(Hockey!)
Doug Fister has thrown 391 pitches through four starts so far this season. Of those 391, 313 have been fastballs, for a league-leading fastball frequency of 80%.
In second place so far is Matt Garza, at 77%. Then things quickly start to trail off towards 70% and below. The Major League leader in 2009 was Mike Pelfrey, at 78%.
A year ago, Doug Fister threw far fewer fastballs. The dramatic early increase in 2010 has come at the expense of his change, considered by many - including myself - to be his best pitch. He's thrown only 25 changeups to date, which is roughly the amount that Jason Vargas throws in an inning.
And yet he's succeeded, mainly because he's issued just four unintentional walks.
Doug Fister is weird. Simple, and weird.
0 recs | 13 comments
Note that he has faced more righties this year than last
Jeff Sullivan - April 24, 2010
46 lefties, 57 righties so far in 2010
145 and 111 in 2009.
Jeff Sullivan - April 24, 2010
Control.
In and out, up and down, getting that first strike in, not getting behind in the count….
ignacio - April 24, 2010
Control? Or Command?
The Typical Idiot Fan - April 24, 2010
The former if you're on a PC; the latter if you're on a Mac.
RunningFool - April 24, 2010
I have no idea what the difference between these is.
joof - April 24, 2010
Control- throwing strikes
Command- throwing the ball where the glove is.
Or maybe it’s vice-versa.
Slurvey - April 24, 2010
Let's just say he's locating his pitches well
Allen Wu - April 24, 2010
Fister is quickly becoming my new favorite player.
He’s so rad.
Jackle Mackle - April 24, 2010
He wears my favorite jersey, that's for sure.
thehemogoblin - April 24, 2010
If he threw more change-ups/curve balls then perhaps his K rate would rise.
But then again I’m assuming they’re great pitches and he hasn’t thrown any of them at a great enough frequency to tell us whether or not they’re amazing.
Slurvey - April 24, 2010
Yeah I don't know if they are good enough to miss many bats
They’d probably get hit hard if they weren’t very good and would probably increase his walk rate since his control of them isn’t as good.
Edgar for Pres - April 25, 2010
Doug thinks pitching is easy and doesn't understand how Brandon Morrow failed.
Nojf33 - April 25, 2010
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