Friar Watch

As great as Trevor Hoffman has been throughout his career it sometimes seems as if Trevor Hoffman should be easy to hit. After all his fastball is comes out of his hand at about 88mph on a good night, his change up is even slower and on the rare occasions he throws a slider or curve it’s just for show. How can he consistently get major league hitters out with that kind of stuff?

Velocity makes up for location when you hit a certain number. When you are below that number you better be locating. Maddux is the best I’ve ever seen at it. Wells is pretty damn good too.
- Curt Schilling

You can add Trevor to that list. After tearing his rotator cuff in 1995 Trevor was forced to learn to locate and change speeds, something he’s become even better at as he’s aged.

We’re going to take a look at Trevor’s 5/20/07 outing against the Mariners to see just how he gets guys out.

First, let’s plot velocity against movement to see if we can identify what he throws. This is the column Gameday identifies as “break length”, a single number that represents both horizontal and vertical movement:

The pitches on the right edge are Trevor’s fastball. On this night he didn’t have his best fastball, averaging around 86mph out of the hand. I’ve seen it as high as 90 this season so that’s a bit low, even for Trevor.

The pitches on the far left are changeups. You can see they’re a pretty consistent 10 mph slower. More importantly there’s about 10 inches of break and most of that is straight down.

The one pitch in the middle is a slider, something Trevor will only throw once or twice per outing.

Leading off the inning was Jose Guillen, a right handed hitter with some pop.
(All graphs are from the catcher’s perspective)

The white circles at the top are Trevor’s release point. As we’ve noted before, Trevor stands to the first base side of the rubber when facing right handers and towards the third base side against lefties.

Pitch 1: Fastball on the outer edge. Guillen takes it for a strike. Trevor generally tries to get ahead of the hitters with a first pitch fastball located on the edge. Most hitters aren’t going to swing at that on the first pitch. Even guys who like to swing at the first pitch are going to look for something theY can drive. 0-1

Pitch 2: Trevor tries the same pitch but it’s outside, 1-1.

Pitch 3: The lone slider, not a bad location but I think Trevor was probably trying to locate off the plate and get a swing and miss. Guillen whacked it into center field for a single.

That brings up Ben Broussard with a man on first, no outs. Broussard is another guy with some power, this time it’s a lefty and you can see Trevor’s release point has changed as he moves to the opposite end of the rubber.

Pitch 1: Fastball off the plate for a ball. Just like with Guillen, Trevor tries to get strike one on the outside corner but he misses away. 1-0

Pitch 2: With a runner on first Trevor needs to keep the ball down, t would be a good spot for a change up but he also needs a strike to even up the count so he goes with another fastball. Unfortunately it’s in the heart of the plate, about thigh high, and Broussard pulls it into rightfor a single. Guillen doesn’t advance to third, now it’s men on first and third with no one out and Trevor hasn’t thrown a single change up.

Next up: Right hander Adrian Beltre. Beltre may be inconsistent but he’s always dangerous. Facing a guy like that with a one run lead in the 9th, two on and nobody out is what Trevor gets paid to do.

Pitch 1: Trevor has moved back to the other side of the rubber but not quite as far as against Guillen. Once again he tries to paint the outside corner with a fastball, this time missing badly. 1-0

Pitch 2: Another fastball on the outside corner, this time for a called strike. 1-1

Pitch 3: Trevor throws his first change up but, it’s low and Beltre holds off. Now it’s 2-1 and Trevor is probably going to have to come with another fastball to try to even the count.

Pitch 4: Trevor goes back to the outside corner but inexplicably Mike Hargrove has signaled for the bunt! Beltre is not a good bunter. In fact he has one bunt since 2004. Why would you try a bunt when it’s 2-1? That’s a great count to hit in and Beltre hits a lot of balls in the air. It was a good pitch for Trevor, probably would have been called a strike if Beltre didn’t swing but certainly a pitch Beltre could have gone the other way with. Beltre fouls it off, now it’s 2-2 and a good time for another change up.

Pitch 5: If Trevor gets two strikes and less than 3 balls on a guy he’s usually going to throw the change up. He wants to throw it low so it looks like a strike and drops out of the zone. The batter will either swing over it or ground out. If he misses location usually the speed difference will keep the hitter from really laying into it. That’s what happens here. Trevor missed badly with a change up middle-high. Beltre hit a foul pop for out 1, runners don’t advance.

Next up: Yuniesky Betancourt. He doesn’t walk a lot but he doesn’t strike out much either. He swung at the first pitch, a low fastball on the inner half. No chart for this one, not much to explain. Swinging at the first pitch is actually a good strategy against Trevor for a guy without much power. I’d look for a fastball on the outer half and try to take it the other way. For a power hitter I’d wait a couple of pitches and see if he falls behind and leaves a fastball in the heart of the plate.

A few pitches ago the Mariners had a more than 50% chance to win. Now they’re down to their last hitter and Trevor has said he’s at his best in these situations because the change up allows him to use a hitter’s natural aggression to his advantage, like some kind of baseball jiu jitsu.

Right hander Jose Lopez is up next and this next sequence is classic Trevor.

Pitch 1: Yet another fastball on the outside corner. Looks like it was off the plate, Trevor got a call here but as we’ve seen, it’s not uncommon for umpires to call a wide zone. 0-1

Pitch 2: Now that he’s ahead in the count with two outs Trevor knows Lopez is going to be looking to put the ball in play. How about a nice juicy change up on the inner half? Too bad for Lopez the bottom drops out of it. Lopez swings and misses, 0-2.

Pitch 3: Let’s try to imagine what’s going through the hitter’s head: “0-2, he probably wants to throw something off the plate, get me to swing at a bad pitch. He wouldn’t throw two change ups in a row, would he? Probably a fastball off the plate or maybe one of those weak sliders. Here comes the pitch… It looks like it’s headed for the zone, inner half again! I’d better swing… too soon! It’s a change up! Noooo!”

Game over and another series win for the Padres.