The first part of Sandy Alcántara’s campaign symbolizes anything but what is desired for a reigning Cy Young Award winner. The difficulty keeps dragging him down, so trying to hide it would be calling yourself a lie when he posts a 5.05 ERA.
It is clear that things are not going well, but this conclusion is not enough without identifying what makes you go back.
He has had sections that are very similar to the previous season, as we can see in the matches that ended in strikeouts, although it doesn’t seem enough to make him go down the path of the stars. possible side effects of the new rules and even bad luck are interceding to the detriment of the Dominican.
Yes, he currently has the sixth-worst earned run average for qualified starters, plus we can’t get away from the fact that he has a flashy defensive independent pitching (FIP) of 3.58.
The contrast these two lockers create can reveal a lot: you’re outperforming ERA, you can describe how the defense is affecting you, and most of the damage against you is coming from balls in the air. game.
Alcantara maintains the power of his pitches with fastballs traveling at speeds of 98 miles per hour, followed by secondary pitches with standout performances like the slider that opponents hit for microscopic .154 or the changeup that generates 36 percent fanning.
The misfortune for the Marlins starter is in sections that he does not necessarily control fully … and maybe I miss the times when there were no restrictions for special formations.
Opposing ninths show certain advantages when they pack a considerable amount of left-handed hitters against Alcántara, which is why he has 121 games with men of this hand in which they have outscored him with a .705 OPS.
Getting squashed pitches as a sinker and changeup is the main reason lefties perform well against Alcantara, especially when the type of ball ends up lined or grounded (14 hits in 31 at-bats).
Considering that the defense can’t focus on one side, teams envision openings to hurt the Dominican by attacking pitches designed to get the ball rolling, taking advantage of positioning mistakes.
Getting shipments into the right zones, particularly with the secondary options, has been another chapter of setbacks, while at the same time leading to greater vantage points from which the offense can attack.
As justification for the previous sentence, below we show a graph in which we illustrate the numbers of Location+ in each pitch of the flamethrower comparing the last two seasons.
Location+, a metric devised by Eno Sarris that can be found on the Fangraphs website, uses count, pitch type, and the ability to place the ball in the proper spot.
The reading is simple: while the locations suffer a decrease in terms of productivity, the opposites take advantage to feed production. This directly hurts the changeup who is being hit for .333, meaning the premium pitching in his arsenal is ineffective.
And contrary to the previous season, the native of Azua has to deal with vicissitudes after the party becomes an adult. The greatest display of lucidity that he had had was due to the fact of throwing deep, although carrying serious problems with the turns of the lineups on this occasion.
Alcántara limits to .156 on the first down he faces a ninth, but suffers a resounding setback from there with the offense hitting .243 and .340 on the second and third downs, respectively.
The key for the sluggers is to take advantage of the accumulation of pitches, registering .312 after the right-hander transitions between pitching 51 and 75. An important part of the previous season was the production he had in that situation, in which he limited opponents for .210.
It works as an incentive to see that he maintains the numbers of chocolates and speed, however, to reverse the current embarrassing situation he will need to recover the location of the additional shipments in search of staying below in the zone and causing the harmless hits that opened the doors of success .