PITCHF/x Scouting Report: Daniel Bard

In this experiment, the Red Sox will send out 2011 setup man to face the Yankees this evening. Despite a horrendous ending to the 2011 season, Bard posted a 3.33 ERA, 2.96 FIP, 9.12 K/9, and 6.96 BB/9. The last time the UNC right hander started was 2007, where he pitched to a disastrous 7.08 ERA, 2.053 WHIP, and 9.4 BB/9 in 22 starts split between A and high-A ball. The following year he was converted to a reliever, and continued down this successful career path until the Red Sox ran out of starting pitchers and ran out of money. Now in the rotation again, Bard will have to overcome the control issues he faced in the minor leagues, and so far he’s been unsuccessful. Using PITCHF/x data, we’ll be able to see why the 26 year old can’t hit his spots.

Pitch Repertoire
Most of the speculation that Bard couldn’t handle the rotation came from his small pitch arsenal of 3 pitches. As a starter, his 94 mph four-seamer is thrown a lot less than he threw it as a reliever, but it remains his most used pitch at 47% of time. His 81 mph slider has always been deadly, but now he’s using the pitch 36% of the time. Will increasing the usage cause more strikeouts or will the lack of surprise decrease strikeout rates? His final pitch is a mid-80′s changeup that he throws infrequently.

The image above shows Bard’s release point from a catcher’s perspective. The zone is placed from 1 to 2.5 feet to the left of the pitcher’s mound and almost 5 to 6.5 feet above. Although he throws from the 3/4 arm slot, there is a distinct trail here that hardly exists in 2011. It appears that the pitcher is dropping his arm too low at times, almost to a side arm slot at 5 feet heigh. Considering how it wasn’t prevalent in 2011, I suspect its a symptom of tiring out. As a reliever, he’s used to throwing hard for a short period of time, so dropping his arm could mean he’s tiring out. This can cause the control issues that he’s dealt with this year. You can see an image of his arm slot to the right.

Here we have mapped out pitch trajectory from the release point on the right to homeplate on the left. The top image shows the horizontal break and movement of each different pitch type. Surprisingly the changeup and four-seamer have very different movement, where the changeup has much more break into right handed hitters. With such a big difference, hitters should be able to pick up on the different horizontal movement and recognize each pitch. The slider has the biggest movement away from right handed hitters. In the second image, the slight difference between the four-seamer and changeup vertically, but also see the big drop from the slider.

Here we have a catcher’s perspective of pitch movement, but TexasLeaguer has misclassified some of these pitches. The purple changeups that are in the red fastball cluster are all “slow” fastballs around 91 mph. If you go down a few inches, the purple changesup that are mostly located on the x axis contain a few green sliders, which are most definitely changeups. With that settled, the four-seamer has a wide area of horizontal movement that ranges from 5 inches into a left handed hitter, almost like a cutter, to 10 inches into a right handed hitter. We’ll see later how his spin angles for the four-seamer change a lot, making the pitch unpredictable, and likely caused by dropping his arm slot. His changeup is mostly seen moving into right handed hitters as we discussed before. The slider has some incredible vertical drop of about an inch on average and almost 8 inches into left handed hitters.

In this graph we have spin angle versus velocity. Here we can see that the corrections states above are necessary, as the low 80′s pitches in the 240-300 spin angle contain sliders which should be changeups. The changeups that are clustered underneath the four-seamer should also be considered fastballs. What we see here is the wide range of angles Bard puts on his four-seamer. From about 140 degrees to over 240 degrees, these pitches can range from being considered cutters, two-seamers, and four-seamers. Pitches in the 220-240 range move down and in like sinkers, 200-220 degree range is considered a four-seamer, and less than that is a cutter. You can also see how low the spin angle of the slider is, which allows him to get such excellent movement away from right handed hitters.

Where He Throws It

This plot shows us the pitch locations for right handed hitters in 2012. You can see that he attacks mostly up/in and down/away with the four-seamer and changeup. Aside from the throwing the slider for strikes, he go up the ladder with it, or throw it down and away to get righties chasing. His pitch selection is 58% four-seamers, 40% sliders, and 2% changeups.

Against lefties, he throws very few pitches in, and nearly all his four-seamers are up in the zone. The changeup with movement away from the lefties is thrown away to get the hitters chasing. He isn’t afraid to the the slider for strikes, although down and in would be a sweet spot for him, and he seems to get swings and misses there. His pitch selection is 41% four-seamer, 31% slider, and 28% changeup.

When He Throws It

Daniel Bard’s Pitch Selection Against Righties

Count	Four-seam (R)	Slider (R)	Changeup (R)
3-0	100%	0%	0%
3-1	60.0%	40.0%	0%
2-0	100%	0%	0%
2-1	33.3%	66.7%	0%
1-0	66.6%	33.3%	0%
0-0	64.5%	35.5%	0%
1-1	60.0%	40.0%	0%
0-1	50.0%	44.4%	5.6%
3-2	50.0%	50.0%	0%
2-2	77.8%	22.2%	0%
1-2	60.0%	40.0%	0%
0-2	27.3%	72.7%	0%

Here we have Bard’s pitch selection to righties by count. He’ll usually start righties off with a four-seam fastball, but as he falls behind in the count he will mix the fastball in more often. As he gains a favorable count, he’ll mix in his slider more. It’s a very simple plan out there, especially without much of a changeup against righties, which is why many thought he would best be suited as a reliever. So far this year, his slider has drawn a 20.0% whiff rate, and his fastball has drawn an incredible 16.9% whiff rate.

Daniel Bard’s Pitch Selection Against Lefties

Count	Four-seam (L)	Slider(L)	Changeup (L)
3-0	100%	0%	0%
3-1	0%	100%	0%
2-0	100%	0%	0%
2-1	50.0%	0%	50.0%
1-0	50.0%	25.0%	25.0%
0-0	52.1%	30.4%	17.5%
1-1	62.5%	12.5%	25.0%
0-1	23.1%	46.2%	30.7%
3-2	0%	0%	0%
2-2	40.0%	40.0%	20.0%
1-2	62.5%	25.0%	12.5%
0-2	40.0%	40.0%	20.0%

Against righties here, Bard usually starts with a fastball, but will mix in his slider and changeup a bit for strikeone. As he falls behind in the count, he’ll mostly throw his fastball, but can throw the slider for strikes as well. After strike one, he relies on his breaking pitches more, and does a decent job of mixing them up. His slider also has a 20% whiff rate against righties, his fastball only has a 3.0% whiff rate, and his changeup again doesn’t break the 10% mark.

Results
Although its small sample size, Bard has gotten groundballs this year at a 59.4% rate, flyballs at 18.8%, and linedrives at 21.9%. He’s been able to keep up his strikeout numbers with his excellent slider, but struggled with his control due to an inconsistent arm slot and spin angles on his fastball. Over his career he’s has a slight platoon split in favor of lefties, but this season he’s shown very little of that. His career home or away splits are interesting though, where he has a 1.69 ERA in Fenway, he has a terrible 4.19 ERA on the road. This is off considering the type of ballpark Fenway is.

Against The Yankees

Although he’s become a different type of pitcher as a start, he’s faced the Yankees 27 times as a reliever. He has a 4.13 ERA in 24.0 innings, and held Yankee hitters to an off .198/.311/.462 triple slash. has hit him the hardest, with 5 hits over 15 at bats, 4 of those 5 hits left the park.

Career Numbers Against Daniel Bard

Probable Yankee Lineup	At Bats	Triple Slash
SS	7	.000/.125/.000
CF	7	.571/.571/1.571
3B	5	.400/.571/.400
2B	8	.000/.200/.000
1B	15	.333/.375/.1.133
RF	14	.214/.214/.429
LF	0	.000/1.000/.000
DH	3	.667/.667/.667
C	4	.250/.250/.500

Prediction
Bard does not look suited for starting pitching. Aside from his small pitching repertoire and his two pitch approach against righties, he seems to have an issue dropping his arm when he gets tired. It’s caused him to have big control issues, and against a team like the Yankees, he won’t find many hitters helping him out with counts. That said, the right handed pitcher has the ability to strikeout anyone in this lineup, his slider is that good. Aside from the little weapons he has, he can mix his pitches pretty well, and if he’s on his game he can control it. I don’t think this Bard experiment is a good idea until he learns another pitch. With a predictable Bard pitching, the Yankees have the upper hand today.