Ervin Santana Has Figured It Out

by Jeff Sullivan on Jul 9, 2009 12:29 AM PDT in Miscellaneous

His average fastball tonight came in at 92.7mph, up from 91.2mph on the year. The Angels must be thrilled to see him making that kind of progress. At last, it seems that Ervin's heater may be on the way back to where it was a year ago when he came out of nowhere to dominate the league.

I'm just kidding. He's still fucked. Other average fastballs from the same game:

Eddie Guardado: 87.7 (up from 86.1)

Vicente Padilla: 93.6 (up from 91.8)

Jason Grilli: 91.1 (down from 92.3)

Jason Bulger: 94.7 (up from 93.4)

Kevin Jepsen: 96.3 (up from 95.1)

Rich Thompson: 92.4 (up from 91.9)

Matt Palmer: 89.3 (up from 88.6)

Darren O'Day: 86.1 (up from 84.7)

The only things we can take out of this are that PITCHf/x was reporting inflated velocities in LAnaheim tonight, and that Jason Grilli might be hurt. As far as Santana's concerned, he's still in a whole heap of trouble.

0 recs | 15 comments

Comments

Ha

That was wonderful.

CKremer - July 9, 2009 reply

Is there a way to look at his location and movement?

I bet that has just as much to do with it as his velocity, or am I off base?

InSpokane - July 9, 2009 reply

Fangraphs has PITCHf/x game logs available on the player pages.

A significant loss in velocity is a much bigger red flag than location/movement on the injury front. Pitchers shouldn’t be losing velocity on their fastballs, and Santana has dropped 2-3 mph, meaning he is most likely injured. Location and movement are by nature much more volatile than velocity.

Zwakamatsu - July 9, 2009 reply

Thanks.

InSpokane - July 9, 2009 reply

Reply fail.

InSpokane - July 9, 2009 reply

I think it's time to acknowledge the elephant in the room...

joof - July 9, 2009 reply

Lookout Landing