Regarding the return of Ricardo Pinto to the Major Leagues after almost five years, it is fair and necessary to claim what his transformation and evolution has been to succeed thanks to a numerous repertoire of pitches that allowed him to have different resources to eliminate rivals and The main objective is to be able to return to play at the highest level of baseball.
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To start, what is analytics? Rubén López, Advanced Statistics Analyst who worked with Tiburones de La Guaira in the 2023-24 LVBP season, defined it in an interview with El Infield Podcast as: words more and words less, the mathematical and statistical data that, applied to the baseball helps to know the strengths and weaknesses (both one’s own and the opponent’s) and to make the most of them for better individual and collective performance. All in the interest of minimizing the rival and of course enhancing one’s own capabilities.
Now, what does Ricardo do here? Well, Rubén López explains that the right-hander from Guacara had “a potential that had not been fully exploited” and that unlocking it would be the determining factor to transcend his openings and even reach other latitudes.
“We (along with Octavio Hernández, also an analyst) knew about Ricardo since his stay at Diablos Rojos. We knew that he had many tools, but he had not exploited them to the fullest,” López commented to the panel of journalists.
“Once we landed in Venezuela and knew that we would have him, after his first bullpen sessions we told him that his potential was to the point that he could develop a new number of pitches to his repertoire.”
They wanted to make better use of the dish
In that sense, the analyst explained that the pitcher mastered the horizontal plane very well, thanks to his very good sinker, and the vertical plane with the splitter, which he learned to use in South Korea.
However, he did not take advantage of the left quadrant (right from the catcher’s point of view) against right-handed hitters and that is where the sweeper came into the equation, which is nothing more than a pitch that, instead of breaking down like a traditional slider, moves more horizontally away from the opponent and has a more open break.
Ricardo Pinto liked the idea, it was put into practice and the results began to be seen at the LVBP. “We realized in the playoffs (with Luis Torrens), we realized that he started using it. He was a new pitch that hitters hadn’t seen. It was not a total guarantee of success, but it was an added weapon.”
It should be noted that its implementation; according to López, it was a success. The data revealed that he had a good percentage of usage and missed swings at opponents in his measure.
The inclusion of the sweeper would have helped him return to MLB
In the analyst’s opinion, the inclusion of Ricardo Pinto’s sweeper presumably helped him return to the MLB system. “He was a pitch that I didn’t have months ago. When we talked to him, the initial goal was for him to return to Korea or go to Japan. And, the Japanese right now have the particularity that in addition to demanding speed, they want them to have good secondary (pitching).”
To give you an idea, in his first foray into MLB seven years ago, Ricardo Pinto only had four pitches (4-seam fastball, changeup, sinker and slider), while in his presentation on April 2 against Cincinnati, he used a sinker. , splitter, sweeper, slider and fastball. “By Ricardo having a new weapon, we are seeing things that he didn’t have before and the credit goes one hundred percent to him.”
However, he clarified that now the Carabobeño attacks three of the four quadrants of the plate, generating mostly ground balls with pitches located to the left (away) from the right hitters.
Now, he noted that the relationship between players and analysts is not so easy, and he also asserted that the relationship between players and the staff around them has been more effective for a long time. However, he believes that the feeling that the player has with the data is key. Likewise, he celebrated that there is now a greater percentage of baseball players who are familiar with analytics.
In Venezuela analysts must adapt
Finally, he qualified that in Venezuela and in our Winter Leagues in general, the analytical structure should be more closely linked to the team managers and not vice versa. “In Latin America we don’t have those large structures,” he said, referring to the multiple levels of the Minor Leagues, where managers go through and become familiar with the computer network of their respective organizations.
“Here it is very fast, you need the achievement with immediacy. I think that, in the case of Latin America, we are going down that path. But, this issue of perception and terrain should never be left aside, because they are things that exist and are not quantified by a number,” he stated. “I would say that they have to coexist (game and computer factors) and the best way to work is that the information can add value and that the terrain speaks.”
2024-04-11 19:33:54
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