could win a Cy Young award doing that.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Well, yes. And so could Chris Young.

What I meant was to emphasize that, given the huge edges of the big stride/close release-point and the weirdly high-angle trajectory, it seems he barely has to worry about left-right location. Theoretically, mere Y-axis movement-- and limited movement at that-- combined with the deceptiveness would be enough to make him a damn effective pitcher.

[bmfc1]

Since we're quoting, here's a bloated, over-written paragraph by Bob Klapisch:

Hitters hate facing Young, and for good reason: He�s arms and legs in asymmetrical madness � a Picasso painting that suddenly appears in your face, not from 60 feet, 6 inches, but more like 53 feet. That�s how tall he is and that�s long he strides. By the time the ball arrives, it�s created the illusion of traveling downhill, which is like asking a hitter to cope with vertigo.

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/baseball/040611_Klapisch_Terry_Collins_bold_message_is_rubbing_off_on_Mets.html

[G-Fafif]

bmfc1 wrote: Since we're quoting, here's a bloated, over-written paragraph by Bob Klapisch: Hitters hate facing Young, and for good reason: He�s arms and legs in asymmetrical madness � a Picasso painting that suddenly appears in your face, not from 60 feet, 6 inches, but more like 53 feet. That�s how tall he is and that�s long he strides. By the time the ball arrives, it�s created the illusion of traveling downhill, which is like asking a hitter to cope with vertigo. http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/baseball/040611_Klapisch_Terry_Collins_bold_message_is_rubbing_off_on_Mets.html

Klapisch generally asks his readers to cope with nausea.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

G-Fafif wrote: Since we're quoting, here's a bloated, over-written paragraph by Bob Klapisch: Hitters hate facing Young, and for good reason: He�s arms and legs in asymmetrical madness � a Picasso painting that suddenly appears in your face, not from 60 feet, 6 inches, but more like 53 feet. That�s how tall he is and that�s long he strides. By the time the ball arrives, it�s created the illusion of traveling downhill, which is like asking a hitter to cope with vertigo. http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/baseball/040611_Klapisch_Terry_Collins_bold_message_is_rubbing_off_on_Mets.html Klapisch generally asks his readers to cope with nausea.

Not to mention culturally-illiterate, redundant mixed metaphors. Ye Gods, is that graf a nightmare.

I used to think he was bad when he was hacking. He's worse when he gets excited.

[metsmarathon]

the average met pitcher is 6'3", not counting young in the mix. that makes him a "whopping" 8% taller than average. is that 8% really worth all that extra press?

[TransMonk]

Heyman says somehting nice.

Jon Heyman wrote: Mets starter Chris Young, at $1.5 million guaranteed, may turn out to be the best signing of the offseason. Even before his successful debut vs. the rival Phillies, one scout said of Young, "He's pitching like he did when he was at his best.''

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'm feeling a little sporty today; I feel a little like divorcing BetterHalfer, and marrying a chimp who reminds me of an old girlfriend. After all, there's just a 2% difference in DNA there, right-- no big deal, right?

He's throwing 85-87 mph and just shut down a preseason contender (albeit a highly-offensively-watered version). So there's SOMETHING of a "how'd he do it" story there.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsmarathon wrote: the average met pitcher is 6'3", not counting young in the mix. that makes him a "whopping" 8% taller than average. is that 8% really worth all that extra press?

If the average Met was 5'9" tall, then being 8% taller than that average wouldn't be noteworthy. I'm guessing that one of about 60,000 adult males are 6'10" tall. Plus, he can pitch at the major league level.

[metsmarathon]

well, i meant is 8% that much different that it makes for a noteworthy advantage. that the ball is coming downhill as opposed to flat from an averagely heighted pitcher. that he lands all that much closer to the plate than his shorter teammates.

i mean, 7" at a distance of 53' is something like... uh... i should be better at trigonometry... gimme a sec...

53' x 12 = 636"
7" / 636" = 0.0110
atan (0.0110) = 0.631 degrees

so, from the perspective of the batter, the ball is coming down a little over a half a degree steeper from his release point to cross the plane at the same point as a shorter pitcher would*. does it really make all that much of a difference? it doesn't seem like it would, but i guess it does.

*given the same release distance - the difference in release distances would have an impact as well, but i don't feel like actually sketching anything out

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't remember my trigonometry, but the difference in hieight is, to my thinking, more like 17% because the axis is something like 3' off the ground, so it's the difference between 39" above the axis and 46". What that means from 53' away? It'd take a 10th grader to answer.

[metsmarathon]

yeah, i've gotta sketch it out...

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Also, the stride's bigger than the average pitcher's (~115% of body height, as opposed to the usual ~80%).

[metsmarathon]

ok, let's set this up.

pitching rubber is 10 inches above the plate, and the slope is 1 inch per 1 foot
an average pitcher with an average stride will land 60" from the rubber and 6" lower than the rubber, or 666" from home plate and 4" above it.
chris young will land 95" from the rubber and about 8" lower than the rubber, or 631 inches in front of and 2" above the plate.

assuming the release point to be as high as if the pitcher were reaching for the ceiling. a 6'3" pitcher should be able to reach that ceiling, and will have a release point of, say, 100 inches high. i'm 6'1" and my reach is ~4/3 my height, at just over 8'. i'm assuming a similar ratio for the average pitcher. so given the slope of the mound, that release point is 104" above the plate, again, 666" in front of it.
assuming the same reach ratio for chris young, his release point is 109 inches high. given the slope of the mound, he's releasing the ball at 111" above the plate, 631" in front of it.

so the slope of the line from the average release point (666,104) to the front edge of the plate (0,0) is 8.875�
and the slope of the line from the chris young release point (631,111) to teh front edge of the plate (0,0) is 9.977�
the difference between these is 1.102�

assuming the strike zone starts 20" above the plate (mine would be about 19" i guess), the slope of the line from the avereage release point to the bottom front edge of the strike zone (0,20) is 7.189� whereas for chris young, it is 8.206�. the difference between these is 1.017�.

assuming the typical 6'3" batter's eye level, when crouched, is 10" lower than the top of his head when standing (it's about what mine would be, i guess), putting the typical batter's eye level at 65" above the plate (0,65), the slope of the line from the typical release point to the typical batter's eye is invtan (39 / 666) = 3.351�, whereas from chris young's release point to the typical batter's eye, the slope of the line is invtan (46 / 631) = 4.169�. the difference between these is 0.818�.

i will concede that the stride length would appear to be a big difference. he releases the ball about 5% closer to the plate than the average pitcher. his ball would then have an apparent increase in velocity of 5%, as given the same initial velocity, his ball gets to the plate 5% sooner, discounting the nonlinear behavior of aerodynamic drag of course. so an 86 mph fast ball from his arm will appear to be traveling at 90.5 mph, for the purposes of a batter's reaction time.

i don't know if the slower ball will have more movement than a faster ball, and therefore more drop than the 1� trajectory difference. it may. it may do some wonky optical things. the brain and eyes work funny together.

math is fun. so is knowing that if you press and hold the ALT key while typing 0186 on your number pad, when you release the ALT key, you'll have a fancy little degree symbol as such �

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

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