4 GS, 28.2 IP, 24 H, 7 R, 10 BB, 23 SO, 1.57 ERAOne of the contributing factors to his success is the noticeable increase of breaking and off-speed pitches Cain throws. Cain--regarded as a flyball-strikeout pitcher--has started to mix in his other pitches. Chris at Bay City Ball recently wrote a post about this trend and broke down the percentage thrown of each pitch in Cain's arsenal.
Would there be any reason to believe that Steve Holm has anything to do Cain mixing up his pitches and/or his recent success? Cain pitches better when Holm catches (.219/.303/.344 against) than when Molina catches (.240/.315/.390 against), but the sample sizes are so small that the numbers probably don't mean much.
Molina has done a good job with the pitchers. The only problem I've noticed is that he sometimes tends to call for one pitch too often until the pitcher gets beaten up. Whereas Molina will stay with a pitch, Holm seems cognizant of what pitches work for the pitcher that game, and mix it up from there.
The percentages from Fangraphs suggest that Cain's incorporation of his other pitches to reduce his reliance on the fastball has been his goal for a while and not just because of Holm's catching style. I would venture to say that we see Cain's improvement when Holm catches because Holm's style is geared to highlight such improvement.
2 comments:
You've got a good point there about Holm. I wonder if "calling a good game" is actually quantifiable. It would be a marginal edge, but an edge nonetheless. Cain could probably call his own pitches and get most guys out, but an alert catcher tuned in to his stuff has to make a difference.
And thanks for adding us to your blogroll. Go Giants!
Hi MC,
Thanks for the comment!
I've always thought that a good game-caller would be advantageous for a pitcher, but I ran this idea by Chris at BCB and he said that the difference wouldn't really matter. Studies have shown that that the results when throwing to a "good" caller versus a "bad" caller -- I'm using those terms pretty loosely -- aren't noticeably different. Catchers help their pitchers out more by throwing out runners, blocking balls, etc. But yes, a catcher who knows a pitcher's strengths and weaknesses on a particular night would be preferable to one who didn't.
I suppose I could take this Holm vs Molina theory in a different direction, now that I know game-calling isn't so much a skill as it is observation. Maybe use PITCH f/x to compare their styles, if they do have different styles in the first place.
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