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Cingrani Sent Down
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Tiki Owl Offline
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Post: #1
Cingrani Sent Down
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/m.../11136521/


Well I was worried Dusty Baker would screw up Tony but no as it turns out pitching coach turned manager Brian Price has done the deal. His constant demand of "need to throw more breaking balls" to a guy who is striking out batters at nearly a one per inning rate, a FB in the mid 90's, and strike to ball ratio of 2 to 1 has undone all the good things that Tony had accomplished.

I'm sorry but until teams had started to hit his FB more regularly I saw no reason to demand a better mix to his pitches. There are several other MLB starting pitchers who have had high FB to other pitch ratios and done well. Last year Bartolo Colon went 18-6 for the A's while throwing his FB 85.5% of the time.

After the start of the year Tony has lost 3-4 mph on his FB and more importantly has lost movement and command. Some of it might be blamed on his stint on the DL with a still fuzzy injury but I lean to place a large part of the blame on the directive to throw more breaking balls. Hitters now are able to get into hitter's counts and just sit on his FB. And he certainly doesn't seem to have the confidence he had last year or earlier this year.

Clearly IMHO this is a case of "don't fix what isn't broken".
06-21-2014 07:35 AM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Cingrani Sent Down
He had a streak of something like his first 17 starts without giving up more than 5 hits in a start. And he was going a decent number of innings per start in that streak. Tiki, you're absolutely spot on with the idea that he should wait until they start hitting his fastball before worrying about mixing up pitches more.
06-21-2014 08:02 AM
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Almadenmike Offline
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RE: Cingrani Sent Down
(06-21-2014 08:02 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  He had a streak of something like his first 17 starts without giving up more than 5 hits in a start.

Ultimately, Tony's MLB-record streak grew to 22 starts at the beginning of a pitcher's MLB career without giving up more than five hits.
(This post was last modified: 06-21-2014 02:06 PM by Almadenmike.)
06-21-2014 02:04 PM
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Brookes Owl Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Cingrani Sent Down
(06-21-2014 07:35 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  After the start of the year Tony has lost 3-4 mph on his FB and more importantly has lost movement and command. Some of it might be blamed on his stint on the DL with a still fuzzy injury but I lean to place a large part of the blame on the directive to throw more breaking balls. Hitters now are able to get into hitter's counts and just sit on his FB. And he certainly doesn't seem to have the confidence he had last year or earlier this year.

Clearly IMHO this is a case of "don't fix what isn't broken".

Ok, but if the injury caused his fastball to be significantly slower and/or moving less, doesn't he NEED to work on other pitches?
(This post was last modified: 06-21-2014 04:55 PM by Brookes Owl.)
06-21-2014 04:55 PM
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grol Offline
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Post: #5
RE: Cingrani Sent Down
On MLBradio the know-it-alls were discussing Cingrani as a 2-pitch pitcher who would (should) be sent down to the minors to learn more pitches. This was a month ago.
06-21-2014 04:59 PM
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Tiki Owl Offline
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Post: #6
RE: Cingrani Sent Down
(06-21-2014 04:59 PM)grol Wrote:  On MLBradio the know-it-alls were discussing Cingrani as a 2-pitch pitcher who would (should) be sent down to the minors to learn more pitches. This was a month ago.

Then they should have kept him as a reliever but with Chapman there is reluctance to do that.

As far as learning other pitches, of course he should but in the bullpen/between seasons. I just don't get the idea of forcing it when he was getting hitters out. As far as his injury perhaps his mechanics became altered with the demand to throw breaking pitches in games. When you watched him his breaking stuff on one pitch was great then others he couldn't get close to the zone. To me that is a mechanics issue and my concern would be that maybe that caused the injury but more important that may have changed his FB mechanics resulting in lower mph and more importantly the lack of movement.
06-21-2014 06:44 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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Post: #7
RE: Cingrani Sent Down
(06-21-2014 06:44 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  
(06-21-2014 04:59 PM)grol Wrote:  On MLBradio the know-it-alls were discussing Cingrani as a 2-pitch pitcher who would (should) be sent down to the minors to learn more pitches. This was a month ago.
Then they should have kept him as a reliever but with Chapman there is reluctance to do that.
As far as learning other pitches, of course he should but in the bullpen/between seasons. I just don't get the idea of forcing it when he was getting hitters out. As far as his injury perhaps his mechanics became altered with the demand to throw breaking pitches in games. When you watched him his breaking stuff on one pitch was great then others he couldn't get close to the zone. To me that is a mechanics issue and my concern would be that maybe that caused the injury but more important that may have changed his FB mechanics resulting in lower mph and more importantly the lack of movement.

If you follow closely, he was throwing the fast ball for strikes and people weren't hitting it, obvious from the 5 hits per game. Then as he started messing with the offspeed stuff, he started missing the zone and walking people. Still nobody was hitting him, but he was putting runners on base and getting his pitch counts up. The injury probably came somehow from having to throw more pitches in higher stress situations. He was working high in the zone with the fast ball. I listen to Brennaman and Brantley on XM a lot, enjoy Brennaman from his days doing PBP for the Squires when I was in Norfolk. He may be something of a jerk as a person, but he does a great job on the air, a homer but not as bad as Milo, and at the same time he provides as much info on the other team as a Gene Elston or Scully--hard combination to top. They talked a lot about how high in the zone he could work with a fast ball that wasn't hittable, and I get the idea that Brantley in particular wasn't pleased with his nibbling with the breaking stuff.
06-21-2014 08:27 PM
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