Fernandez, Harvey Bring More than Just Heat

Youth and power will be on display in Queens this afternoon, as Miami's Jose Fernandez (9.1 K/9, 115 ERA+) squares off against the Mets' Matt Harvey (9.7 K/9, 171 ERA+). The 20-year-old Fernandez and Harvey, 24, are best known for their scorching fastballs, and for good reason. Both rank in the top five in fastball velocity, with Fernandez averaging 94.6 MPH with his heater and Harvey sitting at 94.9 MPH.

But these burgeoning aces bring more to the table than mere gas -- each has a wicked breaking pitch that's getting lots of awkward swings from batters.

Fernandez

For Fernandez, that complementary pitch is a curveball, thrown 29% of the time, that ranges anywhere from 76 MPH to 85 MPH. While many pitchers use their breaking stuff to coax hitters into chasing off the plate, Fernandez floods the strike zone with his curve. He has thrown 59% of his curveballs over the plate, the highest rate among starters who have thrown the pitch at least 200 times this season.

Opponents haven't been able to touch Fernandez's breaker -- they're slugging .275 against the curveball, about 75 points below the MLB average. The only starters to induce weaker contact with the curve are Chris Tillman (.154), A.J. Burnett (.188), Adam Wainwright (.202), Gio Gonzalez (.209), Stephen Strasburg (.209), Shelby Miller (.211) and James Shields (.242).

Fernandez's curveball location

Harvey

The Dark Knight of Gotham, meanwhile, uses his power slider (averaging an MLB-best 89 MPH) to mow down right-handers. Harvey's slider, thrown 21% of the time, is more of a chase pitch than Fernandez's curve. He has placed his slider over the plate 41%, far below the 48% MLB average. However, Harvey is getting more swings on sliders thrown out of the zone (33%) than the MLB average (31%), and he's generating ground balls at a top-notch clip (58% of balls put in play, compared to the 47% average). Those chases and worm-burners have helped Harvey limit batters to a .242 slugging percentage against his slider, which ranks in the top ten lowest among NL starters and is over 100 points below the big league average (.349).

Another reason why Harvey's slider is so tough to hit is that he rarely catches the meat of the plate with the pitch. Just 13% of his sliders have been thrown to the horizontal middle of the strike zone, lowest among starters who have tossed the pitch at least 150 times.

Harvey's slider location

Hitters Laying Off Dickey's Knuckler

For three years in Queens, R.A. Dickey disproved the notion that knuckleball pitchers are mercurial creatures whose control goes through jarring spells of precision and wildness. Dickey issued just 2.2 walks per nine innings with the Mets from 2010-12, compared to the average of 2.9 BB/9 for starting pitchers over that time frame. Flutterball pitcher or not, Dickey didn't hurt himself with free passes.

In 2013, though, the reigning Cy Young Award winner has walked 4.1 batters per nine frames with the Blue Jays. That's his highest walk rate since he was but a knuckleball neophyte getting lit up in Minnesota. You might think that Dickey hasn't been as sharp with his knuckler this season, and that's part of the problem (his percentage of knuckleballs thrown in the strike zone has decreased from 54% in 2012 to 51% in 2013). But the bigger issue is that hitters haven't been nearly as tempted to take a cut at Dickey's signature pitch as it dances off the plate.

Check out opponents' swing rate by pitch location against Dickey's knuckleball during his Cy Young season in 2012, and his Cy Yuk year so far in 2013. Pay particularly close attention to knucklers thrown around hitters' knees:

2012

2013

Dickey got hitters to chase 34% of his knuckleballs out of the strike zone last season. This year? Just 23%. The decline in chases is most acute on low knucklers -- 31% in 2012, and 13% in 2013. Compounding matters, Dickey is throwing more out-of-the-zone knuckleballs low this season (41%) than last (32%).

Without all of those chases, Dickey is falling behind in the count nearly twice as often as he did last season (14.5% of hitters' plate appearances last year, 27.4% in 2013). That's a recipe for not just walks, but also extra-base knocks from so many unfavorable counts. It's hard to say why hitters are suddenly laying of Dickey's low knucklers. But it might be time for a meeting of the Jedi Council of Knuckleballers.

Matt Harvey's High Heat

The Mets are off to a 6-4 start this year, and Matt Harvey is a major reason why. Harvey has surrendered just one run while winning his first two starts, punching out 19 batters in 14 innings pitched. The 24-year-old right-hander with a blistering fastball is challenging hitters with high heat -- and he's winning.

Here is Harvey's fastball location so far in 2013:

Overall, major league starting pitchers have thrown about 35% of their fastballs to the upper third of the strike zone this season. But Harvey? He's going upstairs 53% of the time, highest among National League starters throwing at least 100 pitches. Harvey's high heat is getting results, too. He's getting hitters to swing and miss at his fastball nearly half of the time, putting him in a class all his own among MLB starters:

Highest fastball miss rate among MLB starters (min. 100 thrown)

 

Harvey has thrown his fastball, which screams towards home plate at an average of 94 MPH and has topped out at 98 MPH, about two-thirds of the time. Opponents are hitting .154 (4-for-26) against his heater, with a lone extra-base knock (congrats, Jimmy Rollins!) Eat your heart out, Verlander and Strasburg.