Cutters and Hit By Pitches

Jon Lester of the Red Sox explained why the cut fastball is a tough pitch to avoid after he hit Mark Teixeira of the Yankees in the knee Tuesday night.

“The Teixeira ball was obviously a terrible pitch,” Lester said. “It’s what comes with that pitch, sometimes it gets away from you. That’s the bad thing about it. A lot of guys don’t move because of that pitch. It looks like a fastball and breaks in and they don’t have time to react by the time it gets there. It’s tough to hit a guy like that and see him go off the field.”

It sounds like a good explanation, but does it hold water?  The following table shows the most common pitches as percent of the total since 2008, and the HBP for each of those pitches:

Pitch Type	% Pitches	% HBP
Fastball	47.3	48.5
Change up	11.5	5.5
Curveball	9.3	11.9
Slider	15.4	13.3
Cutter	5.2	7.6
Sinker	9.6	11.4

Pitches that move a lot, or are fast, appear to be tougher to avoid.  The cutter is both.  There is about a 50% increase from the percent of cutters thrown to the percent of cutters that hit batters.  For Lester, change is even more pronounced:

Pitch Type	% Pitches	% HBP
Fastball	37.4	11.1
Change up	10.7	0
Curveball	13.8	22.2
Cutter	24.9	55.6
Sinker	12.5	0

Lester hits a lot of batters with his curve ball compared to all pitches thrown, but you can see why he thinks his cutter does damage.  Over half the batters he hit since 2008 came on his cut fastball.  Of course, that means his cutter is a good pitch.  It moves a lot, and that makes it tougher to hit.

Cano's Power

Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long worked with Cano this season to improve his ability to turn on the inside pitch.  Here are his SLG% heat maps for the last 3 seasons.

Robinson Cano SLG% 2008Robinson Cano SLG% 2009Robinson Cano SLG% 2010You can see that Cano improved significantly on pitches inside in 2010.

Cano has also put more distance under his fly balls in each of the last 3 years.

Robinson Cano FB Distance 2008Robinson Cano FB Distance 2009Robinson Cano FB Distance 2010The Yankees have a number of veteran hitters that are in their decline years.  Jeter, who is sure to sign soon, had an awful 2010.  Alex Rodriguez's power has been in the decline since 2007.  While some of his problems in the last two seasons were probably due to his hip injury, he's not likely returning to his mid decade MVP form. 

At 28, Robinson Cano still has some of his best hitting years ahead of him, something this aging Yankees lineup will need.