Wednesday, April 16, 2008

C.C. Sabathia

This is from Buster Olney's "Three Things to Watch" Column this afternoon:

Indians lefty C.C. Sabathia won the American League Cy Young Award last season thanks to superior control and career-bests in wins (19) and ERA (3.21). He walked one batter every 6½ innings (37 BB in 241 IP) and his stunning 5.6:1 strikeout to walk ratio was the best in baseball.
Sabathia's dominance has evaporated in three starts in 2008, as the big southpaw has been battered around by the White Sox and twice by the A's; in 14 innings, he has walked nine hitters, struck out 13 and compiled a dreadful 11.57 ERA.

Sabathia's dramatic increase in walks this season has not been caused by uncharacteristic wildness. As the chart below shows, he has actually thrown a greater percentage of his total pitches in the zone this year compared to last season, but the difference is that hitters are chasing fewer of Sabathia's pitches out of the zone, especially on two-strike counts.
Sabathia -- regular-season starts
2007
2008
Starts
34
3
Pct. of total pitches in the zone
52.0
54.7
Chase pct. of pitches out of the zone
29.8
17.8
Chase pct. on two-strike counts
41.5
25.0
Walk pct. of plate appearances
3.8
12.2

Sabathia's live fastball is still there, but hitters have been all over it in 2008, posting 31 total bases in the 33 at-bats that ended with a fastball (.939 slugging percentage).
Tonight against the Tigers, Sabathia will try to revert to his Cy Young form against the AL Central rivals. The Tigers have chased pitches at the league average rate of 22 percent of pitches this season (through Monday).

Hopefully that trend can continue tonight. A guest on "The Really Big Show" today mentioned that Fausto Carmona's woes in his last start were due to the same thing, hitters just not chasing balls out of the zone.

Let's just hope the Indians go on a "losing streak vacation" (or as the rest of the world calls it, a winning streak--I'll credit that line to Spence from "The Hills)

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