Phil Hughes' Early Season Blues

Yes, Phil Hughes' fastball velocity is down. We get it. Is that his only problem? Probably not, but it sure makes it harder for him to be successful with his other pitches. Let's take a look at how he's locating compared to the last three seasons.

Phil Hughes Pitch Location (All Pitch Types) (Click to enlarge)

The major difference so far has been Hughes' attempt to come in on lefties. The main reason for this is that he's been relying on his cutter more over his first two starts, while shying away from his velocity-challenged fastball.

Phil Hughes Pitch Selection vs. LHB

	FB%	CHNG%	CURV%	SLD%	CUT%
2008-10	63.5%	4.4%	20.5%	1.3%	10.2%
2011	11.9%	6.0%	13.4%	0.0%	68.7%

Phil Hughes Pitch Selection vs. RHB

	FB%	CHNG%	CURV%	SLD%	CUT%
2008-10	61.5%	0.1%	17.0%	3.2%	18.1%
2011	12.9%	1.4%	20.0%	0.0%	65.7%

Having to rely more on his cutter has not produced positive results for Hughes. Batters are hitting .412 off it, compared to .290 in his three previous seasons; he's only induced a handful of swings and misses on the pitch as well. In his three previous seasons, Hughes was able to get opposing righties to chase his cutter out of the zone 38.4 percent of the time. So far this season, he's produced just 2 total swings on 21 cutters out of the zone to RHB. This could be a sign that his location is somewhat iffy. But it could also be a side effect of the ineffectiveness of his fastball. With batters seeing the cutter more, it's likely easier for them to lay off the pitch when it's thrown to the outside edge of the plate. And the reduced velocity on his fastball means batters have more time to identify the pitch, differentiating it from the cutter.

Phil Hughes vs. LHB

	P	PA	K%	BB%	Miss%	Strk%	Foul%
2008-10	2806	666	20.3%	11.4%	18.2%	62.7%	46.6%
2011	67	17	0.0%	5.9%	3.0%	70.1%	48.5%

Phil Hughes vs. RHB

	P	PA	K%	BB%	Miss%	Strk%	Foul%
2008-10	2700	676	22.0%	5.5%	21.5%	67.6%	46.2%
2011	70	16	6.3%	18.8%	6.7%	55.7%	53.3%

With only two starts under his belt, you can't really get too bent out of shape about any of these numbers, although they don't inspire much confidence going forward. His swing and miss rate is pretty awful even for the limited sample. Basically, opposing batters are making contact on 95 percent of their swings against Hughes. He's obviously not going to be racking up the Ks at that rate.

Phil Hughes' Cutter (Part Two)

Phil Hughes' Cutter vs. LHB

	AVG	SLG	wOBA
April - May	.185	.407	.331
June - July	.381	.667	.441
August - October	.250	.500	.344

Phil Hughes' Cutter vs. RHB

	AVG	SLG	wOBA
April - May	.225	.275	.232
June - July	.444	.778	.530
August - October	.316	.632	.411

Phil Hughes' Cutter - April-May
Phil Hughes' Cutter - June-July
Phil Hughes' Cutter - August-October 2nd
Since his performance numbers are based on plate appearances decided on a cutter, we're working with a relatively small sample size, especially when looking at splits.

Nonetheless, when viewed with his overall pitch frequency, two things stood out to me. First, against RHB in June and July, Hughes kept the cutter down more, and apparently this got him into more trouble. Second, Hughes avoided throwing the cutter in to lefties in June and July. However, when I split the map in half, I found he got hit harder when throwing the pitch inside during that period (.385 SLG% on the outer half compared to 1.125 SLG% on the inner half). As noted in the previous post, his cutter had less movement in June and July. This is pure speculation, but if Hughes knew he wasn't getting as much cut on that pitch, he may have avoided throwing it in to lefties.

Phil Hughes' 2010 Cutter

Phil Hughes' season was neither awful, nor spectacular. After a great first couple of months, Hughes slipped a bit with a stretch of less than optimal starts. And despite what the media might say, his problems were probably not caused by a skipped start in June.

I wanted to take a look at Phil's cutter to see if there was any noticeable change throughout the season. Here are a few heatmaps along with some interesting data points.

Phil Hughes' Cutter, April & May
On the left, you can see all the hits coming off Hughes' cutter and their locations in the field throughout April and May this season. On the right, you can see the movement on his cutter. This is determined as the pitch is crossing the plate. The x-axis indicates 13 feet per second drop from a pitch as it crosses the plate, with each grid line equaling 4 ft/sec (one line above the axis would equal 9 ft/sec in downward movement, one line below equals 17 ft/sec). The y-axis equals 0 ft/sec in horizontal movement.

So the above heat map indicates that Hughes' cutter in April and May had an average downward movement of 12.5 ft/sec and a right to left movement averaging 7.8 ft/sec. Here are the heat maps for the rest of the season.

Phil Hughes' Cutter, June & July
Phil Hughes' Cutter, August, September & October (regular season only)
The first thing that stands out is Hughes' June and July heat map. He was not as consistent with his cutter's movement, as you can see the blue creep toward the center of the map a bit more. Same thing from August on, although not nearly as bad. In April and May, Hughes did not seem to throw any flat cutters, as you can see nothing at all nearing that y-axis of 0 ft/sec.

	PA	P	H-PlateVel	V-PlateVel
April - May	75	251	7.8	-12.5
June - July	51	166	7.1	-12.7
August - October	33	126	7.3	-13.3

PA: Plate Appearances decided on a cutter
P: Cutters thrown
H-PlateVel: Horizontal movement in feet/sec
V-PlateVel: Vertical movement in feet/sec

	Cntct%	Fly-Dist	HR	wOBA
April - May	83.5%	289	2	.276
June - July	81.0%	299	3	.493
August - October	76.3%	309	3	.385

Cntct%: Contact Rate (in play + foul / swings) on cutters
Fly-Dist: Fly ball distance on cutters

Interesting that Hughes got more swings and misses on his cutter as the season went on. In the middle of the season, Hughes' cutter had the lowest average right to left movement. Not surprising that he was hit hardest during that stretch. It's also interesting that Hughes' cutter had more drop as the season went on, almost an entire foot per second from the beginning of the season to the end. I'm not sure what exactly this tells us, if much of anything at all. Perhaps it can be connected to a decrease in spin on his cutter, as he maintained an overall velocity of 89 mph on the pitch throughout the season. It could also be attributed to a slight change in release point or delivery.