Frasor Follow Up

The temptation to throw a million data points up on a graph to granular all over Jason Frasor's declining ass is strong, but unnecessary. We can sum up the former closer's struggles (flatter, slower pitches) in convenient listicle form and be done before Monday's endless dirge reaches the seventh inning stretch.

• Fastball velocity down nearly 2 mph.
  
• "Change Up" (splitter/fosh) velocity down 1.5 mph.
  
• Fastball horizontal movement down 1.5 inches.
  
• Splitter/Fosh/Change Up vertical movement down 2 inches
  
• Fastball "rise" decreased by 2 inches.

One and a half inches of horizontal movement may not seem like too much, but it represents a drop of 30%. A straighter, slower, flatter fastball is a pitch that is hammered. A slower, straighter, floaty-er change up thrown more often is a pitch either ignored or hammered.

Jason Frasor just ain't right. His less-than dynamic pitches are increasing ending up in the upper half of the strike zone too. He gets squared up well behind his career rate, cutting into his normally decent ground ball rate. His BABIP is absurdly high but throwing as many hittable pitches as he does, what does one expect?

Again I'll state there's more to Jason Frasor's struggles than "he sucks now." They'll find a tear or a flaw in his mechanics or get inside his slightly troubled head and he'll return to league-average. But for right now Bruce Walton can spare us all the bland niceties about bad luck and bad bounces.

Image courtesy of Reuters/Daylife, data from Fangraphs and Joe Lefkowitz.