Josh Johnson adds a sinker?

Josh Johnson has apparently been working on a sinker this Spring Training.  He claims he picked it up while playing catch with fellow Marlins starter Chris Volstad.

Adding a sinker to his arsenal could prove to be even more deadly for opposing hitters this season.  Johnson went 11-6 with a 2.30 ERA in 2010, throwing a fastball averaging 94.7 MPH, a slider, and a changeup. 

Josh Johnson 2010

	AVG	OBP	SLUG	wOBA	BABIP	K%	BB%	HR%
Fastball	.231	.295	.336	.280	.304	25.6%	8.2%	1.0%
Change Up	.273	.293	.330	.277	.343	20.7%	3.3%	0.0%
Slider	.210	.249	.307	.246	.268	25.8%	3.6%	1.5%
Totals	.229	.282	.325	.269	.298	25.0%	6.5%	1.0%

Volstad is not a bad guy to learn a sinker from, as his has some of the best downward movement in the game. Last year, his sinker ranked 7th in all of baseball in movement with an average of 14.8 feet per second of downward velocity. However, he got into trouble leaving his sinker up in the zone too often, and batters hit .283 and slugged .442 on it.

It remains to be seen if Josh Johnson will effectively utilize the sinker this season. He's been able to induce some groundballs with it in limited use this spring, but until the real games begin, there's no way of knowing how confident he'll be throwing it. With men on base and less than 2 outs, a sinker can be a pitcher's best friend. If Johnson can master the pitch, he'll have yet another weapon to keep batters off their game.

Trevor Cahill's Sinker: Luck or Skill?

Trevor Cahill had a fantastic year for the Oakland A's in 2010.  He was very successful in keeping the ball down, as he went from a 96 ERA+ in 2009 to a 136 ERA+ last season.  Some have noted that his very low overall BABIP (.237) is partially responsible for his success, rather than any particular ability to induce weak ground balls.  However, a closer look possibly indicates that luck may not have played as big a role in Cahill's success.

Cahill was one of the most successful ground ball pitchers in the majors; 56% of batted balls off his pitches ended up on the ground in 2010, 5th highest in the majors.  As you can see from the heat map above, he became very efficient at keeping his pitches down last season.  His GB/FB ratio went from .92 to 1.32 in one year.  The main reason: his excellent sinker.

Cahill's 2010 sinker was flat out nasty, averaging 14.8 feet per second of downward movement, putting him in the top 10 percent of sinkerballers.  This makes it tougher to chalk up his basement low .153 batting average on ground balls (best in the majors) to mostly luck.  He's obviously benefitting greatly from the movement he's getting on his sinker. If batters are finding it harder to makes solid contact as a result of that increased movement, it's possible they are hitting weaker ground balls; in turn, this would make it easier for his defense to field and turn these ground balls into outs. 

This is not to say that we won't see some regression this year.  It's certainly possible that a good chunk of these ground balls were simply finding infielders, particularly when well hit. But if he can keep his pitches down and moving as they did last year, don't be surprised if his overall BABIP remains in the cellar.

Roy Oswalt's Splits from Game Two

In last night's NLCS game (pitch log) between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies, Roy Oswalt's sinker, which is really a two-seam fastball, was quite effective. He threw it 45 times in 14 different plate appearances to a Giants line of .083/.214/.083 and a .167 wOBA. Here are the numbers on each of his pitches from last night:

	Fast	Change	Curve	Slider	Sinker
PA	7	4	4	1	14
Pitches	27	19	9	11	45
Avg	.167	.000	.250	.000	.083
OBP	.286	.000	.250	.000	.214
Slug	.667	.000	.250	.000	.083
ISO	.500	.000	.000	.000	.000
wOBA	.381	.000	.225	.000	.167

Even more interesting was Oswalt's success against left-handed batters last night:

	Actual	V Left	V Right
PA	30	14	16
Pitches	111	54	57
Avg	.111	.000	.200
OBP	.200	.143	.250
Slug	.222	.000	.400
ISO	.111	.000	.200
wOBA	.197	.103	.279

Oswalt allowed NO hits to LHB. In fact, against his two-seamer, Giants LHB managed just one walk and struck out 5 times in 9 PA. Quite impressive given that lefty hitters managed a line of .299/.354/.483 against his two-seam fastball in 2010. Oswalt's only real mistake to a righty was the HR to Cody Ruth Babe Ross Cody Ross. But based on the way Ross has been swinging the bat in this series, it's nothing Roy should be ashamed of.

Comparing Oswalt's splits from game two to his 2010 numbers hammers home just how impressive he was against lefties last night:

	Actual	V Left	V Right
PA	836	390	446
Pitches	3188	1482	1706
Avg	.213	.232	.196
OBP	.264	.282	.249
Slug	.346	.367	.327
ISO	.133	.134	.131
wOBA	.275	.291	.260

Taking a look at Oswalt's pitch frequency to LHB last night gives us some more insight as to how he was so successful, as he effectively kept the ball away:
Roy Oswalt's Pitch Frequency to LHB from Game Two (54 pitches)