Breaking Down Liriano's DWL Dominance
Written by Andrew Kneeland   
Friday, 29 January 2010 22:09

If you haven't already heard, Francisco Liriano appears to be back to his old self.

After putting up a 0.80 ERA in just under 50 innings of work in the Domincan Winter League, Liriano has impressed scouts to no end. He struck out over eleven batters per nine innings, while walking a total of five. You would be hard-pressed to find a scout that doesn't believe Liriano is a prime candidate for a breakout season in 2010.

Although I don't claim to be anything close to an expert, I compiled three pitches from Liriano from throughout his short career. The first one is from July 4 of 2009, against the Detroit Tigers. The second one is a bullpen pitch from Spring Training in 2008, and the third one is from last night, in the final game of the Dominican Winter League.

(Video courtesy of espn360.com, twinsbaseball.com, and an amateur clip picked up off YouTube)

[Watch the video here.]

(As you can tell by the video, this is an amateur attempt in every sense of the word. I simply captured these three clips, slowed them down a little, and uploaded them via the ever-helpful Photobucket. The frame counts I reference later were counted by slowing the videos down much more, but those versions weren't uploaded. Also, this is a .wmv format. The "real" scouts combine dozens of stills into a .gif. The "analysis" that follows is very much from an untrained eye, and should obviously be taken with a grain of salt. If you have some expertise to add, please leave it in the comments or shoot me an email!)

By slowing down the most recent video further, I counted a total of 26 frames from the balance point -- right before the knee begins to fall -- to the release of the ball. This was the same in the July 4, 2009 game. According to the Baseball Think Factory, Liriano boasted an incredibly quick 22-frame delivery in 2006, when he was obviously at his best. From what I've learned, a faster delivery is better because of the increased momentum a pitcher can utilize as he releases the ball.

Other than this tempo discrepancy, most of Liriano's delivery remains the same (again, according to my very untrained eye). The number of frames from when Liriano lifts his left arm to the release of the ball has remained consistent (11 or 12 frames), his elbow leads his arm and is seen at a horizontal angle, his knees bend and his rump moves to the right ("sitting down," as some scouts call it), and his right arm has remained firm throughout the years.

Liriano lives and dies by his slider. In 2006, he was pitching quick and was throwing his slider as fast as he could, which gave him a slider 23 runs above average. After his injury that year, though, the Twins tried to slow him down and extend his delivery to better protect against injury risk. As a result of this, Liriano's slider was not as dominant as before (single-digit value), and his confidence took a free-fall.

This is baseball ethics at their finest. Should a pitching coach allow his pitcher to throw an extremely effective pitch that puts him at an injury risk (which could be relatively insignificant for Liriano after his surgery), or should he protect his pitcher, no matter the cost? In Liriano's case, not being allowed to throw the way he did in 2006 could spell an end to his career -- in Minnesota, at least.

Liriano has one of the highest potentials of any pitcher currently on the 40-man roster. Having his future decided by whether or not pitching coach Rick Anderson and manager Ron Gardenhire allow him to throw hard is disconcerting, to say the least.

But watching him throw his slider without holding back during the Dominican Winter League was extremely enjoyable. If he doesn't succeed with the Twins, I wish him the best of luck with another organization.

What do you think? Will the Twins allow Liriano to throw the way he did in 2006, or will they slow him down again in 2010? What is your statistical projection for Liriano in 2010? Be sure to let us know in the comment section!



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Comments (8)Add Comment
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written by Joe V, January 29, 2010
If Liriano is back, the Twins should be good! But I am not even a Twins fan, and want to see this guy's stuff translate into dominance.


http://www.statisticianmagician.com/
well
written by thrylos98, January 29, 2010
If the Twins do not let him do his stuff, Andy's and Gardy's rear ends should be kicked to another organization
Liriano's Windup
written by Bryz, January 29, 2010
Do you think we can attribute the change in pace of his delivery to the Twins' wish for him to be more under control in his windup, thus attempting to reduce his risk of re-injuring his shoulder? If a quicker windup is preferred, then the Twins have a bit of a conundrum on their hands.
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written by FranTheMan, January 30, 2010
Not sure I agree that surgery makes re-injury risk relatively insignificant is he is resuming same delivery.

I bet the Twins would love Frankie v.2006, but not if he's just going to get hurt again or winds up wrecking his arm completely.

My sense is the Twins think/hope there's a chance Liriano still can be way above average with a "safer" delivery. I think the problem may be that Frankie isn't so sure about that.

I think Andrew is correct that there's an ethical question here. Do they keep trying to protect his arm or do they let him cut loose and come what may? It's a tough call.
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written by Parker, January 30, 2010
Solid post Alex and I think you are on the right track regarding his timing. I was going to post about this but since you beat me to it, I'll just leave a few comments here. While you make some very good observations, I'm not certain that tempo or his slider was the culprit behind his injury or ineffectiveness.
One of the major mechanical differences between '06 Liriano and current Liriano has been the positioning of his throwing elbow. If you go back to the clip at BTF, you'll notice that his elbow is well above his shoulder when in the cocked position. This is a form of scap loading. It supposedly adds velocity but also presents an element of injury risk up and down the arm. The scout, Carlos Gomez (otherwise known as ChadBradfordWannabe who penned the BTF article), is a big proponent of scap loading because of its ability to add MPHs and thus did not consider it a risk potential when writing that scouting report. Since his surgery, Liriano has lowered his arm at the cocked position to be at or just slightly below shoulder level.
The reason for the decrease in velocity is due, in part, to this alteration. In essence, he struggled in adjusting to this new arm motion last year. With a decrease in velocity and loss of command from the TJ, he’s fastball was left very much exposed (particularly to right-handed batters). Judging from both his numbers in the DRL and witnessing his stuff on espn360.com, I’m convinced that he has adapted to this new arm action quite well in addition to removing that injury risk.
Secondly, Fangraphs’s pitch value is a tad misleading. Admittedly, it’s good as a yardstick and the best method to valuate pitches on the free market, however, Inside Edge has an extensive database and records of each pitch and the result for better detailing. What made Liriano’s slider particularly good in ’06 was that he was able to strike out hitters 53.4% of the time when he threw it. In ’09, he was whiffing just 38.1%. This is why the number in ’06 is so ridiculously high – because he was able to record an out more frequently. Also, his slider lost 2 MPH on average. In ’06, opponents hit Liriano’s slider into the ground 68.2% of the time while doing so just 30.8% of the time in ’09. Because of this added elevation, his extra base hits went from 4 to 12. Nevertheless, he was still recording nearly the same amount of swing-and-misses (.479 WHIFF in ’06, .411 WHIFF in ’09) and had very good batting averages (.148 in ’06 and .185 in ’09). It was a very above average pitch in ’09 despite some misconceptions.


Thanks!
written by andrewkneeland, January 30, 2010
Thanks for the great feedback, guys. And thanks for the very insightful comments, Patrick. Let's hope you're right in saying that Liriano is gaining confidence in this new arm motion!
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written by Parker, January 30, 2010
ANDREW not Alex! My fault! That's what I get for replying at 1 AM.
...
written by andrewkneeland, January 30, 2010
Haha, not a problem, Parker.

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Andrew Kneeland can be reached by emailing: akneeland [at] bleacherreport [dot] com.

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