How Good is Your Fastball?

Today while I was diligently working, or reading some sports Web site (I don't remember), I overheard midday host Mike Murphy on Chicago's very own AM 670, The Score, comparing Barry Zito to Rich Hill, using only their fastball mph.

This is a perfect case of conventional baseball "wisdom" getting in the way of an actual thought process…

Don’t get caught up comparing fastballs. Hill throws 92 and Zito will top out at about 88, and that’s it. There's not much more to it.

Here’s a better way to compare the two:

The real problem with Zito is that the book is out on him, so to speak. Everyone in baseball knows that Zito is a “nibbler.” He will continuously throw junk around the strike zone, just begging hitters to take a swing. The teams that do well against him simply wait him out – eventually making him come after them with one in the zone, or walking them. Unless his control is absolutely perfect, a patient team can get to him by the 5th inning or so (see 2006 ALCS game 1, or most of his starts against the Yankees).

As for Hill, it’s hard to say exactly what type of pitcher he’ll be. This is both a positive and negative for the Cubs, as their opponents won’t know how to approach him, at least not yet. On the other hand, will Hill and the Cubs know exactly how he wants to attack the opponent’s hitters?

But all in all, you can’t just look at fastball mph. You have to look at reliability, consistency and repertoire –

Ideally, you’d want a pitcher who can go out every few days and give you a quality start every time. In order to do this, you need to have some variety – can you back up your fastball with something off-speed? What if you can’t locate your fastball one day, do you have something else to throw for strikes?

Speaking of throwing strikes, how about control? I don't care if you throw 105, if you can't put the ball on a corner consistently, you're less than a year in the Big Leagues away from being useless.

Bottom Line: Unless they've mastered the cutter, and can throw it multiple ways (see Mariano Rivera), you can't brand a pitcher on one pitch. Even then, people will eventually figure you out and force you to rely on something else (see Esteban Loaiza).