Ramming Speed

Here's a second look at the five starters who saw the biggest increases in velocity over the season's first three weeks.

08 FBV: 2008 fastball velocity.
1st 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 1-3 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between those two velocities.
2nd 3W '09: Fastball velocity during weeks 4-6 of 2009.
Diff: Percentage difference between weeks 4-6 of 2009 and all of 2008.
1'3-> 2'3: Percentage difference in fastball velocity between weeks 4-6 and 1-3 of 2009.

All five guys continued to throw harder in the second three weeks of '09 than they did in '08, with Zito, Verlander, and Galarraga each maintaining increases of over one mph.  Galarraga has actually thrown harder since my original post, while Billingsley and Oswalt have regressed a bit.

Three weeks ago I noted that if Zito kept pitching like he had at the outset of the year, he could get back to being an average starter.  Well, that's exactly what happened, as his K:BB ratio of 1.9 is right at the league average, and his GB% of 46% is slightly above that level.  And since those averages include relievers as well, he's really doing well for himself.  The FIP and ERA, both around 3.90 at the moment, will come up, since some more fly balls are going to start leaving the park, but cutting his '08 ERA by nearly a full run seems like an entirely realistic expectation.

A .354 BABiP is holding Verlander's ERA back, but he's been as good as just about anyone:

Lowest 2009 QERA, min. 30 IP

Appearing on this list despite a very poor GB rate is pretty impressive, but that'll happen when you're striking out almost 1/3 of the hitters you face.  Really, it allows for some room for improvement, if he can somehow maintain the strikeout rate and get the GB% back up to his career rate of 40%.  Regardless, it's pretty obvious that the Tigers' ace has benefitted from the early jump in velocity, which he has maintained over recent weeks.

The increased velo hasn't worked out quite as well for Galarraga.  His K rate has been fine, actually improving from 6.4 K/9 last year to 7.1 K/9 this season.  But that's not nearly enough of an improvement to cancel out the huge spike in walks, as he's issuing free passes to almost five guys per nine innings, up from three last year.  He's always given up more than his fair share of homers, but coupling that with an excess of walks has resulted in disaster, with both his ERA and FIP increasing to 5.62.

Billingsley has parlayed the small jump in velocity into a K increase of a similar magnitude, but his walks are up as well.  When his HR/FB gets back to a more reasonable level -- only one of the 50 fly balls against him has left the yard -- he'll probably go back to last year's level of performance, or maybe a bit worse.  Not that an ERA in the low threes is anything to complain about.

Oswalt is the one guy here who hasn't benefitted at all from throwing harder.  His strikeouts are down, his walks up, and his GB% has dropped precipitously, from a career mark of 48% all the way to 40%.  This has caused his QERA to increase to 4.50.  That represents, by far, the worst peripherals of his career, and it's especially concerning when considering that his FIP has increased in each year since 2005.  He'll probably get a bit better as the year goes on, but you start to wonder how effective he'll be two years from now, when he's scheduled to earn $16MM.

These always end up running longer than I originally intended.  Tomorrow I'll get to the guys from "Slowing Down".

All data from FanGraphs.