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pigskincardboard
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It's not exactly short. The meat and potatoes are towards the end. http://www.freefantasymagazine.com/2010/04/the-mike-leake-show-starring-the-chicago-cubs/ Yadda Yadda. Written Early this morning, forgive spelling.
Without further adieu, welcome to the Mike Leake Show!
A man stepped forth, his pearly whites glimmering under harsh lights and focused stares. Their radiance, blinding radiance, could mean but one thing: It was, indeed, the big-time.
It was his time.
It was their time.
The audience awaited, eagerly. Their strength renewed by a long Cincinnati winter, they were ready to hold on to every word, regardless of the speed, spin, break or location. They were ready to clinch their fist around greatness, refusing to let go, recalling the days of Chris Sabo The Big Red Machine. Cincinnati wasn’t afraid of greatness, they embraced it!
A hush fell before he spoke; the audience was about to witness history. The audience was about to witness the greatest clusterfuck of the english language ever to be broadcast on FSN Cincinnati.
“Goud Day Fore Bas-si-bal,” was spoken in the tempo of a Yankees / Red Sox Game. The audience went wild, unabashedly wild, as the verbal molasses flowed forth.
“Bool fly good fast five times 100 miles per hours.”
“Bool misses batter bat, many times.”
A slight man in his early twenties interjected, “He means that he topped 100mph five times this afternoon and struck out 9. Go ahead folks, give him a hand! Aroldis Chapman!”
The audience was quick to oblige but, what was whitie doing here? His hair was somewhere between unkempt and stylish; it could hardly be described as flowing Californian blond locks. What was that thing on his chin? Did he grow that when he was fourteen?
The man with the smile disappeared amidst the silence of utter shock. The audience was left with…
“Introducing your first round draft selection. The first man to bypass the minors and jump straight to the big-leagues in almost ten years,” the PA system echoed out, “Mike Leake.”
The sound of confusion and the buzz of unanswered questions synchronized itself into the static of an outdated PA system.
A single voice screamed, “We want Chap-man!”
Others joined. A chant ensued. Dusty Baker practiced counting to 125 while rolling his fingers against each other, a move he learned from Dr. Evil.
A stat-line popped up onto the surprisingly useless group of plasmas on set: 6.2IP / 4H / 1ER / 5Ks. The audience erupted before once again being silenced as “7BB” was added to the trailing end of the stat-line, almost as an afterthought.
No one knew what to make of Mike Leake’s debut, not even Mike Leake.
What To Make of Mike Leake’s Debut
Leake’s first inning consisted of a walk to the lead-off hitter (Theriot), a double to Fukudome and a walk to Lee to load the bases. Leake then calmly dispatched of the Cubs with a couple shallow pop-ups (Ramirez & Soriano) and a strike-out (Byrd).
Pitch after pitch, Leake dealt a hittable but not crushable assortment of fastballs, change-ups, cutters, sinkers, sliders and curves. Leake refused to give the big-boys anything to hit, which lead to the seven walks. In the long term, it’s a losing strategy. Against the Cubs, it worked out just dandy, especially considering that Leake got squeezed on a few calls.
.
Above is a graph of the deciding pitches, courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net. As you can see, Leake got squeezed on at least 3 of the 7 walks, as he just barely missed the zone. If Leake was a crafty veteran, those calls would certainly have went his way. Leake got himself in trouble when he started floating the change-up and fastball about belt high.
.
From the Catcher’s perspective, you can see the movement that Leake was getting yesterday. What’s astonishing was Leake’s ability to work each of the pitches in just about any count. His fastball however, a pitch that topped out at about 92mph, was just awe-inspiring. I followed Leake coming out, but I didn’t realize he had the ability to work the fastball like he demonstrated yesterday.
Almost every fastball had heavy, heavy, sink on it. As you can see, Leake had no problem working the fastball with natural tail, and with a cutting action. The Cutter’s (FC) intriguing because he appears to be coming from a different arm-slot while throwing it, which may cause him issues down the line.
Leake was very impressive with his change-up, throwing it 19 times regardless of batter-handedness (this is a big deal). He threw 14 of 19 for strikes, and managed to get 3 swinging strikes on the pitch. Occasionally, as you’re about to see, Leake’s change-up is nothing more than him subtracting from the fastball.
.
Leake worked the fastball from about 92mph down to 86mph with ease. It’s immensely clear that Leake has an understanding of each of his pitches, and in turn, the ability to work them as he sees fit. There were times when he did get a bit too cute, but you can probably attribute that to “This is my first professional start and I’m in the SHOW!”
.
Leake’s basically got the perfect pfx-rainbow going on here, which isn’t something that we often see. Now, I’ll have to preface this analysis by stating that something may be up with Cincinatti’s pfx-camera shifting the gameday data down on the Y-axis.
But, Wow.
Every single pitch that Leake threw had heavy, heavy sink on it. We can realistically say that Leake maybe threw 4 four-seam fastballs, and even they had almost no “rising” action. You’ll notice that just about every fastball that Leake threw either dove (green, blue, red) or cut (black). Many of the yellow change-ups are nothing more than Leake taking a bit off the Heater (IMHO,) but they dove with the best of them.
What has me absolutely tied in knots is just how much dip that his fastball gets. Normally, you’d the change-up to dive on the Y-Axis at least a little bit more than his fastball, but that’s not the case with Leake. Leake’s change-up is good, anyone would be impressed by the movement he gets on the vertical axis, but it literally moves in the same way as his two-seam fastball.
From the looks of it, he just doesn’t get that much spin on the majority of his fastballs.
.
When you see numbers like this, it’s just perplexing. The graph’s basically telling you that Mike Leake doesn’t have an inch of grip-it-and-rip-it in him. Personally, I’ll be excited to see data of Leake actually throwing a true four-seam fastball in order to put everything into perspective.
Because Leake’s “fastballs” have less spin than you’d expect, they “rise” less — Hence, they dive. When I say dive, I suppose I mean that they are affected by gravity more than a pitch with a lot of backspin.
So Uh…
Mike Leake has the stuff to have a long career. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but his ability to work every one of his pitches is just amazing. More than anyone going forward, I’m excited to get more and more data on Mike Leake.
As for comparisons, I can’t draw one. He just doesn’t throw a fastball that rises, which is beyond me. After what seems like forever, someone did jump out:
Ricky Nolasco. Nolasco, who probably shouldn’t be throwing a straight four-seamer, based on fangraphs’ pitch values seems to fit hand and hand with Mike Leake.
RICKY NOLASCO (first start of 2010)
Pitch Type Avg Speed Max Speed Avg H-Break Avg V-Break Count Strikes / % Swinging Strikes / % Nibbleness Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball) 91.19 94 -3.86 9.38 46 29 / 63.04% 1 / 2.17% 6.17 0.415
CH (Changeup) 84.57 86.5 -8.14 1.62 14 10 / 71.43% 2 / 14.29% 7.44 0.450
SL (Slider) 84.94 87.2 2.53 1.67 11 9 / 81.82% 2 / 18.18% 6.50 0.443
CU (Curveball) 75.06 77.3 7.93 -8.96 14 9 / 64.29% 0 / 0.00% 6.36 0.509
FC (Cutter) 84.76 86.9 0.67 2.91 17 11 / 64.71% 3 / 17.65% 9.00 0.443
FT (TwoSeam Fastball) 88.40 89.3 -10.91 3.92 2 0 / 0.00% 0 / 0.00% 1.09 0.423
.
MIKE LEAKE (first start of 2010)
Pitch Type Avg Speed Max Speed Avg H-Break Avg V-Break Count Strikes / % Swinging Strikes / % Nibbleness Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball) 88.93 91.1 -6.91 2.59 32 14 / 43.75% 2 / 6.25% 6.86 0.419
SI (Sinker) 88.56 89.6 -8.71 0.59 8 4 / 50.00% 0 / 0.00% 6.35 0.423
CH (Changeup) 84.18 87.5 -8.15 2.76 19 14 / 73.68% 3 / 15.79% 6.85 0.444
SL (Slider) 80.83 89.5 5.66 -0.14 21 12 / 57.14% 4 / 19.05% 7.04 0.460
CU (Curveball) 77.79 82.4 8.33 -4.70 15 6 / 40.00% 2 / 13.33% 7.15 0.482
FC (Cutter) 89.23 91 -0.88 4.62 6 3 / 50.00% 0 / 0.00% 6.52 0.416
.
The End:
When you’re the master of everything, you might just run into trouble. Ricky Nolasco had issues last year with getting hitters out, but ended up fighting through them to put together a terrific end of the year streak.
Coming into 2010, Nolasco was one of the better fantasy picks despite his lack of an overpowering fastball. Although Nolasco only throws his curveball around 15% of the time, it’s proven to be his most valuable pitch. Leake’s curveball doesn’t exhibit the same vertical drop, but at the same time, his slider/slurve, is equal to or better than Nolasco’s in term of movement.
Without further adieu, welcome to the Mike Leake Show!
A man stepped forth, his pearly whites glimmering under harsh lights and focused stares. Their radiance, blinding radiance, could mean but one thing: It was, indeed, the big-time.
It was his time.
It was their time.
The audience awaited, eagerly. Their strength renewed by a long Cincinnati winter, they were ready to hold on to every word, regardless of the speed, spin, break or location. They were ready to clinch their fist around greatness, refusing to let go, recalling the days of Chris Sabo The Big Red Machine. Cincinnati wasn’t afraid of greatness, they embraced it!
A hush fell before he spoke; the audience was about to witness history. The audience was about to witness the greatest clusterfuck of the english language ever to be broadcast on FSN Cincinnati.
“Goud Day Fore Bas-si-bal,” was spoken in the tempo of a Yankees / Red Sox Game. The audience went wild, unabashedly wild, as the verbal molasses flowed forth.
“Bool fly good fast five times 100 miles per hours.”
“Bool misses batter bat, many times.”
A slight man in his early twenties interjected, “He means that he topped 100mph five times this afternoon and struck out 9. Go ahead folks, give him a hand! Aroldis Chapman!”
The audience was quick to oblige but, what was whitie doing here? His hair was somewhere between unkempt and stylish; it could hardly be described as flowing Californian blond locks. What was that thing on his chin? Did he grow that when he was fourteen?
The man with the smile disappeared amidst the silence of utter shock. The audience was left with…
“Introducing your first round draft selection. The first man to bypass the minors and jump straight to the big-leagues in almost ten years,” the PA system echoed out, “Mike Leake.”
The sound of confusion and the buzz of unanswered questions synchronized itself into the static of an outdated PA system.
A single voice screamed, “We want Chap-man!”
Others joined. A chant ensued. Dusty Baker practiced counting to 125 while rolling his fingers against each other, a move he learned from Dr. Evil.
A stat-line popped up onto the surprisingly useless group of plasmas on set: 6.2IP / 4H / 1ER / 5Ks. The audience erupted before once again being silenced as “7BB” was added to the trailing end of the stat-line, almost as an afterthought.
No one knew what to make of Mike Leake’s debut, not even Mike Leake.
What To Make of Mike Leake’s Debut
Leake’s first inning consisted of a walk to the lead-off hitter (Theriot), a double to Fukudome and a walk to Lee to load the bases. Leake then calmly dispatched of the Cubs with a couple shallow pop-ups (Ramirez & Soriano) and a strike-out (Byrd).
Pitch after pitch, Leake dealt a hittable but not crushable assortment of fastballs, change-ups, cutters, sinkers, sliders and curves. Leake refused to give the big-boys anything to hit, which lead to the seven walks. In the long term, it’s a losing strategy. Against the Cubs, it worked out just dandy, especially considering that Leake got squeezed on a few calls.
.
Above is a graph of the deciding pitches, courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net. As you can see, Leake got squeezed on at least 3 of the 7 walks, as he just barely missed the zone. If Leake was a crafty veteran, those calls would certainly have went his way. Leake got himself in trouble when he started floating the change-up and fastball about belt high.
.
From the Catcher’s perspective, you can see the movement that Leake was getting yesterday. What’s astonishing was Leake’s ability to work each of the pitches in just about any count. His fastball however, a pitch that topped out at about 92mph, was just awe-inspiring. I followed Leake coming out, but I didn’t realize he had the ability to work the fastball like he demonstrated yesterday.
Almost every fastball had heavy, heavy, sink on it. As you can see, Leake had no problem working the fastball with natural tail, and with a cutting action. The Cutter’s (FC) intriguing because he appears to be coming from a different arm-slot while throwing it, which may cause him issues down the line.
Leake was very impressive with his change-up, throwing it 19 times regardless of batter-handedness (this is a big deal). He threw 14 of 19 for strikes, and managed to get 3 swinging strikes on the pitch. Occasionally, as you’re about to see, Leake’s change-up is nothing more than him subtracting from the fastball.
.
Leake worked the fastball from about 92mph down to 86mph with ease. It’s immensely clear that Leake has an understanding of each of his pitches, and in turn, the ability to work them as he sees fit. There were times when he did get a bit too cute, but you can probably attribute that to “This is my first professional start and I’m in the SHOW!”
.
Leake’s basically got the perfect pfx-rainbow going on here, which isn’t something that we often see. Now, I’ll have to preface this analysis by stating that something may be up with Cincinatti’s pfx-camera shifting the gameday data down on the Y-axis.
But, Wow.
Every single pitch that Leake threw had heavy, heavy sink on it. We can realistically say that Leake maybe threw 4 four-seam fastballs, and even they had almost no “rising” action. You’ll notice that just about every fastball that Leake threw either dove (green, blue, red) or cut (black). Many of the yellow change-ups are nothing more than Leake taking a bit off the Heater (IMHO,) but they dove with the best of them.
What has me absolutely tied in knots is just how much dip that his fastball gets. Normally, you’d the change-up to dive on the Y-Axis at least a little bit more than his fastball, but that’s not the case with Leake. Leake’s change-up is good, anyone would be impressed by the movement he gets on the vertical axis, but it literally moves in the same way as his two-seam fastball.
From the looks of it, he just doesn’t get that much spin on the majority of his fastballs.
.
When you see numbers like this, it’s just perplexing. The graph’s basically telling you that Mike Leake doesn’t have an inch of grip-it-and-rip-it in him. Personally, I’ll be excited to see data of Leake actually throwing a true four-seam fastball in order to put everything into perspective.
Because Leake’s “fastballs” have less spin than you’d expect, they “rise” less — Hence, they dive. When I say dive, I suppose I mean that they are affected by gravity more than a pitch with a lot of backspin.
So Uh…
Mike Leake has the stuff to have a long career. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but his ability to work every one of his pitches is just amazing. More than anyone going forward, I’m excited to get more and more data on Mike Leake.
As for comparisons, I can’t draw one. He just doesn’t throw a fastball that rises, which is beyond me. After what seems like forever, someone did jump out:
Ricky Nolasco. Nolasco, who probably shouldn’t be throwing a straight four-seamer, based on fangraphs’ pitch values seems to fit hand and hand with Mike Leake.
RICKY NOLASCO (first start of 2010)
Pitch Type Avg Speed Max Speed Avg H-Break Avg V-Break Count Strikes / % Swinging Strikes / % Nibbleness Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball) 91.19 94 -3.86 9.38 46 29 / 63.04% 1 / 2.17% 6.17 0.415
CH (Changeup) 84.57 86.5 -8.14 1.62 14 10 / 71.43% 2 / 14.29% 7.44 0.450
SL (Slider) 84.94 87.2 2.53 1.67 11 9 / 81.82% 2 / 18.18% 6.50 0.443
CU (Curveball) 75.06 77.3 7.93 -8.96 14 9 / 64.29% 0 / 0.00% 6.36 0.509
FC (Cutter) 84.76 86.9 0.67 2.91 17 11 / 64.71% 3 / 17.65% 9.00 0.443
FT (TwoSeam Fastball) 88.40 89.3 -10.91 3.92 2 0 / 0.00% 0 / 0.00% 1.09 0.423
.
MIKE LEAKE (first start of 2010)
Pitch Type Avg Speed Max Speed Avg H-Break Avg V-Break Count Strikes / % Swinging Strikes / % Nibbleness Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball) 88.93 91.1 -6.91 2.59 32 14 / 43.75% 2 / 6.25% 6.86 0.419
SI (Sinker) 88.56 89.6 -8.71 0.59 8 4 / 50.00% 0 / 0.00% 6.35 0.423
CH (Changeup) 84.18 87.5 -8.15 2.76 19 14 / 73.68% 3 / 15.79% 6.85 0.444
SL (Slider) 80.83 89.5 5.66 -0.14 21 12 / 57.14% 4 / 19.05% 7.04 0.460
CU (Curveball) 77.79 82.4 8.33 -4.70 15 6 / 40.00% 2 / 13.33% 7.15 0.482
FC (Cutter) 89.23 91 -0.88 4.62 6 3 / 50.00% 0 / 0.00% 6.52 0.416
.
The End:
When you’re the master of everything, you might just run into trouble. Ricky Nolasco had issues last year with getting hitters out, but ended up fighting through them to put together a terrific end of the year streak.
Coming into 2010, Nolasco was one of the better fantasy picks despite his lack of an overpowering fastball. Although Nolasco only throws his curveball around 15% of the time, it’s proven to be his most valuable pitch. Leake’s curveball doesn’t exhibit the same vertical drop, but at the same time, his slider/slurve, is equal to or better than Nolasco’s in term of movement.
