Simple Spring Training Pitch Data: Germen, Rice, and Karns

Here are notes and simple pitch data from 3 pitchers in the Spring Training game between the Nationals and Mets. There was a TV radar gun, but there is no Pitch F/X in Florida Spring Training. All 3 pitchers have never pitched in the Majors or have publicly available Pitch F/X data.

The locations and heat maps are from the catcher perspective and the radar gun was supposedly 1 MPH slow compared to other radar guns at the game, but I didn't adjust the velocity. The comparisons come from Brooks Baseball's Pitch F/X leaderboard, with it set to relief pitchers. I linked the comparisons to their FanGraphs pages.

Scott Rice is a veteran that was drafted in the 1st round way back in 1999, yet hasn't made the Majors and is still pitching. He pitched out of the Dodgers' AAA affiliate's bullpen in 2012, with a kwERA of 4.25. The two pitchers below I put in a Google Docs spreadsheet and listed the result, but I didn't do that for Rice. There were a lot of weird formatting things going on with the heat maps and the spreadsheets, so I just hyperlinked the spreadsheets to the other two pitchers:


84                 Low left
88                 High Left
86                 Low Left
86                 Low Middle
80                 Low Right
80                 Low Middle
81                 Middle Right
85                 Low Right
88                 Low Left
89                 Low Right
89                 Low Middle
88                 Low Right
85                 Low Left
89                 Low Middle

Overall Pitch Average: 85.57 MPH
Comparison: Marco Estrada
Fastball Average: 87.3
Comparison: Darren O'Day
Breaking Ball Average: 81.25
Changeup Comparison: Tyler Clippard 
Simple Heat Map:
 

1
		1
4	4	4

General Observations: He moves the ball around, nothing is straight, simple delivery

Nathan Karns was a 12th round pick by the Nationals in 2009 (he was actually picked in the 10th round out of high school), but at age 25, he still hasn't reached AA. He did reach as high as A + in 2012 and had a 2.77 kwERA in 13 starts.

Overall Pitch Average: 91.56 MPH
Comparison: Rafael Dolis
Fastball Average: 93.92 MPH
Comparison: Jeff Fulchino
Breaking Ball Average: 84.5 MPH
Slider Comparison: Luke Gregerson

Results:
11 Balls
2 Flyballs
8 Fouls
2 Groundballs
7 Called Strikes
2 Whiffs
65.6 Strike %

Heat Map

4	11	1
2	2	7
	2	3

General Observations: Extremely easy and simple delivery, but he had some real problems finishing the delivery and landing. Control probably wasn't as good as strike percentage indicates.

Gonzalez Germen: The 25 year old Met made it to AAA in 2012, but spent most of the year in AA, where he had a 3.91 kwERA. He was originally signed out of the Dominican Republic, where he dominated in the summer league in 2008 and 2009.

 Overall Pitch Average: 87.21 MPH
Comparison: Tom Gordon
Fastball Average: 91 MPH
Comparison: Daniel Jennings
Breaking Ball Average: 82.17 MPH
Slider Comparison: Claudio Vargas

Results:
4 Balls
2 Fly-balls
3 Fouls
2 Grounders
1 Called Strike
2 Whiffs
71.42 Strike %
Simple Heat Map (these have no ball/strike differentiation/bias):
 

		1
2	2	1
	3	5

General Observations: Control of breaking pitch was poor. Gets on top of ball very well.