Tommy Hanson and Adjusting to Velocity Changes
May 9, 2012 at 1:19 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves, Player Analysis
Much has been made of Tommy Hanson’s velocity trends. His fastball has dipped from 92 to 91 to 89 over a three-year span, inciting the usual concern a fan base has when one of its prized arms doesn’t throw as hard as it used to.
Aside from drastic drops in both velocity and movement that usually spell some other issue like injury, I have never been one to panic over velocity trends. Pitchers adapt to how their arms handle workloads, and the more innings they record, the more adapting it can take. This could mean a slight drop in velocity to induce more contact for shorter at-bats, taking some off to preserve endurance, etc.
Brandon Beachy is currently making said adaptation, knocking a couple miles per hour off the fastball and losing a good chunk of strikeouts, yet lowering his walk rate and pitching deeper into games. It should be noted Beachy’s BABIP is currently .226, and a 1.62 ERA will regress, but so far the adjustments are going well.
For Hanson, he has also seen drops in velocity among his other pitches. How it has affected his slider and what adjustments are being made is the focus here.
Hanson’s slider averaged 84 miles per hour in 2010, when he struck out batters at a rate of 20 percent with a 3.31 FIP. The pitch showed good movement and received a whiff/swing rate of 30 percent, while his ground ball/in play rate was 46 percent and his line drive/in play rate was 13 percent.
In 2011, the slider dropped to 82 miles per hour and picked up a couple ticks of downward movement. He threw it the same 28 percent of the time, receiving a five percent increase in whiffs per swing.
So far this year in 39.2 innings, Hanson’s slider has dropped another mile per hour to 81, has maintained the same amount of downward movement and is receiving a whiff/swing rate of 39 percent, a 9 percent increase from 2010. His ground ball/in play rate has also jumped to 59 percent, and his line drive/in play rate is only 9 percent while being thrown 30 percent of the time.
The problem lies in the fact that Hanson’s slider, despite getting more movement, is not as deceptive as it was, according to swing numbers. In 2010, batters swung at the pitch 47.5 percent of the time. In 2011, it was 46.39 percent. This year, it’s 44.14 percent.
So while Hanson’s slider is getting more movement, perhaps the decrease in velocity has led to some loss in deception. The pitch is seeing more whiffs, but it’s also seeing fewer swings, negating some of its value.
In fact, aside from the curveball, the rest of Hanson’s pitches have seen a decrease in swing rate, possibly a result of little deception.
If you’re looking for a comparison going the other way, take a look at Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers left-hander averaged 81 miles per hour with his slider in 2010, receiving 43 percent whiffs/swing. Jump to this year so far, he’s throwing it 85 miles per hour with slightly less movement, but his whiff/swing rate is 47 percent. The difference in swing rate between 2010 and 2012 is 42.95 percent and 50.25 percent.
As I said in the beginning, I have no problem with slight decreases in velocity as long as the pitcher adapts. But Hanson’s stuff doesn’t appear to be adapting well to the decrease, and I feel it’s enough to consider whether a downward strikeout rate is in the forecast, especially with the lack of swings. Yes, his slider is seeing more whiffs per swing, but as mentioned previously, fewer swings negates much of this value. And it’s to the point where he’s losing total whiffs on the pitch.
Numbers courtesy of Brooks Baseball.
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Wasn’t Hanson throwing his 4 seamer in the 94-95 mph range before he was called up?
Yes
My thing about Hanson is he does not seem to be attacking hitters like he was in previous years. When I watch him he is often either falling behind 2-0 or 2-1 and when he gets ahead 0-2 or 1-2 he falls into a lot of 3-2 counts. To me it looks like he is trying to hard to strike guys out instead of just pounding the zone(like Beachy as you mentioned). When he misses the zone too its not as close as it used to be either which could lead to less deception.
Could you guys envision a point in time when he will be talked about in a similar way as Jurrjens last year? The following would be an example of Jurrjens’ talk last year:
“The Braves should trade this guy now while he has value, especially since there are young pitchers on their way up.”
I’m talking about him like that right now. The Braves should trade Hanson after this season for prospects or an outfield bat, and do whatever they can with Jurrjens (hopefully put him back in rotation, and trade him if he pitches well again). They can use their club option on Hudson next year, and go with a rotation of Hudson, Beachy, Minor, Delgado, Teheran/Medlen/Gilmartin.
FWIW Frank Wren said at a luncheon a few weeks ago that JJ’s problem wasn’t his drop in fastball velocity, but rather that his changeup was too fast. Absolute speed is not the answer to all problems.
He was also really wild. He had 10 walks in like 15 innings
Tommy is also only about 10 starts into using his new arm action. Maybe that has something to do with it?
Tommy tips his pitches when in the windup. Fastball looks different than breaking balls. Watch closely…..pretty easy to spot. Maybe the league has caught on….although that would point to an even greater reduction in swing rate for the slider.
Appreciate digging into the numbers – it’s nice to see it broken down like this. However, I wonder if SSS might make the 2012 swing numbers a bit wonky. The difference between 2010/2011 is negligible – just 1 swing per 100 times he threw the slider. The difference between his 2010 slider and 2011 slider is a grand total of 6 swings and misses (~600 sliders thrown last year).
If I’m doing the math right, this year’s difference is about 5 fewer swings (just through April/early May), which is more alarming, but we have only 165 sliders to work with so far. I think we need to wait and see before we can determine this is actually a loss in deception.
I was at the Phillies game last week when Hanson got rocked, and I sat pretty close. It looked like his arm action was totally different between his off-speed stuff and his fastball. He was obviously not deceiving the hitters at all. I hope he’s not dealing with shoulder issues he doesn’t want to tell anybody about.