The Rundown Lite: Rea May Have Tweaked His Offspeed, Second Half Closing
We’ve got a rare Sunday off as my son’s most recent tournament concluded on Saturday, so I’ve got an opportunity to spend a little more time at the keyboard than usual. Of course, editing a draft primer and writing this will have me rushing the lineup post for the final game of the first half. Guess that’s better than slapping something together from my phone via a remote location that has minimal cell service.
As much as I enjoy having a little free time, I have to say I hate the way the youth baseball industrial complex continues to de-prioritize health. Having to cram at least three games into two days opens the door to a lot of overuse, even if the adults involved think they mean well. One of the teams in last night’s championship had one kid go 71 pitches on Friday and 80 on Saturday, while another went 75 on Friday and 84 on Saturday. We need to be better.
I also need to be faster, so here we go.
Rea’s offspeed usage
With Ben Brown back in Iowa for the time being, my obsession with the kick-change had to find someone else to glom onto. That target has now been identified as Colin Rea, who appears to be doing something different with his offspeed pitch over the last month and a half or so. Classified as a splitter, he threw it only 28 times, all to lefties, over his first six starts combined. That’s a little less than 6% usage.
In his last 10 starts, however, Rea has upped the splitter to nearly 15% usage and has thrown it as many as 17 times in a game. The most recent of those was his July 10 start against the Twins in which he went seven innings of three-hit ball with one run allowed to stave off a sweep. Though he threw it exclusively to left-handed hitters that day, he’s been throwing the splitter more frequently to righties as well.
If, that is, it’s still a splitter. There doesn’t appear to be much change in terms of velocity, but he’s getting more depth on it than in the past. After getting about 31-32 inches of depth on the splitter in the previous three seasons, he’s at roughly 36 inches this year. That appears to be a more recent development as well, one that coincides with his increased usage.
A quick perusal of game logs from earlier in the season shows only sporadic instances of the splitter generating negative induced vertical break values. Those instances have notably increased since mid-May, though it’s entirely possible we’re just seeing the result of an increased sample size. But what if Rea is messing around with a different grip on his offspeed pitch and Statcast just hasn’t caught it yet?
Not all kick-changes are created equal, with different pitchers spiking their middle fingers to varying degrees. As such, the movement profile of Rea’s might not be different enough to flag an adjustment to its classification. Publicly available data doesn’t provide enough granular data to prove anything definitively, but there are traces of evidence in both the spin-based and observed movement of the “splitter.”
After being almost at 2 o’clock for his four previous seasons of Statcast data, with a little bit of 2:30 last season, Rea’s offspeed spin is primarily in the 2:30 range this season. I’d wager that it’d be closer to 3:00 if we just looked at the last month or so, but that’s a guess. Similarly, his observed movement has increased by about an hour on the clock. Something tells me this is more than just happenstance.
Or perhaps everything looks like a nail to me because I think I’m a hammer.
First half ending
I went way deeper on that last topic than I’d originally intended, so let’s breeze through this. The Cubs are guaranteed at least a tie for the division lead heading into the break as they look to fend off the hard-charging Brewers. Milwaukee has won six straight, though they’ve gained only one game in the standings over the last 10. That makes the start of the second half so much more important as the Cubs look to add ahead of the deadline.
Buyers are sellers still haven’t been definitively identified, making Jed Hoyer’s job all the more difficult. And with two bullpen games in the last week, it’s become far too obvious that the Cubs need rotation help. It’s never good to be buying from a position of weakness, but that may be the only choice they have at this point. Setting aside what the Cubs need to do as a team, I’m just looking forward to a brief reprieve from the grind.
The MLB Draft takes place Sunday night, and the Cubs have several options with the No. 17 pick. Then we’ve got the Home Run Derby, the All-Star Game itself, and a chance to catch our breath ahead of the trade deadline.
Trailer Time
I’m not really sure what to make of this one, but the cast is very strong and it’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, this black comedy/action flick looks like something I’d enjoy more as a streamer. It’s definitely intriguing, though.
Ed. note: Sorry if this was a little sloppy, I fell behind on time and rushed the editing process.
