THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

There are so few data points that it’s really hard to answer that question objectively.  Believe me, I’ve tried to figure out how to frame it.  And what does “having a pitch” mean?  Bard has a changeup; he throws it to lefties.  But he’s been a two-pitch pitcher to righties.  Does that make him a two-pitch pitcher?  If starts throwing a sinker or a curveball next year, does the fact that he throws it occasionally mean that he “has it”, or does he need to display some level of mastery as measured by...?

MIchael Pineda seems like a pretty good comparable to me. Throws a FB/Slider combo and mixes in an occasional cutter. He’s tried working in a change and a 2 seamer but I don’t think he throws them hardly at all to say he ‘has’ them. I dunno - Mike’s point rings true there.

But I’d say Pineda is a comparable for the most part.

Bard’s changeup is actually pretty good, so I don’t actually think there’s anything to worry about. He just needs to throw it more; he throws his slider way too often to lefties, where it’s much less effective than it is to righties (and much less effective than his change to lefties).

Edwin Jackson is another fastball slider pitcher.

A few of us were talking about this on Twitter a week or so ago. At one point, Bard threw a cutter, the status of which is not known (Brian Macpherson said he’d ask about it during Spring Training) and a more true curveball than his slider.

Here’s the “Scouting Report” from Sox Prospects from back in the day:

Live arm with a smooth delivery.  His fastball looks effortless, and sits around 96 mph with decent command and average movement.  He can consistently hit 97-99 mph on the radar gun, and can reportedly get up to 101 mph when he reaches back. Bard also mixes in an 80-82 mph slider with some nice bite.  His slider really keeps hitters off balance.  It can also dip down to about 76-78 mph with more slurve action.  He also has a few other pitches in his arsenal that aren’t used very often, including a high-80s cutter, a low-90s two-seamer, and a circle change. If a batter is able to catch up to Bard’s fastball, the ball can sail off the bat due to velocity.  He struggled through major control issues throughout the entire 2007 season, particularly with his slurve (a pre-cursor to his slider).  Has a strong frame and a mature demeanor, but has a history of confidence issues.  Bard took well to a bullpen role in the Hawaii League in the 2007-08 off-season, and dominated as a full time reliever in 2008. He changed his delivery by lowering his arm slot prior to the 2008 season, adding a little bit of life to his fastball.  In the 2008-09 off-season, Bard again altered his delivery slightly, starting his hands by his chest rather than his waist, eliminating some unnecessary body movement. That led to outstanding results in 2009.

Either of those would make him pretty comparable to a ton of other pitchers (2S/4S/Slider/Cutter/Platoon Change). Since developing the Cutter is the in thing on the Red Sox staff, I would not be surprised if he tried it again.

Since this is a Daniel Bard thread, My question about Bard is what’s going on with his “platoon” mechanics. He’s been drifing off into space against RHH for some time:

Alexi Ogando.

Ogando, Kershaw, Edwin Jackson, and Bud Norris come to mind among active pitchers who rarely throw a change up or simply change speeds with their slider. Read the Neyer/James book for plenty more historical examples.

Here is a list of players that have a fastball and breaking ball as good or better than Bard according to my pitch/fx study.

Justin Verlander
Clayton Kershaw
Jered Weaver
Tim Hudson
Johnny Cueto
Eric O’Flaherty
Jonny Venters
Joel Hanrahan
Michael Pineda
Craig Kimbrel
Daniel Bard
Alexi Ogando
Ryan Vogelsong

7/
How is “good or better” defined?
Are you essentially using the fangraphs pitch value metric (but including relievers)?

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I’m sure the success of Ogando and Vogelsong this past year were a big factor in the Bard decision, or at least in feeling that the decision could be easily justified.

Yes just using FG’s value.

Jeremy Bonderman, without looking up exact numbers, is probably a reasonable comparison.  He always had a good fastball and slider and struggled to add a 3rd pitch.  He was fairly successful as a very young SP, but ended up losing his stuff because of injury.

What about the ultimate fastball-slider pitcher, Randy Johnson?  Not that you compare Bard to him, and the difference in handedness, and being a horse, and being 6’10”, but he’s got to be the best example of making a 4 seam fastball/slider combo work as a starter.  Having one of the best fastballs as well as one of the best sliders ever probably helped a bit too

The handedness makes a big difference for Randy Johnson, as he relied pretty heavily on his splitter against right-handed hitters.  It’s really tough to make it as a lefty pitcher without a changeup/splitter to use against righties.

It’s presumably a little more possible for a right-handed pitcher to just work the fastball-slider combo because the handedness of his opponents isn’t so extreme.  Still, most right-handed starters have a changeup or a curveball to throw at least 10% of the time against lefties.  Bard would appear to have that, too.  That’s why the important question is not whether they “have” the pitch, but rather how good it needs to be.