Stats:
Badenhop seemed to make an adjustment in approach with the Rays in 2012, decreasing both his strikeout and walk rates substantially. This trend has continued in the years since, with an even larger drop in strikeout rate last season with the Reds Sox. In addition to his superb control, however, what has made him successful is his excellent ground ball rates, which climbed all the way to 61% last season with the Red Sox. Low walks and lots of ground balls should work well with the Reds' strong infield defense, so I like the signing a lot.
When I posted as much on twitter (albeit with a typo in Badenhop's name!), RJ Anderson sent me the following tweet:
@jinazreds Love him. Smart dude, too. Uses Brooks all the time. Does this awkward walk around between pitches.
— R.J. Anderson (@r_j_anderson) February 8, 2015
Cool, right? Since he looks at Brooks Baseball lets do that too! First, his pitches (2012-2014):He throws a sinker, change, and slider. There are a grand total of 7 fourseam fastballs on his record in the past three years, and you can see they do cluster away from his sinkers in spin axis. Here is his actual pitch usage:
So, we're looking at 75% sinkers, with a small number of sliders and change-ups mixed in. He seemed to experiment with adding more sliders in 2013, and then seemed to almost abandon it in favor of his change-up last year. As you'd expect, he throws more change-ups against lefties, and last year almost threw as many change-ups to lefties as his sinker!
Finally, one last thing. As expected, given the decrease in his walk rates, we're seeing a general increase in his tendency to locate pitches in the strike zone over the past three years compared to the years before:
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