Juan Carlos Sulbaran pitched Sunday night against the USA in the World Baseball Classic. Here is what the Pitch F/X camera’s tell us about the young 19 year old pitcher that the Reds paid either $450,000 or $500,000 to sign last year in the 30th round.

Juan Carlos Sulbaran Movement by pitch

His fastball is getting some very good movement on it. His curveball also has some strong movement on it.

Juan Carlos Sulbaran Velocity by pitch

His fastball topped out at 91.4 MPH and got as low as 88 MPH. His change up was a strong 8-10 MPH below that speed and his curveball was in the mid 70’s.

Juan Carlos Sulbaran’s release point by pitch

His release point was all within 5 inches in height of eachother, which is normal and good. All of his pitches were coming out of the same spot, so he wasn’t tipping anything with the release of the pitch.

Juan Carlos Sulbaran and the strikezone

Sulbaran was outside of the zone quite a bit and the only two swings and misses he had we out of the zone. When he left the ball in the middle of the zone, he got hit pretty hard.

Alexander Smit threw an inning for the Netherlands in todays World Baseball Classic. He walked a batter, struck out no one and allowed no runs. He worked with a fastball and a change up.

He gets very similar movement on both his fastball and his change up, which likely makes his change up quite deceptive.

Smit mostly worked in the mid 80’s and topped out at 89 MPH. Its still March and most guys aren’t at max speeds yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

The other day I took a look at Josh Roenicke through the Pitch F/X, but his data was limited to less than 70 pitches thrown. Today we get to look at Daryl Thompson’s 3 games where he had a lot more data to work with than Roenicke. If we recall, Thompson pitched in 3 games for the Reds in late June and early July before heading to the DL with shoulder soreness after 2 starts in Louisville.

Thompson really started turning heads at the start of the year in Chattanooga when he hit 97 MPH on a radar gun in Chattanooga (first reported on the internet by me for those keeping score at home, but of course Lookouts announcer Larry Ward was the guy who helped by mentioning the speeds in his broadcasts which more minor league radio guys should do… but Larry is one of the best). There was speculation on the validity of the radar reading for a while, as the Chattanooga stadium gun was known to be slightly juiced in the past.

Still, Thompson made his debut in late June versus the Yankees and well, here is the three game stretch he spent with the Reds. I only charted is fastballs because I think its pretty telling given the information we have now.

First is his Fastball Speed, from highest to lowest. This is NOT in order of pitches thrown.

Its very obvious that his third game he was significantly lower with his velocity than in his previous two games. Do note that he topped out at 97 MPH, so maybe that gun in Chattanooga wasn’t as juiced as I thought it might have been.

I thought it would be interesting to note the release points for each game, given that his velocity dropped off big time in that third start. I think the chart really speaks for itself.

While the first and second game release points were a little different horizontally (could just have been throwing from a little closer to the first base bag on the rubber), vertically (the height at which he was releasing the ball) was nearly the exact same. The third game, his release point was very noticably higher than the other two games. It is likely that we are seeing what happens when Thompson throws with a sore arm. His release point was way off and his velocity was significantly lower.

Certainly something to watch for in 2009 with the different pitchers as the season goes along.

I got some of my Pitch F/X stuff back and working and I decided to take a look at the prospect pitchers who spent time with the Reds last year. Roenicke was the first guy on tap. Here is what he threw in his 5 games.

As you can see by the chart, Roenicke threw 6 offspeed pitches last season in the majors. Of course, he also only threw 62 total pitches according to the Pitch F/X data. Still, that means he was working with 91% fastballs. Thats an incredibly high rate of fastballs, even for a guy who threw his fastball 95 MPH or faster 31 times out of 56 fastballs.

The fastball got good results, but it just shows how good he may be if he can mix in a decent offspeed pitch every now and again. If not, well lets hope he can continue to throw his fastball over 95 MPH more than 50% of the time he throws the ball.