Chasing a Halladay Changeup

Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies starts Tuesday's All-Star game for the National League.  There is no pitcher in 2011 better at getting batters to swing out of the zone at a change up:

Pitcher	Team	Change Ups	Chas%
Roy Halladay	PHI	339	0.573
Felix Hernandez	SEA	482	0.486
Carl Pavano	MIN	370	0.481
James Shields	TB	572	0.479
Kyle Lohse	STL	337	0.468
Chris Capuano	NYM	451	0.459
Anibal Sanchez	FLA	335	0.452
Justin Verlander	DET	415	0.447
Ricky Romero	TOR	370	0.444
Dillon Gee	NYM	384	0.441
Shaun Marcum	MIL	582	0.435
Cole Hamels	PHI	430	0.434
Roy Oswalt	PHI	229	0.429
Max Scherzer	DET	381	0.426
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	228	0.416

Roy puts a large gap between himself and #2 Felix Hernandez.  Halladay achieves this by getting more sink on his change up than most right-handed pitchers:

RHP change up movement, 2011.Roy Halladay, change up movement, 2011.With the extra drop, batters go fishing down:

Roy Halladay, swing rate on change up, 2011.Even if batters make contact with these pitches, they're so low they'll probably wind up with a ground ball.  Keep your eye on Roy's change up Tuesday night, and see how many AL batters chase it.

Transforming Morton

The following video made the rounds in the baseball blogosphere on Friday.  It compares the way Charlie Morton of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies throw the two-seam fastball.

Morton worked on copying Halladay's delivery during the off-season.  His pitching stats certainly have improved.

The two seam fastball is supposed to sink.  In 2010, it didn't sink all the time:

Charlie Morton, fastball movement, 2010.In 2011, Morton puts more of the density below the X-axis:

Charlie Morton, fastball movement, 2011.That more closely matches what Roy Halladay throws:

Roy Halladay, fastball movement, 2010-2011.There is one big difference that remains between the two, however.  Roy works both sides of the plate with his fastball, Morton works middle-in to righties, middle-out to lefites.  He doesn't throw to the catcher's right hand:

Charlie Morton, fastball pitch frequency, 2011.Morton gets the same movement as Halladay, but can throw it to multiple locations yet.  That may be the lesson for next winter.

Halladay Versus Beltre

Adrian Beltre (TEX) is one batter of many Roy Halladay (PHI) shut down over his career.  The two meet Friday night as the Rangers visit the Phillies.  In his career, Roy held Beltre to a .185/.214/.296 slash line in 28 plate appearances.  Adrian doesn't strike out much against Roy, just five times in his career, but he doesn't get much out of putting the ball in play.

PITCHf/x covers the last eleven battles between the two (2008-2010) and shows us why Roy shuts down Adrian.  First, look at Adrian's hot zones:

Adrian Beltre, in play batting average, 2008-2011.So where does Roy pitch him?

Roy Halladay vs. Adrian Beltre, pitch frequency, 2008-2010.That's a total of 36 pitches.  Notice how nicely Roy fills that green bubble on the inside part of the plate, putting pitches between Adrian's hot zones inside.  Halladay avoids large swaths of the plate altogether, but sometimes tempts Beltre outside.

One big help for Roy appears to be reputation.  Beltre was never known as a selective hitter, and Halladay puts pitches where he wants, so Roy seems to get the calls on taken pitches:

Roy Halladay vs. Adrian Beltre, strike rate on taken pitches, 2008-2010.To Beltre's credit, he's not taking pitches in the strike zone.  Roy holds an unfair advantage inside, where very few calls go Adrian's way.  That puts him in a hole.  Not surprisingly, the only hit Adrian collected in the eleven at bats came on a first pitch.

Roy Halladay vs. Adrian Beltre, in play batting average, 2008-2010.That hit came in Adrian's last at bat against Roy, 5/23/2010.  He might have seen enough first pitch strikes inside to figure it was coming, and smacked the ball to leftfield.  We'll see how each adjusts tonight.