Wehner's Book on Hitters

by leadoff on May 18, 2010 11:35 AM EDT

Wehner, has a better book on how to pitch to the Phillies than the Pirates do.
He wanted Morton to go inside to Werth and they kept going outside.

Morton gets the blame, but if you look at the homerun that Werth hit, Morton's pitch was going to go exactly where Doumit set up. Doumit continuned to set up outside.

Is Doumit setting up where he is told or is he doing it on his own?
Howard should not have had a hit, much less the RBI's that he got. Again Wehner was right, you have to set that guy up with a fast ball, but not down the middle waist high, then nail him with breaking stuff. Morton has the stuff to beat the Phillies.

They continue to get beat on just about every shift they try, Howard beat them every time, Morton did pitch him inside, he fisted one off and we had the shortstop out of position and bounced one to where a shortstop would have been.

Then we have the famous no-triple defense that we play on the road as well as home, we had the infield shift in St.Louis and their catcher beat us twice with that one.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.

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Wehner also said he’s never seen Werth hit an opposite field HR and was astonished that he did. So, that’s quite likely what they were thinking about.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 1:08 PM EDT reply actions

Not true....

Wehner said he never saw Werth hit a homerun to Left field, his pull-field. He said that he has seen countless highlights of him going the opposite way, and, he is correct.

Werth has good power to all fields.

by CabreraKilledMyChildhood on May 18, 2010 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions

yes

I don’t recall the wording, but it was something of the nature that he jack’s a lot of opposite field homies.

Jason
The Hanging Curve

by poorboywilly on May 18, 2010 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, my bad

I actually remembered the opposite of what he said.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 10:15 PM EDT up reply actions

He actually said

He has never seen Werth pull a high and inside fastball for a HR.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 10:16 PM EDT up reply actions

I'll say though

In general, the outfield shifts they are putting on aren’t working, and there’s mounting UZR evidence to that fact.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 1:09 PM EDT reply actions

Last season,

Nyj playing over in left-center so often was said by not a few here to be due to McLouth’s lack of range.

We still have Milledge playing in the gap at PNC Park with the even speedier McCutchen in center for almost a year now.

What gives?

Mark: Do you have some numbers to back it up yet? Seriously, this is one time I’d like to see the UZR breakdown.

by patthatt on May 18, 2010 1:58 PM EDT reply actions

Here’s the breakdown of our outfielders. The most surprising of course is the very low rating Cutch has.

Cutch and Milledge together are 8 runs below average so far.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 2:15 PM EDT up reply actions

How does this work?

Lastings has a lower UZR in less innings, but his UZR/150 is higher than Cutch’s. How does that make sense?

by Mr. E on May 18, 2010 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions

I haven't looked....

but to compare you would do a ratio, so it sounds like Milledge’s UZR/innings is higher than Cutch’s, thus is UZR/150 would be higher.

by David Todd on May 18, 2010 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions

I haven’t seen an article on this, but it seems that this year with UZR/150, they seem to be doing some regression, whereas in the past it was simply an extrapolation of UZR in 150 games.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 4:04 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t think it was ever just an extrapolation to 150 games. They have always included some other factors when calculating UZR/150. Over the course of a full season, it closely resembles a basic extrapolation. But in small samples, it can produce some goofy-looking numbers, such as a negative UZR and a positive UZR/150.

I could be wrong on that, but I seem to remember a brief discussion about it in the comments of a FanGraphs post early last season.

Pittsburgh Lumber Co.

by MBandi on May 19, 2010 1:33 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t remember seeing those positive/negative conflicts before this season, but maybe I’m just misremembering.

by MarkInDallas on May 19, 2010 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions

I also....

think they are still tweaking the formula.

by David Todd on May 19, 2010 7:21 PM EDT up reply actions

By the way,

I’m not so sure I’d pay much attention to John Wehner when he dispenses advice.

He might be right this time, but it happens once in a blue moon otherwise.

by patthatt on May 18, 2010 2:00 PM EDT reply actions

i disagree

if more of the pirates took the approach to hitting that he talks about, we’d probably be a better hitting team.

by theatrain on May 18, 2010 5:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Well he helped mold

some of the Buccos while at Altoona and that didn’t help any.

by Coxswain on May 18, 2010 8:43 PM EDT up reply actions

Also....

the infield shifts generally make sense. All you have to do is look at the hit/spray chart of the guys you mentioned and you’ll see.

Morton wasn’t good last night, but he also wasn’t lucky.

by David Todd on May 18, 2010 2:03 PM EDT reply actions

I’ll agree on the shift on Howard. But for other times, no.

by MarkInDallas on May 18, 2010 2:16 PM EDT up reply actions

Shift

Howard can be pitched to, but not defensed IMO. at least not with a shift.
It starts with the pitching, the Pirates want their pitchers to pitch to spots that will cause hitters to hit into their defenses. Easier said than done.
Howard has to be set up and struck out and that is easier with him than a lot of other players.
Synchronization between the pitcher, catcher and fielders has to be pretty good to make defenses that are set up as shifts work.

by leadoff on May 18, 2010 3:14 PM EDT reply actions

I'll give you.....

ten bucks if Howard hits a ground ball to the left side the rest of the series.

by David Todd on May 18, 2010 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions

I’m just seeing this now and didn’t hear it during the game, but Wehner’s book on Werth seems to be wrong from everything I’ve seen. Werth’s real cold zones are up in the zone and down in the zone on the outside part of the plate. He hits pretty well if the pitch is waist high and outside, though. He hits about .400 on pitches on the inside half of the plate.

by ElDuce on May 19, 2010 4:23 PM EDT reply actions

The majority of his hits seem to come to CF as well. He doesn’t hit a ton of true opposite field HRs, he’s more a left center to right center guy. More real pull shots than bombs to straight away right.

by ElDuce on May 19, 2010 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Agreed...

it wasn’t so much the pitch location as much as it was going to the same location 3 pitches in a row. Don’t know who’s to blame there but this talk of Morton not throwing inside is kind of silly. He’s thrown inside quite a bit this year and people are taking one at bat and using that as evidence that Morton doesn’t throw inside. Erroneous! Erroneous on all counts!!!

by Slick1 on May 20, 2010 12:07 AM EDT up reply actions