[OttoC]

Thus far in 2009, Papelbon is throwing far more pitches per batter than he has in previous seasons. We are not dealing with many games, yet, but I think it is worth following. While the percentage of swinging strikes looks low compared to previous years, that could be a function of sample size or simply a different approach to pitching; however, when looking at that in conjunction with the increases in foul ball and foul tip percentages, I think that may be another area to keep an eye on, especially to see if there is a drop in his fastball velocity.

Year	All K	%Call	%Swing	%Foul	%Tip	Pitch/Batter
2005	129	28.68%	20.93%	47.29%	3.10%	3.96	(starter)
2005	154	31.17%	25.32%	41.56%	1.95%	3.94	(reliever)
2006	541	23.84%	26.80%	48.06%	1.29%	3.98
2007	513	27.68%	30.99%	39.77%	1.56%	4.06
2008	544	27.39%	23.53%	46.69%	2.39%	3.85
2009	85	28.24%	20.00%	48.24%	3.53%	4.89

The percentage of foul tips is not included in the percentage of foul balls.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

There is some good discussion over in the Sandbox about Papelbon's changed delivery here.

[OttoC]

Yeah, there was something in the Globe this morning quoting Papelbon as saying:

"I've changed my delivery, kind of added a little bit more power to it," Papelbon said. "When you make adjustments in this game, you're going to have to take the good with the bad, and maybe right now I'm throwing a little bit more pitches than I have in the past. To me, I'm still not overworking myself because by changing my mechanics, it's able to take some of that pressure off my arm. So throwing 15 pitches the old way is the same as throwing 25 the new way." http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...s_for_papelbon/

[LahoudOrBillyC]

Prediction: Papelbon's next career will not be "pitching coach."

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Well Paps was awful again tonight, although he did get the save. All three hits he allowed were on the fastball; he is not getting the swings and misses on the fastball that we're used to seeing him get. His control on the fastball also looks off; he was laboring with command tonight and the only reason his inning wasn't worse was that he got a ridiculous gift call for a 3rd strike on Peralta from noted awful umpire CB Buckner.

He did K Shoppach on a filthy splitter, but overall he looked pretty bad. I can only assume that the change in his pitching motion to holding his hands at his chin is not helping him stay on top of the ball during pitch delivery and is causing his fastball to lose the usual "hop" we've seen from him in the past.

I'd like to know whose bright idea it was to change Paps' motion. If it was his own, I assume he did it with the Sox' blessing. The results so far have not been good at all. If it was the Sox' idea, well, their track record with guys like Hansen is pretty poor.

[Ananti]

He's still getting the job done, he's not been his usual dominant self but it's not as if he's been terrible. I'm going to wait and see on him.

[JohntheBaptist]

OttoC, on Apr 27 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

Yeah, there was something in the Globe this morning quoting Papelbon as saying:

"I've changed my delivery, kind of added a little bit more power to it," Papelbon said. "When you make adjustments in this game, you're going to have to take the good with the bad, and maybe right now I'm throwing a little bit more pitches than I have in the past. To me, I'm still not overworking myself because by changing my mechanics, it's able to take some of that pressure off my arm. So throwing 15 pitches the old way is the same as throwing 25 the new way." http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...s_for_papelbon/

The idea that he's altering his mechanics to "take some pressure off my arm" is not a good sign to me. I know the Sox are on top of these things on various levels, but that sentence seems revealing to me.

His velocity still seems OK but it's strange because those extra feet on his fastball don't seem to be there. But I'm obviously not exactly going to be able tell that definitively watching MLB.tv. Have there been any scouting reports to that effect?

We'll see. Maybe a dead arm period?

[Sprowl]

If this goes on, I'm going to retitle this thread Papelbon's Suckage. Some quick observations:

• pitchfx says that his release point is averaging 6', so it's a little higher than at Fenway -- unless it's a camera fluke, which is certainly possible with park-to-park variation.
  
• he threw 15 fastballs and 4 sliders, but no splitters (he usually saves those for LHB; the slutter is the offspeed pitch of choice for RHB). The only LHB he faced was Choo, who singled off the first-pitch fastball.
  
• velocity is not the problem: Papelbon averaged 95, topping out at 96.1
  
• predictable location is a problem: every fastball comes in belt-high or above. Batters are sitting on the high fastball, and it's not jumping out of the way of their bats the way it used to.
  
• In fact, it's fading into RHB, but it's not fooling them. A sinker is not a strikeout pitch, and Papelbon's fastball is not riding high, it's fading. That is not a good thing for a strikeout pitcher who relies on the high fastball.

My gut reaction is that he needs to make his motion more compact and more over-the-top. He also needs to use more of the strike zone -- if he's gonna throw sinkers, he's gotta throw them lower. Better still... don't throw sinkers.

[Foulkey Reese]

Not to nitpick, but Shoppach struck out on a pretty nasty splitter.

[roundegotrip]

Papelbon has been guilty in the past of dropping his arm and slinging, and I do think his arm slot looks a little low. It's tough to tell watching on a PC at game speed. That quote from Paps about using his lower body more makes me wonder if he's trying to lengthen his stride. Mystic Merlin mentioned him falling off to his left in the gamethread, and that struck me as accurate. Wish I could go back and watch his inning again now.

This post has been edited by roundegotrip: 27 April 2009 - 09:20 PM

[TFisNEXT]

Foulkey Reese, on Apr 27 2009, 10:16 PM, said:

Not to nitpick, but Shoppach struck out on a pretty nasty splitter.

Remy said it was a slider, and it looked like a tight slider with good downward motion on the replay, but I wasn't close enough to the TV to see the ball rotation. Maybe someone saw the grip by Paps or the rotation on the replay.

[Sprowl]

Foulkey Reese, on Apr 27 2009, 07:16 PM, said:

Not to nitpick, but Shoppach struck out on a pretty nasty splitter.

No nits picked (and I hate to tell you), but when Papelbon throws an 84 mph pitch with positive horizontal movement, that's not a splitter, it's a slider (or slutter, if you like). The splitter usually comes in 88-89 mph and has between -7" and -10" horizontal break.

[jayhoz]

TFisNEXT, on Apr 27 2009, 10:18 PM, said:

Remy said it was a slider, and it looked like a tight slider with good downward motion on the replay, but I wasn't close enough to the TV to see the ball rotation. Maybe someone saw the grip by Paps or the rotation on the replay.

PitchFx has him throwing 15 fastballs and 4 sliders.

[RedOctober3829]

TFisNEXT, on Apr 27 2009, 10:18 PM, said:

Remy said it was a slider, and it looked like a tight slider with good downward motion on the replay, but I wasn't close enough to the TV to see the ball rotation. Maybe someone saw the grip by Paps or the rotation on the replay.

It surely was a slider. It was at 84 MPH and it tailed sharply to the outside part of the plate on a right handed batter.

[paulftodd]

Smiling Joe Hesketh, on Apr 28 2009, 09:52 AM, said:

He did K Shoppach on a filthy splitter, but overall he looked pretty bad. I can only assume that the change in his pitching motion to holding his hands at his chin is not helping him stay on top of the ball during pitch delivery and is causing his fastball to lose the usual "hop" we've seen from him in the past.

Maybe just as important is batters may see the ball out of his hand better with the lower arm slot. I remember Farrell once saying batters could not pick up the ball very well off Pap since when he went over the top his big head hid the ball so well, something like that

This post has been edited by paulftodd: 28 April 2009 - 01:08 AM

[Romero Romine]

OttoC, on Apr 27 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

Yeah, there was something in the Globe this morning quoting Papelbon as saying:
"To me, I'm still not overworking myself because by changing my mechanics, it's able to take some of that pressure off my arm. So throwing 15 pitches the old way is the same as throwing 25 the new way." http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...s_for_papelbon/

Good lord. There is whistling past the graveyard, and then there is sending the marching band up there. "Arm discomfort causes pitcher to change his delivery, reducing effectiveness" is not a story that ends well. I don't see how this ends any other way than a trip to the DL.

[roundegotrip]

Alright, I got curious, so here's a little Papelbon breakdown.

We'll start with a video of Papelbon warming up in the pen. I don't know when it was taken, but it was posted early last August. Note the relatively over the top arm slot, and how well balanced he is over his left leg on his follow-through, with his right foot up in the air.




Now here's a look at some sequential screencaps of Paps delivering a fastball during the Cleveland game. I put up some screencaps from Tim Lincecum's 12 K game the other night side by side for the sake of comparison, since I'm wondering if Papelbon is trying to increase his stride length, and Lincecum is the poster boy of the long stride. Note Papelbon's low arm slot, and how unbalanced he is at the end of his follow-through, falling over to his left with his right leg kicked out in an attempt to stay balanced.



It looks like he's opening up and working east/west, whipping the ball, which is a habit he's gotten into in the past. He's probably getting under the ball a little bit, too. Hopefully it's just Papelbon tinkering with his mechanics and not something sinister like a shoulder problem.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

roundegotrip, on Apr 28 2009, 04:22 AM, said:

It looks like he's opening up and working east/west, whipping the ball, which is a habit he's gotten into in the past. He's probably getting under the ball a little bit, too. Hopefully it's just Papelbon tinkering with his mechanics and not something sinister like a shoulder problem.

Totally agree with this analysis and thanks for the breakdown.

I've always been of the opinion that the position of the elbow relative to the shoulder is what really governs arm problems. Look at Lincecum - his elbow is way higher than his shoulder as he releases the ball, which is why it's not surprising that he always says he throws all the time without worrying about overwork. His mechanics are awesome from a low-stress on the elbow point of view, especially.

Then look at Papelbon. He's just barely got his elbow higher than his shoulder. And look at his follow through - looks like he's coming across rather than finishing lower than the belt. Hard to get on top of the ball that way.

[JimD]

Romero Romine, on Apr 28 2009, 01:51 AM, said:

Good lord. There is whistling past the graveyard, and then there is sending the marching band up there. "Arm discomfort causes pitcher to change his delivery, reducing effectiveness" is not a story that ends well. I don't see how this ends any other way than a trip to the DL.

My thoughts exactly. Right now, I'm very glad this team has Saito and Smoltz on the roster.

[phrenile]

paulftodd, on Apr 27 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

Maybe just as important is batters may see the ball out of his hand better with the lower arm slot. I remember Farrell once saying batters could not pick up the ball very well off Pap since when he went over the top his big head hid the ball so well, something like that

These days, it seems like he's mostly throwing fastballs, and batters are sitting fastball. Would picking up the pitch as it's being released be so helpful if everyone knows it's going to be a fastball? Of course that could be a chicken & egg issue: his slider's less effective if batters can see it coming, so he throws it less.

Checking fangraphs, though, I see he's throwing his slider more this year than past years. There's a slight drop in his splitter usage, but the biggest difference is his huge jump in unknown/garbage pitches (from 0.6% to 9.8%).