Tapate50
Well-known member
Nice article from Fangraphs interviewing O'Day
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/darren-oday-talks-pitching/
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/darren-oday-talks-pitching/
O'Day Article on FG
- Thread starter Tapate50
- Start date
UNCBlue012
Well-known member
This tid-bit is so good:
“But I thought about it for a while; I started to think about it in a trap-door kind of way. If he wants to hit something up, then why don’t you exploit what he wants to hit? Why not see if you can throw something at the top of the zone, or just a little bit over the zone, that he’s going swing-and-miss at?
“Through experimentation — again, this was before the data was really there for everybody to see — I found that I had a lot more swing-and-miss at the top of the zone, and I also had a greater margin for error. As a low-arm-angle guy trying to get an opposite-handed batter out… that opens up the bottom of the zone against lefties, because they just can’t isolate on down and away.
“I’ve struggled my whole career to throw a changeup. Some guys can control all dimensions of the zone: in, out, up, down, forward, and back. I can’t control forward and back as well, because I can’t throw a changeup, so I have to control up and down much better.”
Thanks for sharing!
“But I thought about it for a while; I started to think about it in a trap-door kind of way. If he wants to hit something up, then why don’t you exploit what he wants to hit? Why not see if you can throw something at the top of the zone, or just a little bit over the zone, that he’s going swing-and-miss at?
“Through experimentation — again, this was before the data was really there for everybody to see — I found that I had a lot more swing-and-miss at the top of the zone, and I also had a greater margin for error. As a low-arm-angle guy trying to get an opposite-handed batter out… that opens up the bottom of the zone against lefties, because they just can’t isolate on down and away.
“I’ve struggled my whole career to throw a changeup. Some guys can control all dimensions of the zone: in, out, up, down, forward, and back. I can’t control forward and back as well, because I can’t throw a changeup, so I have to control up and down much better.”
Thanks for sharing!