Over the last four years, pitchers developed in our farm system graduated to Pittsburgh and then became test subjects for our pitching coaches.  Jim Colborn wasn’t satisfied with some of the mechanical traits 3A pitching coach Jeff Andrews installed, so he changed them, Andrews moved up and de-tweaked Colborn’s work, didn’t get good results so he attempted new tweaks, and now Joe Kerrigan has a new tweak of his own in mind..

.. to pitch more inside. 

Before we go any further I think it’s critical to understand the Pirates have three potential “power” starters who have demonstrated in the bigs they can throw a better than average fastball (91 mph or better) inside consistently:  Ian Snell, Jason Davis, and Ross Ohlendorf.  Everyone else is in the average to below average range, or they haven’t thrown enough above 3A to qualify here.

“Throwing inside to a hitter is at the heart of aggressive pitching… If you teach a hitter that you’ll throw inside — if he knows that — then his whole approach to facing you is quite different…  A lot of young pitchers in the big leagues right now are afraid to throw inside.  This fear invites a hitter to dig in and dominate the outer part of the plate.”  — Nolan Ryan’s Pitcher’s Bible

As we all know and Ryan suggests, pitching inside simply adds another element to the batter’s conscious level while in the box.. one that typically makes him uncomfortable.  Back in Bob Gibson days we would generally see an 0-2 pitch thrown high and tight and then followed up with a slider low and away for the strikeout because the batter was still sweating from the 0-2 close call.

But times have changed.  Joe Torre said not too long ago that “we’re more sensitive” about inside pitches today.  Next time you see someone throw under a batter’s chin, watch and see if that batter doesn’t come up with glassy eyes staring the pitcher down with a murderous glance.  And if the pitcher throwing the ball happens to be on a 90+ loss type team going nowhere, you can expect benches to clear.

So before we go any further, let me answer the most asked question since Kerrigan was hired:  do the Pirates actually throw less frequently inside, and if so, to what degree.

To answer that question I had to first make a decision on what “inside” really meant.  As we all know the plate is 17″ wide and jumps to 20″ because any part of the ball that crosses over the white part of the plate is theoretically a strike.  John Walsh found umpires calling a 24″ wide zone and I suppose that means they are including “the black” area around the plate as part of the zone, but that isn’t rulebook correct.

So for this post we’ll use Walsh’s 24 inch width finding and use all pitches that are 3.6 inches (0.3 * 12 inches) or closer on the side of the plate closest to the batter.  In PITCHf/x terms that means all pitches less than -0.7′ to right hand batters and all pitches greater than 0.7′ to left hand batters on the px line. 

Now to answer the above question, yes, the Pirates did throw 9.0% (304) fewer inside pitches in 2008 as compared to the average number thrown by all other 29 teams.  That’s equivalent to 1.8 fewer per game.  The issue doesn’t sound like such a big deal when you think of it across 162 games, does it?  But don’t let that fool you because there is too much bias floating around that 1.8 figure.

Better yet, let’s take a look at what happened last year when we did throw inside versus the MLB league average: 

(Notes:  LHB is against left hand batters, RHB is against right hand batters, and BiP is balls in Play.)

Holy Moly, no wonder we weren’t pitching inside as much.. we were absolutely smoked when we did.  In fact, we were so scared to throw inside strikes to right hand batters we ended up throwing/having called about 8% more balls when we tried. 

But perhaps that is Kerrigan’s real goal?  Not to get them to throw more inside per se, but to get them comfortable throwing more strikes inside?  I can just see our opposing team’s licking their chops as I write that.

Obviously pitching inside isn’t going to be the answer across the board.  As I noted above, Snell, Ohlendorf, and Davis are the only starters who have enough heat to throw inside effectively because major league batters can easily turn on an 88 mph heater up and in.  And they did, as evidenced above.

And look at that insane .937 OPS left hand batters enjoyed feasting off our inside pitching.  We could probably start a high school pitcher and get better results than that. Ok, maybe not, but you get the idea.  That’s embarrassing and clearly demonstrates the lack of “pitching inside” tools our collective pitching roster has.

Now don’t think for a second our pitchers don’t have these stats at their disposal.. they do.  They know if they get mauled coming in or not so I doubt seriously anything Kerrigan tries to push on them is going to make a difference one way or another.  See the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse culture book, Chapter 16: ”We run the show and do what the hell we want, and dang if you are going to devalue us even more” on page 63. 

Don’t expect more inside pitching overall except, perhaps, early in the year, and even then probably only from Ohlendorf, Snell, Davis, and maybe Gorzelanny.  Oh, but watch them all try their best throwing inside during the spring.. and get away with it to boot.

Here’s the location of every ball in play by a left hand batter against Snell last year that resulted in runs scored: