What’s wrong with Chien-Ming Wang?

[abc12812 ()]

http://tinyurl.com/cxq6gp


The Yanks are buried 2.5 games back of the first place Blue Jays with only
155 games left to play (/hyperbole), but perhaps the biggest problem facing
them right now is Chien-Ming Wang. The incumbent ace has been absolutely
brutal in his two starts this year, allowing (gulp) 21 baserunners and 15
earned runs in just four and two-third innings pitched. That makes Sidney
Ponson look like Roy frickin’ Halladay. The more troubling part is how Wang
just doesn’t look like himself at all; his pitches are all up in the zone,
his velocity is down, and his sinker isn’t sinking.

This might not be something that just started last week either. Wang had a
1.56 WHIP and a 6.00 ERA in his previous six starts before lisfrancing his
foot last summer, suggesting that something might have been wrong going back
as far as last year. Of course that ten month layoff doesn’t help any, but
we can still look at the data to see if we can find anything. Wang did have a
good but not great Spring Training (21.2 IP, 25 H, 16 R, 10 ER, 4 BB, 10 K, 3
HR), however no one in their right mind would use Spring Training stats to
evaluate anything, especially for a player with a signficant track record.

Let’s compare three versions of Chien-Ming Wang using Pitch f/x:

   1. Pre-May 18th, 2008: This was the light’s out CMW last year, when he
      had a 2.90 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP through his first nine starts and 59 IP.
   2. Post-May 18th, 2008: Wang had his first of a series of clunkers on May
      18th last year, which marks the point of that 6.00 ERA/1.56 WHIP era I
      mentioned earlier. I fail at labeling, but this version includes his May
      18th start.
   3. 2009: This year’s pair of starts, i.e. the really, really crappy
      version of CMW.

I’m going to focus on Wang’s two main pitches in this analysis: his sinking
fastball and slider. He’s also been known to throw changeups, splitters, and
even the occasional curveball, but because he throws them so rarely it’s not
worth the time and effort to take a deeper look at them. I’m going to start
with the pitch trajectories as always, and to make life easier I gave
fastballs and sliders their own individual graphs. Make sure you remember to
click each graph for a larger, squinting at a computer screen has to be bad
for your eyes.

Fun starts after the jump.


Looking at the fastballs first, you can see that the horizontal release point
of the three versions are different, but the pitches typically end up at the
same spot. That means that the post-May 18th fastball has less movement than
the pre-May 18th version, and the 2009 version has even less movement than
that. That’s not good, Wang’s a guy who needs his fastball to dart and dive
and all that jazz. You can also see that his ‘09 slider isn’t moving as
much as the ‘08 versions.

Now, the look as if you were standing at first base:


This view shows is that Wang is releasing both pitches from a higher spot
this year than he did last. The fastball still has vertical drop, but it’s
not moving horizontally as much, which you can see in the bird’s eye look.
Let’s take a look from the catcher’s view:


More than anything, this view just gives you a different look at the above.
His pitches are still moving vertically in a way similar to last year, but
they definitely don’t have the same kind of side-to-side movement. To
further drive home that point:


I haven’t posted one of these movement plots on RAB yet, so let me explain.
It’s simple, don’t worry. The x-axis shows the horizontal movement of the
pitch with 0 meaning it’s straight as an arrow. A negative value means the
pitch moves in on righties, a positive value means it moves in on lefties.
The y-axis is the vertical movement of the pitch compared to a ball thrown
with zero spin. Fastballs have big numbers because they have more carry on
them then this mythical zero rotation pitch, but breaking balls have small
numbers because they move more. Curveballs are usually in the negatives, as
are super elite sliders (think Brad Lidge). The units in this graph are
inches.

So, from this you can see that his fastball still has the same kind of
vertical movement as last year, but it’s just not riding as hard
horizontally. The slider’s dropping a bit more but not moving as much
horizontally as last year. All of this is consistent with everything
presented above. These trajectory and movement plots are fun to look at, but
all they really show are results, the results of his pitching motion, and
apparently that’s the problem. From Pete Abe:

    Wang seemed stunned. He said the issue was where he released the ball,
    which was off to the side instead of over the top. A sinkerball pitcher
    wants to stand tall on the mound and throw the ball on a downward plane.
    Otherwise the ball floats over the strike zone and you see what happens.

That sounds good and make sense, but the data doesn’t agree. Here’s a look
at Wang’s release points:


If you haven’t seen these before, make sure you read RAB more often the
point 0,0 is the center of the front of home plate, so the x-axis shows you
how far away from the middle of the plate you are, and the y-axis shows you
how far you are above the ground. Now, there’s a couple things going on
here. First of all, those post-May 18th points that are mixed in with the
pre-May 18th points are scattered over several starts. It’s not like all
those pitches came from one or two starts, they’re spread out over all six
starts. Secondly, it’s very likely that the difference in the general
horizontal location of the pitches is caused by Wang move more towards the
first base side of the rubber, but we’re focusing on the vertical location
since Wang said he wanted to come more over the top.

In general, Wang’s throwing the ball from a spot about six inches higher
this year than he did last year, no matter if you consider the good ‘08 Wang
or the bad ‘08 Wang. That contradicts what he said after the game, but that
doesn’t mean he’s lying or the data’s wrong. It’s entirely possible that
he wants to release the ball from an even higher spot than he currently is,
but I have to ask why? I mean, if throwing it from a slightly lower slot
worked last year, why change it? I’m no pitching coach or pitching mechanics
expert, so I won’t even attempt to answer those questions. All I do know is
that for some reason Wang is releasing the ball from a higher spot than last
year and yet he still wants to come even more over the top.

Finally, lets take a look at his velocity, because it’s definitely been down
this year.


That graphs encompassed a ton of pitches, 1,227 to be exact. Last year he was
sitting at 91-93 pretty consistently, except for that one start which was
probably a dead arm thing considering it was preceded by a spike in velocity
(maybe he was overthrowing in a big start and wore himself down). This year
Wang is sitting only 89-91, a small but definitely notable drop. This could
be from bad mechanics, a dead arm period, injury, or about a million other
things. The team already shot down injury and said it was just a mechanical
issue, and I believe them because Wang didn’t appear to be in any obvious
pain, he was more disgusted with himself.

I don’t know what’s wrong with Chien-Ming Wang, but whatever it is, it’s
causing him to lose movement on his pitches as well as velocity. Maybe it’s
just rust from the long injury layoff. Disirregardless, I hope he gets
himself straightened out sooner rather than later. The cool part about the ‘
09 Yanks is that even though CMW is struggling, they can still trot out four
quality starters. When’s the last time we could say that?

--
看來王葛格的低潮有可能是因為出手點太高的關係，導致伸卡球橫向位移不足

和我之前看轉播猜測的一樣

(葛格出手姿勢真的有改變的感覺，好像有點拉太快又太高的樣子，出手時也有刻意下壓)

--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) 
◆ From: 140.112.5.3
推 krara:不是出手點太低，造成只有橫移沒有下沉嗎？
推 Belladonaa:春訓葛格第一場不就很多人問說怎麼改成高壓了
推 akainorei:6 inches higher!? wow....
推 OoyaoO:可是投教說在Bullpen時王的sinker沒有問題 至少代表他投的
→ abc12812:我沒看春訓，純粹是昨天看轉播感覺怪怪的
→ OoyaoO:出來 只是不知道為什麼無法帶進正式比賽
→ abc12812:手拉起來的時間很早，和以往的印象不同
→ akainorei:只能有待投教去解決這些問題
→ abc12812:比賽時有刻意下壓的感覺，不知是好是壞...
→ abc12812:變化球感覺有比較好
→ OoyaoO:我是不認為他會跟一堆酸民說的一樣一蹶不振，只是要花多少
→ OoyaoO:時間找回來的問題而已
→ akainorei:我猜一個月吧, 可是我總覺得會到五月多才會回穩
→ akainorei:希望不要就是了
推 jayin07:我今天有看
→ jayin07:沒想到繼Phil Hughes之後，再來是葛格提高arm slot XD...
→ jayin07:我猜理由都是差不多的吧讓Phil的curve更像12-6
→ jayin07:然後葛格是高壓讓他更有下沉的movement xD
推 phix:改回原來的吧 高壓本來球就比較直 也不方便投伸卡...
→ phix:今年與往年最大的不同就是高壓的姿勢啊...
→ OoyaoO:真的不需要去改有兩年以上實績投手的姿勢就是了-.-
→ OoyaoO:反正今年輪值有空間讓他慢慢調 只是再爆個幾場可能就得去RP
→ abc12812:我是想不到教練團有理由改葛格的姿勢
→ OoyaoO:位置來調整了
→ abc12812:多半是他自己的想法吧
→ abc12812:這樣做很危險，可能變成下個Zito...
→ OoyaoO:看狀況吧 反正他也不是無法丟出他最強的sinker
→ abc12812:改姿勢就沒辦法了阿XD
→ abc12812:是真的有可能改不回來...
推 devilsky:高壓投法是不是比較容易傷肩膀?
推 OoyaoO:投教說他sinker狀況不錯是在上次先發前一天的事情吧 不太可
→ OoyaoO:能才隔一天就再見吧 只是無法在實戰丟出
→ abc12812:葛格在牛棚丟的是好是壞，外人也無從得知
→ abc12812:也只能聽投教的一面之詞
→ OoyaoO:至少這是我們唯一可以收到的訊息了 投教唬爛我也沒辦法Orz
推 walkmaster:快找古椎回來幫忙吧...
→ xephon:古椎現在到哪去了阿
推 krara:家裡
推 james7800243:我很好奇如果今日的投教換成Moose效果不知道如何
推 krara:目前這個很好啊，為什麼要換？
推 changyt:六月應該就回神了 小孩出世來祝運
→ james7800243:沒有說不好啦 只是單純好奇
→ james7800243:(其實是私心想繼續看到Moose待在洋基  XD)
→ willie666666:我覺得該找古錐回來 至少古錐在的時候王不曾這樣過
→ bornagain06:我是覺得不用太久就應該調整的回來了啦
→ abc12812:Moose會問王建民你累不累? 下場能先發嗎? XD
推 appshjkli:我無法想像那畫面XD
推 WP1:樓樓上笑死我了~哈 話中有話~XDD
推 walkmaster:我的意思是請他回來幫個忙，不是換他當投教
推 phonelin:之前不是說MLB不會亂改姿勢 口去
推 lp2348:可能阿肉沒站三壘王覺的氣場不太對0.0
推 NetKing520:之前不是說放球點太低 sinker會橫著跑 不會下沉嗎
→ NetKing520:怎麼現在又變成放球點太高了 暈
→ NetKing520:有辦法 又橫著跑又下沉嗎 xd
推 tlw0709:對METS 10K那場應該就是吧 只用一次 完美版本? Orz不要吧
→ OoyaoO:有 去年對CLE跟CC 1:0那場有一球Sinker就是超扯
推 raygod:小王沒受傷恢復手感我覺得沒問題,只是時間長短而已..
推 greengreen42:改高壓只會讓伸卡球吃大便而已
→ MRCool:下一場在爆就可以把Hughes拉上來了 小王就丟到牛棚
→ MRCool:消耗局數時讓他沒有壓力的調整應該是個不錯方法
推 t8422022:是怎樣??王不是伸卡球有問題好嗎?是控球有問題..球打出去
→ t8422022:不是安打就是出局但他投了不少保送....
推 beving:我也認為六月會回穩  有道是取某前生子後...
推 Bzbon:伸卡頭不好可換四縫 二縫 變速 滑球搭配 其他球種也很重要
→ Bzbon:以洋基今年砸下重金來看 沒那個耐心等到六月 頂多再一二場
推 fatoes:他投保送是因為除了直球伸卡球以外的變化球原本就不成熟阿
→ fatoes:這兩場在伸卡甜的要死不能一直投的狀況下 變化球又控不進去
→ fatoes:就會BB連發了