Phil Hughes' Outstanding Fastball

Written by Josh W. | 13 May 2010

Hitters just cannot square up Phil's fastball very often. Now I understand that I haven't been the first to have made this observation, nor have I been the first to comment on the general quality of his stuff, but last night's start against the Tigers made me admire how good his fastball really is.

Fastball A: 9.1% whiff rate, 27.1% foul rate, 14.3% in play, 1.64 wFB/C (.64 career)

Fastball B: 6.9% whiff rate, 24.9% foul rate, 16.7% in play, 0.01 wFB/C (.44 career)

*thanks to Trip Somers' pitch f/x tool

If I told you before the season that these two fastballs belong to Phil Hughes and Justin Verlander, which one would you have picked to throw fastball A and fastball B? I don't know what you would have guessed, but I can tell you right now that Phil Hughes throws fastball A and Verlander throws fastball B (not including today's game). Hughes, while lacking the elite velocity and reputation of Verlander, has arguably showcased a much better fastball this season. For additional context, consider the fact that the average fastball garners about 6% whiffs. Verlander, while significantly above average in this category, is not really that close to Hughes. This fact shows up in the disparity between their wFB/C figures (wFB/C measures, via linear weights, the effectiveness of a pitch. Higher numbers are better).

Number 65's fastball allows him to be quite the interesting pitcher. As we have discussed, good things don't happen very often when you swing at Phil Hughes' fastball. This is evidenced by a career HR/FB rate of 7.2% and a career BABIP of .288. Now for most pitchers, this would indicate that the pitcher had probably been the beneficiary of good luck in a small sample size; the league average HR/FB rate is around 10%, and the league average BABIP is about .300. Nearly all pitchers, in enough time, regress to figures pretty close to league average in these two areas. Yet there certainly are extraordinary pitchers who defy this DIPS based theory. These pitchers usually have an outstanding fastball, often with a high degree of vertical movement (relative to a ball thrown without spin).

For example, in recent years Trevor Hoffman has gotten around 13 inches of vertical movement on his fastball. This makes in difficult for hitters to really put a charge into the ball, and the results include a very high pop-up rate of 13.9% (since 2002) and a very low HR/FB rate of 6.6% (since 2002). Obviously pitching in Petco for all those years helped Hoffman quite a bit, but his HR/FB and pop-up abilities are directly influenced by his special fastball. Mariano Rivera has showcased a similar skills too.

Yet Hoffman and Rivera are relievers, and Phil Hughes is a starter who has to rely on more than one or two outstanding pitches to get by. Thankfully, there are starting pitchers who too are capable of suppressing HR/FB and inflating IFFB rates (which in turn lower BABIP). One of these is Jered Weaver. Now Weaver does not throw gas, but he does have a fastball with around 12 inches of vertical movement, which has helped him to a nifty 13.3 IFFB (which has helped him to a .295 BABIP) and 8% HR/FB, over a decent sample size.

So far in his young career, Phil Hughes has a 7.2% HR/FB rate and a 12.5% IFFB rate. He gets around 11 inches of vertical movement on his fastball, which is not as much Hoffman or Weaver, but is still significantly above average. The average fastball (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/anatomy-of-a-player-league-average-pitcher/) is around 91.5 mph with about 9.7 inches of vertical movement and about 5.5 inches of horizontal movement. Hughes' fastball registers above average for all three of those characteristics.

Does Phil Hughes have an excellent fastball? Yes. Does he have the kind of fastball that can help him suppress BABIP and HR/FB in a sustainable fashion? Phil hasn't pitched enough yet for us to have a completely valid yes or no answer to that question. However, I think it's a distinct possibility, and in five years from now I wouldn't be surprised if Phil had a career BABIP of around .295 and a career HR/FB of around 8.5%. Keep in mind that a sustainable 8.5% makes a lot of difference over a career when compared to a league average of 10-11% (same for BABIP).

Photo Credit: Jeff Zelevansky/Icon SMI