what is gagne's mystery adjustment?

[afeter]

Did anyone see anything last night? Does anyone have inside information?

 

My guess is: throw more 1st pitch fastballs for strikes.

 

I understand there is a lot of room for jest here, but at least provide a legit guess before rippin in.

[mikerollins]

I would think it is something more "mechanical" then "philosophical".

What I mean by that is, probably something along the lines of arm angle, or grip on the ball, or location on the rubber.

Not something like "throw more first pitch strikes". That's pretty much common sense, I would think.

I think Gagne's stuff has looked really good all year, but he has just hit some bad luck, and some bad pitch locations at bad times. Hopefully the mino adjustment will help him get back to dominating form like he was for 3 weeks in April

[1992casey]

Some of the writers think Eric was tipping his pitches. That would certainly be a good reason not to talk a lot about the nature of any adjustment involved. And it might explain what could appear to be a lot of seemingly weak base hits.

[Hate those Rodents]

If it's obvious, it is the throwing more fastballs adjustment. If I am right, boy is our coaching staff geniuses and we'll now have a dominant closer!

[rluzinski]

It would be pretty simple to use gameday to see if he threw more fastballs his last appearance(and the 2 inning appearance?), compared to his the other 2008 outings. Their pitch classifications aren't the greatest but it's easy to pick out the fastballs from velocity alone.

 

It did seem like he threw a lot of fastballs last night.

[sgtcluels]

There's some pretty good year to year FB/Change up PitchFX data analysis over at BCB. It seems that his change and fastball are to much alike and he's not getting the downward movement and more lateral on his changes. According to the poster, if he moved his arm slot a little more "over the top" and pitched "taller" he could get more downward movement on his change, but at the same time might lose a little bit of velocity on his FB.

 

Same guy also posted some more information about PitchFX data on all our pitchers . According to that data, Turnbow has a horrible, horrible fastball.

[joepepsi]

Well, it wasn't his fault last night that Rickie screwed up the chance for a double play. Still, until he stop walking or giving up a hit to the first batter, I'm going to assume nothing has changed, and continue to be sceered as helc everytime he takes the mound.

[FVBrewerFan]

I doubt it's anything mechanical. Yost insists it is a very minor adjustment. Changing arm angle, anything in the pitching motion is not that minor in my opinion. I would guess it's throwing more 1st pitch strikes, or if he's tipping pitches that would qualify as minor.

 

In any case, his struggles are more than just "bad luck." With a WHIP like he has, that's a lot of broken mirrors and black cats.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Luck. He's had some really bad luck in his blown saves.

[Ennder]

He is wearing women's underwear.

[aracko]

Its most likely the fact that he isnt delivering the ball with confidence. a little pep talk and a "mystery story" telling him he is doing something that he really isnt can give him the boost needed. The guy is the best in the business.

[sgtcluels]

I don't think having a WHIP of 1.85 is bad luck. It's somethings wrong.

 

He also has a below average BABIP

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/650_P_season_full_7_20080513.png

 

His K/9 is good but he's walking a lot of people so his BB/9 is well.. pretty bad. (and has nothing to do with Luck)

 

I'm hoping he figures it out, and I'm hoping that whatever changes he makes his change up starts not hanging and getting pummeled.

[monty57]

Well, in the past the coaching staff had no problem telling the media what they tought was the reason for a pitcher's poor outings. With Gagne, Yost said "I'm not going to tell you what he's doing, but it was obvious." That makes it seem that Gagne was tipping his pitches. Once Yost got him in a 8-1 game to make sure he wasn't tipping the pitches anymore, he's once again the closer. Check things like how he's holding his glove before the pitch, or whether he always throws a certain pitch after one of his walks around the mound. Maybe he started throwing his change-up from a different angle than his fastball, but I agree with the previous poster that this might not be a minor fix. It's hard to say exactly what it was, but I hope it was corrected.

[TooLiveBrew]

His K/9 is good but he's walking a lot of people so his BB/9 is well.. pretty bad. (and has nothing to do with Luck)

 

Unless imperfect human beings dictate the strike zone. Then luck can factor in. The 2-2 change he threw with 2 outs last night (to the batter before Pierre) would've been strike 3 for many umpires imo.

 

 

Some of the writers think Eric was tipping his pitches. That would certainly be a good reason not to talk a lot about the nature of any adjustment involved. And it might explain what could appear to be a lot of seemingly weak base hits.

 

I mean no ill will to casey, but is this anything more than just popular gossip? I wonder about sportswriters' ability to identify when a guy's tipping his pitches. I heard this too, but nothing substantial to back it up -- I got the impression it was speculation.

[rluzinski]

There's some pretty good year to year FB/Change up PitchFX data analysis over at BCB.

 

Thanks for the links. I need to get into a habit of checking that site more often. I never realized that John Kaulk ffrom Hardballtimes.com was the same guy as dixieflatline from brewcrewball.com. Does he ever post over here?

[pitchleague]

maybe it's fog-proof rec-specs! Although he really needs to get a strap (or tighten the one he has) to keep them on his face. After almost every pitch, he had to re-adjust the things--even on balls that are hit. That can't help with concentration, I would think.

[aracko]

maybe it's fog-proof rec-specs! Although he really needs to get a strap (or tighten the one he has) to keep them on his face. After almost every pitch, he had to re-adjust the things--even on balls that are hit. That can't help with concentration, I would think.

 

I think that alot of that is done to mess with the hitters as well.

[sgtcluels]

Not sure Russ. I've only seen him on BCB, he's very active on that site. Seems to really know his stuff. I do see a fair amount of usuals from here posting over there though (I'm looking at you lamps, molitorfan!). The one post I look for every day is the Frosty Mug by KLSnow. Posts a good wrap up, and good summary of injuries and what's going on in the brewer world.

[Madtown Bomber]

Tom Haudicourt today speculated on his D-List segment from the information he gathered that it was that he was indeed tipping his pitches somehow. He didn't get specific but just wanted to pass it along.

[craigharmann]

Steroids...that's the adjustment.

[endaround]

I highly doubt it was tipping his pitches, he was only throwing changeups to begin with!

[monty57]

My wife was a reporter for 15+ years. They are told a lot more off the record than they will ever go public with. The "information gathered" by Tom H is likely information for which he can't name the source & can't get into specifics about. Also, in the post-game interview, Trenni was really trying to get Gagne to say what the problem was, and sounded like she knew the answer, but couldn't get him to say anything more than "I have a better attitude."

[TooLiveBrew]

Would it be considered unprofessional, though, to say something like, "I spoke with several people with the Brewers, and they've told me the adjustment is simple -- there's concern that Eric has been tipping his pitches. For obvious reasons, I cannot name my sources"?

 

Just curious.

[Tbadder]

I liked bringing in Gagne. And, I think he looked good, especially to Jones. I know Jones eventually worked him for the walk, but I also know he threw two completely nasty change ups for stikes in that sequence. Once he starts spotting the change up he'll be okay. I also thought it was heartening that a day after a two inning performance he hit 94 on the gun.

[sgtcluels]

My guess is that you'd be "black balled" from the FO and Players as a leaky source. So your effectiveness as a reporter (and your job performance) may go down. That kind of goes back to the entire Main Stream Media vs. Bloggers thing.