Not meant to flame and I'm no pitching expert. But he was all America two years ago and now we can't count on him. Did he get hurt? Does the new ball make that much difference?
Help me out here.
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Not meant to flame and I'm no pitching expert. But he was all America two years ago and now we can't count on him. Did he get hurt? Does the new ball make that much difference?
Help me out here.
pitches so the new balls have to be at least part of the problem, or so I'd think. The other thing is that teams have seen him so many times now they know what he does. He's either gonna walk you or if he does pitch to you, you're gonna get something good to hit so you just have to be patient. With a guy like that he has to locate precisely and he hasn't been doing that. Teams are being more patient with him and he's getting his ass knocked off.
I also noticed that he hasn't been doing his "glove pop" on his windups anymore. That used to be one of the things that allowed him to deceive hitters.
Again no flame intended here but Butch's calling card has been pitchers improving during their time at State- Girodo,etc. Mitchell is the son of a big league pitcher in addition to being successful in his own right. Just puzzles me. And frankly some what if cause if he was 90% of 2013, we'd be having a different year this year.
The ball change rendered Mitchell much, much less effective.
Stinks for him. And us.
Probably a little bit of it is the ball, and a little bit of it is just bad luck (bloop hits, seeing eye singles, errors, etc). A guy like Mitchell that's never been a big K guy is more susceptible to things like that because so many balls are put in play against him.
What is the difference in his base on balls and hit batters?
I believe its a combination of less movement with the new ball, people having so much scouting on him or actually seeing him in his 4th year, some bad luck with ground balls finding holes at the wrong times, and possibly that we've overpitched him for 3 years and he's just got a dead arm.
I think we're just seeing baseball evening the score vs Mitchell. He went three years defying the odds with an 81 mph fastball and a 13 mph changeup. His pitches are so slow the opposing pitcher has to put in a bullpen session to stay warm.
His arm is out of bullets. Happens