I thought it might make sense to break out the evaluation of Giolito the pitcher vs some of the contract/roster construction discussion. I also just learned his initials are LFG so that’s what I’m calling him from now on.
So I decided to watch a couple of Giolito’s games from last year. The first was his June game against the Red Sox where he pitched pretty well (it was actually interesting to see the contrast between Bello and Giolito. Bello had better “stuff” but Giolito seemed to command it much better). The second was a September game against the Reds where he got shelled.
Two things jumped out to me watching the Reds game. The first is his fastball was noticeably slower…in the 92-93 range vs 93-95 in the Sox game.
The second was that his command of his changeup was much worse. In the Sox game, he was doing a nice job locating his change at the bottom of the zone and away to lefties. In the Reds game, he was all over the place - grooving some that ended up in the bleachers, bouncing 5 others in front of home plate. Yet for some reason, he threw a ton of changeups (48, more than any start in the past 3 years).
And I think that’s the risk with him. With his diminished fastball, he’s now down to essentially one elite pitch, his changeup. When it’s on, he is still capable of dominating performances. When it’s not, he’s going to get hit hard. It’s going to be on Bailey/Willard to get more consistency out of it.
So I decided to watch a couple of Giolito’s games from last year. The first was his June game against the Red Sox where he pitched pretty well (it was actually interesting to see the contrast between Bello and Giolito. Bello had better “stuff” but Giolito seemed to command it much better). The second was a September game against the Reds where he got shelled.
Two things jumped out to me watching the Reds game. The first is his fastball was noticeably slower…in the 92-93 range vs 93-95 in the Sox game.
The second was that his command of his changeup was much worse. In the Sox game, he was doing a nice job locating his change at the bottom of the zone and away to lefties. In the Reds game, he was all over the place - grooving some that ended up in the bleachers, bouncing 5 others in front of home plate. Yet for some reason, he threw a ton of changeups (48, more than any start in the past 3 years).
And I think that’s the risk with him. With his diminished fastball, he’s now down to essentially one elite pitch, his changeup. When it’s on, he is still capable of dominating performances. When it’s not, he’s going to get hit hard. It’s going to be on Bailey/Willard to get more consistency out of it.