Dana Eveland's Breakdown of last start

Ok, almost everyone is at the point of the year where the second guessing of your fantasy teams start to come into play. Do I play him or sit him? Do I trade him, drop him, or sit him on the bench. These are very important decisions and the decisions made now can effect what you're going to do later on in the year, which brings me to my question of the night. Fantasy Championships are at stake and the following question will come up time and time again.

What do I do about Eveland?

The only thing that has me worried is that he complained of a "twinge" in his elbow warming up in his last start. So let's see if/how much it effected him in his last start. While I understand that this may not be the best method to determine if it effected him, I want to see if there are any glaring problems first from multiple viewpoints. Here is the comparison of his release point across each inning:

His release point at quick glance looks a little fishy. (click on the image for full size view). However if you look closer, his best inning in terms of matching his release point is clearly the first. In the second, his release point is all over the place and then begins to settle down over the next several innings until the 6th when it starts to vary again. I don't think it's a coincidence that the innings in which his release point varied, he happenned to struggle. Vertically he's very consistent where he was previously releasing the ball until the 6th inning when he starts to tire. Horizontally though, he was wavering a lot approaching 6" at a time.

Next, I want to look at his pitch location. Same thing, click on the image below for a full size view.

This clearly shows that his command struggles in those same innings, not only in or out of the zone but where in the zone he was wild. Putting fastballs and sliders into the middle of the plate is a recipe for disaster and Eveland is example #1.

Finally this last set measures the break of his pitches.

From here we can see that again, those trouble innings are when he had his problems with his movement or lack thereof at times. What I see is that in the 2nd and in the 6th when he really had problems, it was his lack of movement on his slider and fastball that did him in. Both of those pitches lacked the roughly 5" movement and break that appears to give him his success. Josh Kalk's player card shows that these are his overall averages::

Type	Movement in x (in.)	Movement in z (in.)	Initial Speed (MPH)	Number Thrown	Percent
Fastball	7.9	8.31	90.92	299	59.14
Curve	-5.95	-7.75	79.43	39	8.6
Slider	-7.02	-1	83.9	79	32.26
Change	12.12	7.92	83.6	53	0
Cutter	-2.96	3.66	84.62	2	0

You can see that he was all over the place compared to his averages after the 2nd inning. Any pitcher will tell you that how important it is to hit the spots where they want to and throw the pitch effectively.

Summary: If there wan an injury it really did not appear to effect him long term. He came back after the 2nd inning and settled down well until he was singled to death in the 6th. Whatever it was did not cause him to drop his shoulder or greatly effect his break on his pitches.

Also good news: We all know that pitchers who call Oakland home have that cavernous park as an advantage. According to Jane Lee at MLB.com "Eveland is 2-0 with a 1.42 ERA when pitching at home. His road numbers -- 1-2 with a 4.98 ERA in four starts -- got worse when the lefty surrendered six runs in 5 1/3 innings in his last start against the Angels after allowing just nine runs over 29 innings in his first five starts." Guess where he is pitching on Monday.

Conclusion: It does appear that he felt something in the second inning which caused him to really have trouble finding his command and break of his pitches. Whether that was due to a problem with his release point or an inability to "snap" off his pitches is a difficult one. I have him in my league and I will be starting him until he shows me that the injury is greater than what it seems or that his "stuff" has dropped off.


As usual, please let me know if you are interested in this type of statistical analysis and if you would like more. I'm always open to suggestions if anyone has anyone in particular in mind.