If the batter is smart he'll guess slider. Just kidding, it's a fastball.
It should be no secret by now to anyone who watches the Yankees on a regular basis that isn’t a one pitch pitcher, but he’s the next closest thing to it. According to Fangraphs 82.5% of Bartolo’s offerings this season have been fastballs. He’s complimented his fastball with a slider that he throws 12.4% of the time, a change up that he throws 4.5% of the time, and the occasional cutter, that he throws just 0.7% of the time. To provide context, throws his fastball 59.6% of the time, evidence of just how reliant Colon is on his fastball.
Here’s the break down of the pitches he’s thrown from 2002-2005 and for 2011, the last seasons in which he was a regular starter where data are available:
The data show that Colon has become more reliant on his fastball and his slider as the years have progressed. In the past he used his change up more often. The data also show that Colon hasn’t lost much velocity on any of his pitches. Despite maintaining his velocity, Colon is mixing in his secondary offerings less because they are bad pitches. The data below are taken from Fangraphs.
These data show two things. First, they show that Colon has one good pitch, his fastball, and three other pitches that are somewhere between bad (his slider) and horrible (his cutter). Colon is therefore effectively a one pitch pitcher. He lives and dies by his fastball. His other offerings either serve to keep a batter off balance, or no purpose at all, because they can’t get anyone out. These data also show that Colon has pretty much always been a one trick pony. His slider and change up were plus pitches in 2003, but not in any other season for which data are available.
In light of this information, it becomes even more shocking that Colon has had the success he has enjoyed over the years. Most pitchers need at least two plus pitches, sometimes more, but Colon has been a good to very good starter for a long time in the big leagues, and he’s done it with the one pitch batters are most successful hitting. That said, his reliance on the fastball, and his lack of a secondary out pitch, also explain why he’s stumbled of late. There is a limit to how effective any starter can be if he just buzzes fastballs past the batter. If he doesn’t have movement, or location, it’s only a matter of time until he gets killed.
Much has been made of Bartolo Colon’s decline since he came back from the DL. This isn’t an accurate portrayal of his work. Since coming back on July 2nd, Bartolo has given up more than three runs only twice. He’s gone less than five innings only once. That is good, but not great, performance. The problem is that Bartolo raised expectations so high with his work in the first half of the season. But, in retrospect, it was only a matter of time before the league began figuring Colon out. As demonstrated, he throws only fastballs, a pitch professional hitters can handle. By now teams have enough information on what Colon is offering to prepare for him. If he can get the late break on his fastball, and the calls around the corners, all the preparation in the world won’t save the opposing offense. When he can’t, however, at a minimum opposing teams can drive his pitch count up and get him out of the game, which is precisely what’s been going on during his last several starts. With any luck, Colon will either make an adjustment, or get that late break back on his two seamer.
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While it would be great for Colon to be less one dimensional, I don’t think you can call the two seam and four seam fastballs one pitch. Good point that control is very important since he doesn’t have two good pitches he can change speeds with.
For the life of me, I don’t understand how you could spin his performance over the last 8 starts as “good, not great” He’s 2-4 with an ERA of 4.91 over those starts. He’s only averaged 5 innings/start and batters have hit him to a .891 OPS. Let me repeat that….batters have a .891 OPS against him since he came back. That most definitely is not good. In spite of that, he’s managed to keep the Yankees in most games but the statements of decline are accurate. Over the last two months, only AJ has pitched worse.
To TedK, I understand your argument that the two seam and four seam fastballs are different pitches, and effectively I agree with you. However the available data constrains me. I used Fangraphs to write this post and Fangraphs doesn’t break out different kinds of fastballs. Had they done so I would have followed suit.
To bg90027, Colon has been back for 9 starts, not 8, but I concede your point. The focus of this post was to explain why Bart only throws fastballs, not to analyze whether or not he’s pitched well. As a result, I didn’t bother to calculate his overall numbers since he’s been back from the DL. If you’ve gone ahead and done that, and his ERA is 4.91 over that period, then that would be passable, nothing more, although it is worth mentioning that if you remove his most recent start and the 0.2 inning game he pitched, his numbers are fine (but removing those starts is like saying, if we remove July and August from A.J.’s season …)
I was using Baseball-Reference to calculate that and I thought I’d grabbed the first game back vs. the Mets but I guess it was missing that one. The stats are a little better as a result but still not good. 3-4, 4.27 ERA averaging 5 innings per start with an .847 OPS against.
I realize that your main point was about his pitch arsenal. I’ve just seen alot of posting lately about Colon being a potential #2 starter in the playoffs or not a candidate for losing his spot in the rotation, and I just wanted to respond. For whatever reason, whether it’s the league catching up to him, the innings mounting or his stuff just not being quite as crisp, he just hasn’t been as good in the 2nd half. To your point about his arsenal, as we’ve witnessed with AJ as well, the margin for error is so much smaller for guys like AJ and Colon because batters do mostly know what’s coming.
I myself ran a post recently that turned into a discussion of whether or not Colon could take the ball in a playoff game 2 (I’d actually intended it to be something different, but perception is reality), so I understand.
Until his last start I wasn’t concerned about Colon’s viability, but now it’s staring us all in the face. He hasn’t been as good in the second half.
I also agree that his pitch selection may be why. Larry and I were exchanging emails about this post and he mentioned that Colon has thrown more four seamers since coming back from the DL. Given that his two seamer was the pitch that was devastating hitters, this may explain why he hasn’t been as good.
Either way, while I’m not too worried about the Yankee rotation because the team always seems to have at least two pitchers who are on top of their games at any point in time, Colon would need to show improvement to regain his status as the team’s second best pitcher.
Colon is pitching like a fifth starter now. He’s not the fifth starter only because Burnett is worse than him.
[...] Why Bartolo Colon only throws fastballs: Mike Jaggers-Radolf of The Yankee Analysts uses pitch type run values to show why Colon goes with his fastball more than 80% of the time. [...]