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Monday, March 31, 2008

THT: Fast: Jack Cust eats fastballs for lunch

“Yeah wall to wall
Door to door
Hall to hall
He’s gonna eat ‘em all”

Why pitchers didn’t throw Jack Cust more curveballs, I don’t know. It’s true that a curveball is among the hardest pitches to throw for a strike, and that’s doubly true against a hitter like Cust who doesn’t chase many bad pitches at all, but he seems to have plenty of weaknesses against the curve.

Left-handed pitchers appear to have tried to throw the curveball down and away, missing the strike zone for a ball 62 percent of the time. However, when they got the curve in the zone, Cust almost always took it for a called strike. He watched fully six out of every seven curveballs from lefties spin to the catcher’s mitt with the bat on his shoulder.

Right-handed pitchers threw the curveball both up and away and down and in and had more success throwing it for strikes, 47 percent of the time. Most of the curveballs up and away were taken for called strikes. When the curve was down in the zone, Cust was more willing to offer at the pitch, but when he made contact, he hit a lot of ground balls to the right side of the infield and managed only two singles in 11 balls in play.


Repoz Posted: March 31, 2008 at 08:48 AM | 9 comment(s)
  Related News: GeneralSabermetricsOakland

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   1. plim Posted: March 31, 2008 at 09:26 AM (#2724255)
real life pedro cerrano?

Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.
   2. AROM wants you off his lawn Posted: March 31, 2008 at 09:31 AM (#2724260)
Sounds like a scouting report for Pedro Cerrano, though I generally suffer cognitive dissonance when comparing a righthanded batter to a lefty.

"I hit the straight ball very much. But with curveball, bats are afraid."
   3. AROM wants you off his lawn Posted: March 31, 2008 at 09:32 AM (#2724262)
You're too quick. And did it better.
   4. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: March 31, 2008 at 09:38 AM (#2724272)
Who ate all the balls?
Who ate all the balls?
You fat bastard,
You fat bastard,
You ate all the balls!
   5. Danny Posted: March 31, 2008 at 01:22 PM (#2724674)
Very cool article--so much information to digest in the charts and graphics.

The conclusions the article can reach aren't very far reaching, since Cust hasn't even played a full season and puts so few balls in play (just 11 BIP on curves from LHP is a tiny sample), but I'd love to see this done more often.

It's also interesting that Cust's strikezone extends 4 inches outside. I wonder if umpires will begin to respect his eye more as he goes on, or whether they simply hate his patience/personality/chunkybabyface.
   6. Mike Fast Posted: March 31, 2008 at 02:01 PM (#2724777)
Thanks, Danny.

My understanding is that the strike zone that Cust saw is close to the typical strike zone for left-handed hitters. I could swear I've read an article that showed the actual strike zone for LHB and RHB, I thought maybe by Jonathan Hale, but when I read through his archives, I couldn't find it.

There's this article by John Walsh that talks about the same thing, but his article just draws a box, and I thought Jonathan or some else had done the full 2-D density map.
   7. McGwire's Silence (Sowers the Seed of Love) Posted: March 31, 2008 at 02:30 PM (#2724842)
Mike, the article was awesome! I commented on Ballhype, but thought I'd try it here too: I'd love to see one of these on B.J. Upton!
   8. Tango Posted: March 31, 2008 at 02:52 PM (#2724891)
Mike:

Heat Zones
   9. Mike Fast Posted: March 31, 2008 at 03:08 PM (#2724925)
Thanks, Tango.
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