Alec Dopp takes a look @ King Felix and his change Up

Felix Hernandez’s Filthy, Filthy Changeup

July 12, 2014 by Alec Dopp 0 Comments

Felix Hernandez lowered his league-best fielding independent pitching to 2.02 Friday evening thanks to his eight-inning, nine-strikeout, two-earned run performance against the Oakland Athletics at Safeco Field — marking the 28-year-old right-hander’s eleventh consecutive start in which he logged at least seven innings and allowed two or fewer earned runs to the opposition.
Since his streak of impressive (and largely unheralded) performances began back on May 18 in Minnesota, Hernandez has accumulated a 1.48 earned run average, 0.75 WHIP, .173 opponent batting average against, 30.3% strikeout rate to go along with 7.73 average innings pitched per outing, each of which rank best among qualifying American League arms during that span.
What’s most helped Hernandez over his stretch of dominance has been his changeup, a pitch he’s thrown at a 33.7% frequency over his most recent 11 starts — higher than any of his other offerings, and in a diverse repertoire that includes a four-seam fastball, sinker, curve, slider and cutter, no less. Including last night’s start, opponents now own a ridiculously insane and mind-bogglingly low .279 OPS against the pitch since May 18. So, it’s really no surprise that 34.7% of his 101 pitches thrown Friday were changes.
But it’s not just that Hernandez is throwing changeups more frequently. It’s that he’s commanding the pitch and subsequently dominating against both left-handed and right-handed batters.


Clearly, Hernandez has attempted to chip away at hitters’ plate discipline by throwing his changeup out of the strike zone at a higher frequency over his last 11 starts. That tactic was on full display Friday night, where King Felix located a season-low 22.9% of his changeups outside of the imaginary square box — helping lower his changeup zone rate since May 19 to 34.1%, which is noticeably lower than the 39.4% rate he posted from Opening Day through May 12. The league-average starter throws his changeup in the strike zone roughly 42% of the time, for reference.
This plan-of-attack has accomplished exactly what Hernandez had hoped for, mainly in that the opposition has expanded its strike zone at a higher rate against his changeup, while whiffing at a higher frequency as an added bonus. Since his “change” in approach — pun intended — started May 19, hitters are swinging at basically the same rate while chasing more (38.3% prior, 44.3% since) and waving at a higher frequency (33.3% before, 39.4% now) when they do swing. Righties have been particularly susceptible to coming up empty, interestingly enough, posting  a 52.5% miss rate against his change since May 19 juxtaposed to 41.2% before.
Its effectiveness hasn’t been limited to plate discipline digits, however. Along with producing ground balls at a 68.1% clip while holding opponents to a feeble .052 hard-hit average (highest and lowest, respectively, among AL pitchers with at least 200 changeups since May 18), Hernandez’s changeup has also halved hitters’ line-drive rate (20.7% prior, 9.7% since) along with that .277 OPS I mentioned earlier (next lowest is Alex Cobb‘s .427 OPS against, in case you were wondering).
Difficult as it may be to be impressed by anything from a guy who posted a 2.67 ERA and 8.2 K/9 ratio as a 19-year-old rookie with Seattle in 2005, Hernandez’s changeup has been that good over his last 11 starts. Now, can hitters adjust?
Alec Dopp is a contributor to Gammons Daily and also covers the Milwaukee Brewers prospect scene for BrewCrewBall.com. You can follow him on Twitter @alecdopp.