A.J. Burnett's Curveball Racking up Ks

A.J. Burnett takes the mound tonight against Washington boasting the top strikeout rate (12.3 per nine innings pitched) among National League starters. His hook is the reason why. Burnett's sinister knuckle-curveball has already felled 29 batters this season, which is the highest total for any breaking or off-speed pitch in the majors aside from Yu Darvish's slider. Here are three reasons why Burnett's curveball is so effective, in honor of the many punch outs that the pitch has produced.

• A.J. almost never hangs his curveball high in the strike zone. He has thrown just four percent of his breakers in the upper-third of the zone this season. That's lowest among all starters who have tossed at least 100 curves in 2013.
• He's not just keeping the ball down -- he's also avoiding the heart of the plate. Burnett has placed 19% of his curveballs over the horizontal middle of the strike zone, well below the 24% average for MLB starters.

Burnett's curveball location in 2013

• Batters have swung and missed 47% of the time against Burnett's curve, tops among starters. The MLB average is a comparatively puny 27%. Almost all of Burnett's strikeouts with his curveball have been of the swinging variety (27 of 29, or 93%).

Justin Verlander's Fastball is Just Fine, Thanks

Justin Verlander is dealing yet again in 2013, punching out over a batter per inning pitched and holding a Bob Gibson-esque 1.83 ERA. Yet despite that dominance, some scouts are worried that the game's highest paid pitcher isn't making radar guns malfunction like he used to. But Verlander? He's not concerned:

"No, I know where I'm at and I feel like it's gotten a little bit better every start," the 30-year-old said before [Thursday's] game. "I threw a lot of innings last year and I was basically three weeks behind coming into spring training this year on purpose but I think it seems like for the most part our entire team has started to get better velocity wise." (Detroit Free Press)

Verlander's velocity is down. He's averaging 93.2 MPH with his fastball in 2013, compared to 94.6 MPH last year. And while he reached back for a 101.5 MPH Hellfire missile in 2012, Verlander has maxed out at 96.6 this season. Even so, Tigers fans shouldn't start puffing packs of Marlboro Reds like manager Jim Leyland just yet. Here are some reasons that Verlander's fastball looks just fine.

• Pitchers do typically come out of the gate in April with less-than optimal velocity, Verlander included. His 93.2 MPH average doesn't look so bad when you consider that he's dealing with a blister on his right thumb, and that he averaged 94 MPH in April of 2012.
• Like Verlander himself said, his fastball velocity is getting better by the start. He averaged just 92.4 MPH on Opening Day against the Twins. By the time he faced the Twinkies again on April 30, he was up to an average of 93.4 MPH.
• Slower or not, Verlander's fastball is making hitters look foolish. Verlander's fastball miss rate is down a bit in 2013 (18%) compared to 2012 (20%), but batters actually have a lower slugging percentage against the pitch this season (.241) than last (.389).

Patient Crawford Setting Table for Dodgers

When the Los Angeles Dodgers took on the five years and $102 million left on Carl Crawford's contract last August, it was just the cost of doing business to get the player they really wanted: Adrian Gonzalez. The suddenly uber-wealthy Dodgers wanted a cornerstone first baseman. The Red Sox wanted salary relief. To put Gonzalez in Dodger blue, L.A. had to pay Crawford (injured and mostly ineffective the previous two seasons) a lot of green.

Someone forgot to tell Crawford he's a washed up rich guy, though. The 31-year-old is conjuring up memories of his pre-Boston, pre Tommy John glory days with the Tampa Bay Rays, batting .308/.388/.516 in 103 plate appearances. That's quite the improvement from the .260/.292/.419 triple-slash he put up in 2011-12. Crawford looks like a totally different man in 2013, laying off junk pitches he hacked at with Boston and working the count in his favor.

First, here is Crawford's swing rate by pitch location with Boston in 2011-12. He was especially jumpy versus chin-high pitches:

Crawford chased about 35% of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone, far above the 28% league average. His walk rate with the Sox was downright Francoeur-like: 3.9%. In fact, the only hitters who walked less often while convincing their managers to give them 600-plus plate appearances were Yuniesky Betancourt, Miguel Olivo and Delmon Young.

Now, check out Crawford's swing rate so far in 2013. He's no longer chasing chin music:

Crawford's chase rate is down to just 20% in 2013. With a far more patient approach, he has more than doubled his walk rate to 8.7%.

One-hundred great trips to the plate don't necessarily mean that Crawford will be worth his $20-plus million a year salary between now and 2017. That said, his newfound strike zone discipline has to encourage the Dodgers that they acquired a quality table-setter instead of a sunken cost.