Niese’s July 30th Start

Just a quick update here on Niese’s most recent start.  I figured i’d post it here since there’s really nothing new about it to reveal on metsminorleagueblog.com

Niese’s pitches:

The same legend applies to these graphs as the one in this post with one exception:  Change-ups are represented by the yellow dots.  Cutters are the Green squares, Blue Pluses are two-seam fastballs, Red Xes are four seam fastballs, and Light blue circles are curveballs.

So what’s new?

First, this time, Niese threw almost as many cutters as four-seam fastballs.  Niese threw 32 cutters, 38 Four-seam Fastballs, 7 two-seam Fastballs, as well as 5 change-ups and 17 curve balls.

Second….this time Niese faced a decent number of lefty and righty batters, whereas in Houston, Niese faced only one lefty batter (Michael Bourn).  This time around, Niese threw 43 pitches to lefties and 56 to righties.  What’s interesting is that Nies threw 14 Cutters to these lefty batters (alongside 22 four-seam fastballs), indicating that Niese sees the pitch as a general-use pitch rather than a righty-only weapon.  Niese had mentioned in interviews that he developed the pitch to help him attack right-handed batters.  But he’s clearly using the pitch as a weapon against all batters.

By contrast, Niese is using his two-seam fastball against only right-handed batters but he still uses the pitch only a few times a game.

Third, the game vs the Rockies shows what we suspected about his cutter, it doesn’t actually move significantly in on righties(/away from lefties) According to the citifield PitchFX cameras, the pitch moved 1 inch in on lefties.  That said, the cutter’s usefulness depends not on its own absolute movement, but its movement compared to other fastballs.  In this start, Niese’s four-seam fastball moved 4.7 inches more in on lefties than the cutter and Niese’s two-seam fastball moved 8.6 inches more in on lefties than the cutter.  These differences are essentially identical to the results from Houston.

So why’d this start wind up so poorly?  Well first, Niese’s pitches resulted in balls more often in this game (particularly the cutter, which was really effective against Houston).  Second, Niese’s locations were sometimes dangerously off.  The pitch that basically sent him packing, a cutter that resulted in a Home Run by Clint Barmes, was not where Niese wants his cutter.  Niese wants his cutter on the inside of the plate against righty batters, but this pitch was on the outside-middle part of the plate and up…..which allowed Barmes to smack it out of the seats.

Remember, movement can only do so much…..control of one’s pitches is still huge.  And that’s something Niese needs to be careful of.