After today, Carlos Silva's K% stands at a career-best 17.5%, his BB% stands at a right-on-career-average 4.3%, and his GB% stands at a right-on-career-average 48.0%.
Silva actually has a higher K% than Brandon League - 17.5% versus 15.4%.
His contact rate of 82.8% is, by far, the best it's ever been as a starter.
The NL switch helps, of course, but this is pretty much all happening because Silva has dropped his fastball usage from a steady ~75% all the way down to 56%. He's throwing way more sliders and changeups, and batters are having way more trouble hitting them. And he's sacrificed nothing in the way of strikes or groundballs.
Carlos Silva is 31 years old. How did he go this long without somebody telling him, "hey, if you didn't throw your sinker so much, you might do better"?
0 recs | 37 comments
According to Carlos, the only thing anyone with the Mariners ever mentioned was his weight.
msb - June 12, 2010
One thought comes to mind
Its really hard to tell established major leaguers, especially ones with big $$ contracts to change something that made them successful in the first place. Which is why pitching and hitting coaches are really only useful to up and coming guys.
wilymo - June 12, 2010
.
lemonverbena - June 12, 2010
I AM SILVA HEAR ME ROAR!
PositivePaul - June 12, 2010
The other thought that comes to mind
Is that Carlos Silva is/was an idiot and really only cared about eating and being an ass
wilymo - June 12, 2010
And goofing around
I dunno, maybe it took him totally bottoming out to be receptive to this kind of thing. But maybe it’s just that no one ever told him.
Jeff Sullivan - June 12, 2010
This is my theory
Maybe he really has learned something from his horrible M’s tenure, and decided to actually work towards improving himself. As much as I despised the man when he was here, it’s still a neat little comeback story.
Benne - June 12, 2010
Its inexplicable
2009, RHBs vs Silva: .250/.333/.411
2010, RHBs vs Silva: .277/.310/.453
2009, LHBs vs Silva: .380/.436/.718
2010: LHBs vs Silva: .170/.216/.223
He’s not any better against right-handers. He’s just gone from being the easiest pitcher in the game for lefties to punish to being the equivalent of a side arming loogy. It’s not just “throw fewer sinkers” – it’s “throw fewer sinkers to opposite handed hitters”, which is something most pitchers figure out in A-ball.
davidcameron - June 12, 2010
That is definitely a possibility
It did take a blogger to alert our last pitching coach about the problems with Felix
wilymo - June 12, 2010
Dang I'm not cut out for this posting on the actual website thing
That was meant to go under jeff’s reply
wilymo - June 12, 2010
I'm going to stick to Twitter
for now.
wilymo - June 12, 2010
No, the pitching coach used the open letter as a tool to reinforce what he had told Felix
msb - June 12, 2010
No he didn't
Jeff Sullivan - June 12, 2010
I'm just going by what Dave said at the time
“That Chaves was able to use the the open letter from the blog to help drive home a point he’d already been making, well, that’s just the cherry on top. But Felix deserves all the credit in the world for this. He and Chaves did the work, and they’re the ones who tossed a shutout at the A’s today. We just get to enjoy the fruits of Good Felix. "
msb - June 12, 2010
Like wilymo says
Chaves was just saving face.
Jeff Sullivan - June 12, 2010
I can't speak for Dave but
he probably said that because he’d look like an ass if he said, “you know what heres my address Felix, a personal check is fine, you’re welcome.”
wilymo - June 12, 2010
That's what they'd like
for you to believe so that the organization doesn’t look like idiots after the fact. Do you really think that the open letter would have changed a player’s mind if it was just reinforcing what had already been told to him?
wilymo - June 12, 2010
A theory:
baseball players are, to put it mildly, not of the overly inquisitive academic nature. Well, guess where coaches come from?
Matthew - June 12, 2010
Here's the weird thing
I spent 15 minutes talking change-ups in Peoria with Rick Adair. He’s clearly a fan of the pitch. He said that the organization teaches it to every pitcher they have, and believes that every pitcher should throw one.
davidcameron - June 12, 2010
The pupils must not like throwing them.
Or we could just blame Rob Johnson and go to sleep happy and angry at Rob Johnson.
Slurvey - June 12, 2010
Carlos Silva took pride in his sinker.
ThundaPC - June 12, 2010
Honestly,
good for Carlos Silva. I never wanted him before, didn’t want him when he was here, and I still don’t want him now.
He was never going to be good here, so it’s great that the change of scenery did him good. But I will always hate Carlos Silva the Mariner.
killer_ewok18 - June 12, 2010
I can't wait for someone to give him another 4/48 million dollar contract.
Slurvey - June 12, 2010
THAT IS NOT THE M'S
Slurvey - June 12, 2010
It's like,
he’s still Carlos Silva. This can’t last forever, I keep thinking. But then, I guess he does get to face the pitcher 3 times a game, also.
killer_ewok18 - June 12, 2010
Here's the crazy thing though
Of his 53 strikeouts, only four have come against the pitcher. He has a K/BB of 3.5 against position players.
Jeff Sullivan - June 12, 2010
That really doesn't make that big of a difference.
The NL is not little league. Outside of the AL East, the talent level in the AL and the NL are pretty much the same. Both leagues participate in the same amateur draft, teams in both leagues bid on the same free agents. If you assume that an average DH is exactly twice the hitter that an average pitcher is, pitching stats should be 5% better in the NL, before taking into account pinch hitting for the pitcher, the pitcher’s slot getting less PAs because it comes up 9th usually, and double switches that can keep the pitchers from coming to the plate at all in the second half of a game. Carlos Silva is better because he is doing something different. He’s having his success against people like Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Prince Fielder, and Ryan Howard. Silva is better now than he was with us. This kind of reflects poorly on our pitching coaches and our catchers that we didn’t try these adjustments ourselves.
Jon S. - June 13, 2010 via mobile
Yeah
I think you’re right, Carlos Silva is really the one who is making this happen. But how does something like this affect his projections going forward? There’s his new approach to pitching, which I could see being sustainable to an extent, but he’s still Carlos Silva. He’s not this good.
killer_ewok18 - June 13, 2010
This is, of course, assuming they didn't try these adjustments themselves
It’s entirely possible, and I might even say probable that they did try, and he just farted and ate another hamburger.
Matt Erickson - June 13, 2010
Who ever said someone didn't tell him that?
The guy tried to turn the team against Ichrio because Ichiro was showing them up by being good. Combine that with how notoriously…ummm…daft baseball players are. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Carlos Silva is a very dumb human being.
SethGrandpa - June 13, 2010
That almost certainly wasn't Silva
Aaron Campeau - June 13, 2010
Carlos' quote at the time was:
“There’s a lot of people here who play for themselves. They get two hits, that’s my day. I made my day. If we lose, who cares?”
msb - June 13, 2010
If someone had told him before, why did he only now pay attention?
Maybe it really is that he needed to bottom out before making a change. This is more about the miracle of a 31 year old suddenly turning from a pile of crap into a legitimately good starting pitcher.
Jeff Sullivan - June 13, 2010
Good for Carlos, but none of this really matters
Because on this team, he’d still be 2-5 with 3 ND’s.
Pilate - June 13, 2010
That's true.
Having run support that he’s never had in Seattle probably helps.
Fin - June 13, 2010
The Cubs have a good track record with veteran pitchers
Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster both have been outstanding in the Cubs’ rotation despite not being nearly as good elsewhere. IIRC, the M’s have also had a couple pitchers move to other teams and do better.
I don’t expect Silva’s solid performance level to continue, nor his even better results. But at this point, I do think is better than in the past due to the coaching of Rothschild et al. Despite my confidence he has improved, I really hope the Cub sell high on him before he regresses.
Shawn Domagal-Goldman - June 13, 2010
... and for the record, I'm a Cubs fan.
But I’m not the brand I suspect many of you have seen around these parts. I place the blame for the Milton Bradley fiasco in Chicago at the feet of the organization and the Chicago media and fans as much I do at Bradley’s feet. And I really, really hope he does well in Seattle.
Shawn Domagal-Goldman - June 13, 2010
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