Haders gonna hade hade hade
(He needs to shake it off)
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The homer never bothered me anyway.
Oh, I remember it all too well
Since my sarc meter and sarc output is almost always parked at 11 I enjoyed your comment.
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I’m glad SOMEONE got it.
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So did I. I had no doubt he was mimicking the “loser” crap about Abreu. I laughed.
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Up until yesterday the homers weren’t bothering me too much because he was coming in with a lead and the worst thing you can do is not throw strikes when you are up. So my thought was he was letting it rip and if someone popped a solo jack, so be it. But yesterday the game was tied…too bad. Hopefully we come back tomorrow and finish strong with the last few games heading into the break.
I did immediately.
Bringing the convo back to a topic from a few days ago when we were discussing how Brown’s 2-seamer played well with his other pitches, making batters have to cover the whole plate, I like this comment from Hader. It’s the same but on the vertical plane:
Hader has allowed eight homers in 39 innings this season, which is 1.85 homers allowed per nine innings. Five of those eight homers have come on sinkers, with two on sliders and one on a changeup. Hader said he’s simply not executing his fastball at the top of the strike zone. “I’m sure if you look at it, last year I was able to execute at the top of the zone a lot more often,” he said. “I’m in the zone this year, which then gives the hitters a chance to hit the inner-half fastball.”
He’s not executing up so the hitters spit on those and key in on everything down and in.
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Looking at his baseball savant page, there are two location things that really stand out to me.
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The sinker is absolutely wild IN the zone. Last year he had a tight grouping up and glove side, basically one big “hot zone.” This year, he has a small hot zone in that location but also 3 different smaller zones around the middle of the plate. No consistency at all at the top where he wants it. So he is absolutely correct there.
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The slider location is radically different this year. I don’t think he’s finishing his slider at all. Location on the slider in previous seasons have been consistently down and glove side. This year it’s down and in the corner, but arm side.
My guess, not a pitching coach, is that he is staying to closed and not opening up his front hip enough. That would explain not being able to get the sinker up and in on RHB and not being able to get the slider across the plate. RHB have no need to worry about a slider at their back foot, so if the pitch doesn’t start way outside, they know it’s a fastball.
I’m sure he and the Astros have picked up on this, if I am correct. Maybe I’ll take the time to watch some video of this year vs last year mechanically.
Edit: just to add a bit more, his stuff hasn’t necessarily gotten worse. Spin rate, extention, whiff% are all about the same. The sinker has roughly the same movement, slider has been more flat than in previous. Seems to me, it is all location.
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I’ve watching about 20 sinkers from this season and last season and sliders mostly from this season. Nothing is obviously sticking out as being different. Sometimes he steps a little more towards the 1B on deck circle than I think he wants. I definitely noticed that more on sliders that don’t get back to the plate. It’s hard to really see the difference pitch to pitch when every ballpark has a different camera angle. What I might do tomorrow is watch a bunch of pitches at MMP from when things were going well and a bunch more from lately also at MMP.
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