More on Medlen's Changeup

The Atlanta Braves unveiled a new stud starter on July 31, and they didn't even have to pull off a trade to get the guy. Kris Medlen, who missed the 2011 season following Tommy John surgery and spent the first four months of 2012 in the 'pen, has made a bigger impact than the likes of Zack Greinke and Ryan Dempster since deadline day. Medlen has a 50-to-5 strikeout to walk ratio in 49.2 innings pitched as a starter, posting a 0.54 ERA in the process. No other starter since 1901 has posted a double-digit K-to-BB ratio and had an ERA under one while throwing at least 45 innings, according to Baseball-Reference.

Bill Chuck provided a nice breakdown of Medlen's success, but let's add to the Medlen Bedlam by taking a closer look at his changeup.

- Medlen has thrown his low-80s changeup 21% of the time as a starter. Unlike most pitchers, he's not bashful about using it against hitters on both sides of the plate. Medlen has thrown his change 26% of the time against left-handers and 16% against right-handers. The only starters who throw a higher percentage of right-on-right changeups are Jeremy Hellickson (31%), James Shields (27%), Edinson Volquez (24%), Felix Hernandez (22%) and Kyle Kendrick (17%). Righties are batting .067 (1-for-15) against Medlen's changeup, compared to a still-paltry .103 (3-for-29) for left-handers.

 - Medlen has the highest changeup strike rate (80%) among starters throwing the pitch at least 100 times this season. The MLB average is slightly under 63%. They're quality strikes, too. Here is Medlen's changeup location heat map as a starter:

Medlen's changeup location as a starter

Talk about hitting your spots. Medlen has thrown just 18.5% of his changeups over the horizontal middle of the plate. The big league average, by contrast, is slightly over 24%.

- The only starter with a higher changeup chase rate than Medlen (55%) is Baltimore's Miguel Gonzalez (63%). The MLB average is about 36%. Lefty batters would need a boat oar to connect with some of the fading Medlen changeups that they're swinging at:

Average swing rate by pitch location vs. changeups

Hitters' swing rate by location vs. Medlen's changeup since 7/31

- Medlen's change has a 45% miss rate, trailing just Stephen Strasburg (53%), Jarrod Parker (48%), Cole Hamels (47%), and Jaime Garcia (46%). The MLB average is 29%.

- Overall, opponents are batting -- and slugging -- .091 against Medlen's changeup. The average slugging percentage on changeups for starters is nearly 300 points higher, at .389. Congratulations to Steve Lombardozzi, Ryan Zimmerman, Danny Espinosa and Everth Cabrera for being the only hitters to squeak out a single against Medlen's changeup.

Chris Volstad's Changeup Success: Unsustainable?

Chris Volstad (FLA) has done well throwing the changeup this season.  He's second in opponent's batting average (.063) behind Ryan Madson's change (.057).  Last year, opponents hit .246 against his changeup, putting Volstad in the bottom half of the league. 

Here's a look at how his changeup this season compares to last.

Chris Volstad's Changeup Movement

	VEL	BrkX	BrkZ
2010	84.1	4.9	4.0
2011	83.9	7.0	2.7

Volstad has lost a little vertical movement (BrkZ) on his changeup, while gaining some horizontal movement (BrkX).

Chris Volstad's Changeup Results

	P	Swing%	Miss%	Chas%	AVG	BABIP
2010	580	47.2%	25.5%	34.1%	.246	.284
2011	105	36.2%	28.9%	30.7%	.063	.067

Batters have swung less and chased fewer of Volstad's changeups this season. Yet, they have swung and missed slightly more and failed to produce more than one hit. Perhaps the increase in left to right movement on the pitch has been more effective against batters, even at the expense of less downward movement.

I'd hesitate to suggest he will be able to sustain this success. Batters still make a great deal of contact against his changeup. Volstad has struck out only two batters with it this season. However, he's only thrown the change 13 times with two strikes. Given that a BABIP correction is more than likely forthcoming, he'll need to start throwing the change more when batters are down in the count.

Jose Bautista Adjusting to the Changeup

Jose Bautista(TOR) hasn't shown any signs of letting up from his powerful 2010 season.  He is currently tied for the HR lead with 7, and his on base percentage of .506 leads all major league players.  Pitchers are now treading carefully when Bautista comes to the plate.  His walk rate is up from 14.6% in 2010 to 22.9% this season, highest in the majors.

One pitch that gave Bautista trouble last season was the changeup.

Jose Bautista vs. 2010 Changeups (304 pitches)

	AVG	OBP	SLUG	OPS	wOBA
Totals	.115	.258	.288	.547	.254
Expected	.195	.357	.400	.756	.343

The right-handed slugger has apparently made some adjustments and is hitting changeups much better early in the 2011 season. Three of his home runs have come off changeups with a total of 5 hits in 11 ABs decided on the pitch. He's seen 55 changeups so far this year and has made contact on only 47.4% of his swings (72.4% contact rate in 2010). So while he's not making as much contact, his swings are producing much better results so far.

This tells me that he's recognizing the pitch better, and as a result is swinging harder. While he may miss the pitch completely more often, the changeups he does connect on will go a long way. Even the one triple he hit off a change (a broken bat looping liner on April 22nd) shows Bautista's patience. He recognized the change out of Jeremy Hellickson's(TB) hand, which fell away from him off the outside corner of the plate. Bautista waited on it and got the end of his bat on the ball, dunking it in front of a diving Ben Zobrist in right field.

Given that changeups were the one pitch he had trouble with last year, if he continues hitting them hard, he could put up as good, if not better overall power numbers this season.