위버는 SP, 맥도날드는 RP

Why was Weaver more successful than McDonald?

On Thursday against the Padres James McDonald made what may be his last start with the Dodgers for awhile, going only 1.2 innings and allowing 3 earned runs and 4 walks with 0 strikeouts. In his relief Jeff Weaver pitched 4 scoreless innnings with 1 walk and 4 strikeouts. What were the differences in their outings? Let's take a look. 

같은 날 한 명은 1.2이닝동안 3실점 4볼넷을 허용한 반면, 한 명은 4이닝동안 1볼넷 4K를 기록했다. 과연 이들의 차이는 무엇인지 알아보도록 하자.
 

This first graph is just a comparison of their two release points (graphs are in inches, from a catcher's point of view). McDonald comes from a simple over-the-top arm angle, and is very consistent. Weaver has a three-quarters arm angle and his arm slot seems to change from pitch to pitch. This is not generally a good thing for pitchers because it messes with their control but it can be effective as a method of deception (think Orlando Hernandez), as long as the pitcher can control their arm slot. We'll see how this works for Weaver in the future, but it was certainly effective against the Padres.
윗 그래프는 두 투수의 릴리스 포인트를 나타난 지표이며 이것은 포수의 관점에서 본 좌표인다. 맥도날드는 우완정통파이고, 위버는 스리쿼터로 던지면서 투구할때마다 팔 각도에 조금씩 변형을 가했다. 분명 위버의 투구는 좋은 느낌은 아니었지만, 마치 엘튜케처럼 타자들을 현혹시키는 투구가 이날 파즈전에서는 아주 효율적이었다.

This next graph shows movement of both Weaver and McDonald's pitches. From the graph, you can see that McDonald has a very straight fastball while Weaver's has a lot more tail on it. On average, Weaver's fastball tailed almost six inches more than McDonald's (9.45 inches to 3.87 inches). James McDonald's changeups had similiar horizontal movement, but Weaver's were in two different spots, meaning he probably never had a good feel for it. Luckily for him he wasn't punished, the only two times his change was put in play were for outs. The two pitchers' breaking balls are vastly different. Weaver's slider is similiar in look to his fastball but with no tail. McDonald has a big 12-6 curveball with a lot of vertical drop.
맥도날드의 평균 투구에 비해 확실히 위버의 투구가 더 코너웍이 되었고, 단순히 맥도날드의 공과 비교했을때 거의 6인치 차이가 난다. 체인지업도 맥도날드는 일관된 곳에 공을 던졌지만, 위버는 다른 두 곳에 공을 뿌렸다. 위버의 이런 투구는 분명 좋은 흐름이 아니었고 단지 운이 좋을 따름이다.

After the jump we'll look at the results of each pitcher's offerings.

This graph shows the results of Weaver's pitches. It is still divided up by movement, so his fastballs are on the left and sliders on the right. One factor that helped limit walks was that Weaver threw first pitch strikes to 12 out of the 17 batters he faced. All four hits off of him were on fastballs (his average fastball velocity was only 89.6 MPH compared to McDonald's 91.4 MPH), but he also fooled hitters in ways McDonald couldn't. He threw four fastballs and four sliders for swinging strikes. His deception and extra movement on his fastball apparently made up for the fact that he doesn't throw as hard as McDonald. Also, Weaver threw 8 of his 9 sliders for strikes and 5 of his 9 changeups. The swings and misses combined with hitting the zone early kept him out of trouble.
위버가 던진 공은 대체적으로 두 부분으로 분리되어 나열되어 있으며 주로 페스트볼은 왼쪽에, 슬라이더는 오른쪽에 던졌다. 그가 상대했던 17타자 중에서 12타자에게 초구 스트라익을 던지면서 공격적인 피칭을 했고, 이는 단지 1개뿐인 볼넷으로 이어지는 좋은 결과를 낳았다.

Here's a graph of the results of McDonald's pitches. The first thing that jumps out at you is that he only had one swinging strike (compared to Weaver's eight), on a changeup. When you're not fooling anybody, you won't be getting many strikeouts (McDonald had zero) so you need to throw strikes and make the hitter put the ball in play. McDonald did a decent job getting first pitch strikes (5 out of 10) but he couldn't control any of his off-speed stuff as the count moved along and he looked for the strikeout. He threw only 3 of his 9 curveballs and 2 of his 5 changeups for strikes.
맥도날드도 그가 상대한 10명의 타자 중에 절반을 상대로 초구스트라익을 던지면서 공격적인 피칭을 하려했지만, 오프스피트 피칭이 적절하지 못했고, 삼진으로 이어가질 못했다. 그가 던진 9개의 커브중에 단 3개, 5개의 체인지업중에 단 2개만이 스트라익으로 연결되었다.

This is a location chart for all of Weaver's pitches. You can see that he was around the zone most of the time. 24 of his 59 pitches were below the middle of the strike zone, so he was keeping the ball down well. Also, he got hitters to chase out of the zone nine times, and they only managed to put the ball in play once on those swings. Getting hitters to swing at bad pitches is key in preventing hits and boosting strikeout totals.
위버가 던진 59개 중 24개의 피칭이 스트라익 존 아래에 형성되었기에 맥도날드의 평균구속(91.4마일)보다 훨씬 딸리지만 좋은 투구로 이어졌다. 즉 더 효율적인 투구를 하다보면 타자들도 존 밖에 공을 건들기 마련이고 이는 9개에 해당되는 수치를 기록했다.

This is McDonald's pitch location chart. Only 12 of his 49 pitches were below the middle of the strike zone, revealing his wildness and inability to locate the ball where he wanted to. He only managed to get hitters to chase a pitch out of the strike zone three times, so they were able to wait until they got a good pitch to hit. If McDonald isn't going to keep hitters off balance he must be perfect with his location, and he was far from that on Thursday.
반면 맥도날드는 49개의 투구중에 단 12개만이 스트라익 존 아래에 형성되었고, 허접한 컨트롤로 인해 그가 원하는 곳에 공을 집어넣지 못했다. 그래서 스트라익 존을 벗어난 공을 건들인 공은 단지 3개에 불과하다. 허접한 컨트롤은 타자들로 하여금 좋은 공을 기다리기가 용이해졌고, 그건 결국 맥도날드의 허접한 컨트롤과 동조하여 많은 볼넷(1.2이닝동안 4볼넷)으로 이어졌다.

Jeff Weaver had a stellar day and he earned it. He threw strikes and was deceptive enough to keep hitters off balance. Meanwhile, James McDonald was wild and couldn't disrupt the batters' timing at all, with only one swinging strike in the ten batters he faced. That's why the next time through the rotation it will probably be Weaver getting the start and McDonald coming out of the bullpen.
분명 상대적으로 더 좋은 구위와 스터프를 지녔을지라도 허접한 컨트롤로는 빅리그의 타자들을 상대할 수없다는 것을 알았을 겁니다. 이미 결정나버린 그들의 보직이지만, 맥도날드가 스윙맨으로 가서 더 편안한 마음으로 투구해줬으면 하네요.