Friday 4 May 2012

Jason Grilli

I'll always remember Grilli's performance in the 2009 World Baseball Classic against Team Canada. It angered me.

Jason missed the entire 2010 season after surgery on his right knee (karma) and dominated AAA (karma) for the Phillies prior to signing with the Pirates (karma karma).

The 35-year old Grilli has been really, really good since signing with the Pirates though. Apparently he's paid his karma-bounty in full and is free to dominate the base and ball game.

I have absolutely no clue how this came to be, though.

Prior to his knee injury, Grilli posted ERAs of 5.40, 6.08, 7.40, 3.38, 4.21, 4.74, 3.00, and 5.32. Basically what you'd expect from a journeyman.

Then, 2011 happened. Grilli was still throwing about 92mph on the heater. Grilli was still throwing a breaking pitch about a third of the time. So what the hell happened?



Pitch Count Frequency H. Mvt V. Mvt Mph H. Rel V. Rel Spin Θ RPM
2007 Slider (SL) 176 25% 6.18 -29.11 85.67 -3.07 6.69 123 708
2008 Slider (SL) 490 40% 7.46 -29.53 84.84 -2.94 6.74 119 861
2009 Slider (SL) 305 32% 5.76 -26.27 85.11 -3.08 6.61 144 939
2011 Slider (SL) 195 38% 12.48 -37.59 81.91 -3.04 6.4 79 1348
2012 Slider (SL) 58 36% 9.99 -33.94 83.04 -3.21 6.5 92 1041


Cool.

That's almost a brand-new pitch and batters have been having a hell of a time with it. Batters have went from swinging at about a quarter of the pitches that Grilli throws outside of the zone (league average) to swinging at 40% of 'em.

After posting a 10.19 K/9 in 2011, Grilli's sitting pretty with a 16.20 K/9 mark in 2012.

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