I have no idea what he was throwing but I bet he kept it low.
It may have cost the team Jesus Montero, the best hitting Yankee prospect since , but Friday night Brian Cashman finally got the team’s hands on the kind of young starter with Ace potential that the Yankees have desperately needed since or possibly even Ron Guidry. With all the noise surrounding the Jesus Montero for deal (I know other players changed hands, but I’m focusing on the core of the deal) it makes sense that the other move the Yankees made on Friday gets overlooked. However, is not chopped liver.
Kuroda’s also-ran status among the team’s recent moves highlights just how quickly things can change on the hot stove. Thursday morning just about every Yankee fan would have had Kuroda high on their wish list. Had he been the only change in the roster to take place Friday the entire Yankee fanbase would be championing the move as a low cost, smart addition to an already stacked team. Instead, the Yankees make a blockbuster trade at the same time they add a talented pitcher and no one notices that talented pitcher. Well, I noticed.
Prior to this offseason, Kuroda wasn’t on my radar at all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you play west of the Mississippi in the National League you may as well be playing on Mars as far as I’m concerned. Its not that West Coast baseball doesn’t interest me, it’s just that it is difficult for something so far away to crack through the 24/7 Yankee media circus that dominates my life from April to October every season. This is therefore the first time I’ve ever looked at Kuroda’s numbers. They’re pretty good.
Hiroki has played four seasons for the Dodgers. During that time he’s amassed an ERA of 3.45 (114 ERA+) and a WHIP of 1.187, both very respectable. He’s pitched just about 200 innings each of the past two seasons, which is important in any pitcher, but particularly in a middle to back of the rotation guy, the very kinds of pitchers who risk taxing the bullpen.
Pitch FX and Fangraphs seem to disagree a bit on Kuroda’s arsenal, but assessing the two he appears to be primarily a fastball – slider pitcher who mixes in the occasional curveball. Interestingly, Kuroda also mixes in a splitter more than 10% of the time, according to both sites. That’s a combination I find intriguing, if only because so few Yankees mix in a splitter. Pitch FX also says that Kurda uses a sinker as well. His fastballs clock in at around 92mph, while the off-speed stuff is typically in the mid 80′s. The effect is a pitcher who figures to keep the ball low in the zone when he’s working well. The numbers bear that out. Kuroda has a career ground ball rate right around 50% and posted a ground ball rate of 43.2% last season. For comparison’s sake, (I’m only comparing their ground ball rates, nothing more) has a career ground ball rate of 45.2% and managed 46.6% last season. While Kuroda’s 2011 HR/FB rate of 11.3% jumps out to concern me, overall he figures to be a solid compliment to a Yankee rotation that now features one of the best pitchers on the planet in CC, an up and coming star in Michael Pineda, and a potential middle of the rotation anchor in the making in . That’s not too shabby for a team that had serious rotation questions only a few days ago.
Kuroda wasn’t the main event Friday night, but that’s only because the main event was so shocking for many reasons. On any other day he would have had plenty of spotlight to himself because he so nicely fills a need the Yankees have. In 2009 the team demonstrated perfectly well that this offense is more than potent enough to get to the World Series with CC Sabathia and pitchers who are good but not great helping out the big guy in the rotation. Kuroda is precisely that, good but not great. In 2011 his pitcher’s slash line was 3.07/3.78/3.56 and in 2010 it was 3.39/3.26/3.43. Those numbers will float up a bit in the AL East, but if Kuroda can give the Yankees 200 innings of 4.00 ERA baseball he’ll be a solid addition to the team, on a one year contract to boot.
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I love the Kuroda move with the Pineda trade, the two compliment each other so well. One is a young flamethrower who is mostly a fly ball pitcher, the other a rugged veteran who lives with the ground ball. The two together should be replacing Colon and Hughes in the rotation, that is certainly something I can get behind!
Not that anyone cares but I also love Kuroda because he throws my favorite pitch in all of baseball, the split finger fastball. Now we have two pitchers who use the split as a major piece in their arsenal, though they go about using in it very different ways. This pitch is just such a joy to watch and is very underused in today’s game. I actually hope Pineda gets with Freddy and Kuroda and tries to learn it. A split can be an easier pitch to develop than the change up and for someone with Pineda’s power stuff it could be a wipe out strikeout pitch. Though between those two and Sabathia he should have plenty of information to help develop either a split or change, let’s hope he takes advantage of it.
It’s interesting that so few pitchers these days seem to throw a splitter. I’m not sure if they have stopped teaching it because it may be associated with more injuries or if changeups are simply more in vogue as a strikeout pitch.
I believe quite a few pitching coaches in early development advise against it. It’s never been proven that it causes elbow problems in and of itself, but I’ve heard theories from guys around baseball that because the splitter is usually thrown for a ball it causes your pitch count to be higher. Thus you use up your pitch allotment quicker and are more at risk of injury because of the extra work load.
Still though it’s such an effective and versatile pitch. It can be a devastating strikeout pitch (Roger Clemens, even though technically he would call his a forkball), a ground ball pitch (Kuroda), or simply a change of speed (Garcia).
It’s also a little harder to control in one aspect than a change up, which may be another reason. Most splitters are used to drop out of the strikezone and get either a swing and miss, or to top the ball off and get a ground ball. So as long as you get it down you are usually good. But it’s not easy to drop into the zone for a called strike and not be a dangerous pitch. A change up is an easier pitch to throw in the zone when you absolutely need a strike but don’t want to throw a fastball in a fastball count.
The guys who do use it though have a lot of success with it. Tim Lincecum for instance is credited with the best change up in baseball but he clearly throws a splitter. People call it a hybrid because he wraps his bottom fingers around the bottom of the ball. But his index and middle fingers are clearly split a top the ball, making it a split finger. He gets tremendous drop on the ball resulting in a lot of swings and misses, which he wouldn’t otherwise be able to get on a regular change.