How many Giants blogs are providing in depth looks at Brad Hennessey? Eh? Not many! And for good reason,  he’s not the most exciting pitcher on the Giants team and it’s possible that he could be non-tendered before the 2009 season. Still, his spot start yesterday could have bought him some more time with the team and it definitely bought him another start before this season ends.

Let’s check out some of the numbers on Hennessey.

Here’s Brad’s velocity / pitch count plot and a brief table detailing what pitches he threw, the average velocity on each, and the average vertical and horizontal break on each pitch.

Like most pitchers, Hennessey works primarily off of his fastball. It’s a tick below average for a major league fastball — the last study I saw had the average major league fastball at just under 92mph — but it’s the pitch he throws the most. In the start against the D-Backs he threw it 56% of the time. He threw his slider the 2nd most at 25% of the time. The average velocity on Brad’s slider is 83.7mph. Finally, his third pitch is a changeup that he threw 19% of the time and it was clocked at 82.9mph on average.

Hennessey’s line in yesterday’s game looks as follows: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR

If you examine the V/PC plot, you’ll notice something that I think could be a problem for Hennessey. He’s not getting much separation between his pitches in terms of velocity. We’ve seen that Zito threw as low as the upper-60′s in his last start and as high as the mid-80′s. With Hennessey everything is between 82-88mph, leaving hardly any room for separation in regards to velocity. That’s something that I think could be a problem for Brad as he moves forward, everything is coming in at the same speed and with three pitches that I would rate as ‘average’ he doesn’t have one pitch that hitters are going to have a hard time with. I often think that learning a new pitch for a pitcher is a ‘gimmick’ as they rarely seem to work out, but Brad might want to learn something else or learn to take more off of his offspeed pitches — especially his changeup and slider which are practically the same speed — in order to get some separation.

Now, let’s look at his break plot. Both horizontal and vertical break are plotted.

Positive numbers on the Horizontal axis indicate a pitch that moves away from a RHB. Negative, the opposite. On the vertical axis, negative indicates more downward break, and positive the opposite.

Hennessey is a right-handed pitcher and as such, his slider will tail away from a RHB. On average, his slider broke 3.73 inches on the horizontal axis. Meanwhile, his changeup and fastball will work themselves in on a RHB or away from LHB. The changeup on average broke in 4.24 inches in to a RHB and his fastball broke 2.1 inches in on the same hitter. Because of the break on Hennessey’s slider, he’s going to throw it to RHB’s. 24 of his 25 sliders were thrown to RHB’s, except for the 1 slider that he threw to a LHB, which Stephen Drew smashed out of the park. The slider to Drew was in the middle of the plate, and started to cut down in on Drew, but the break on Brad’s slider isn’t huge and Drew got every piece of it.

If the slider is thrown predominately to RHB’s, then his changeup should be thrown mostly to LHB’s because of it’s break, which should move away from the lefty batter. Indeed, all 19 of the changeups that Hennessey threw went to left-handed batters.

I stated earlier that Hennessey isn’t getting much separation with velocity alone, but you’ll also notice that he isn’t getting much separation with the movement on his pitches, either.

I’ll post my next two plots to better illustrate my point. Horizontal only break and vertical only break plots are next.

Hennessey gets some horizontal break with his pitches. But, they are still pretty closely grouped together. The changeup and slider are coming in at nearly the same speed except one is going to move away from a RHB and one is going to move into a RHB. Like we’ve shown above, when Hennessey is facing a LHB, he’s essentially a two-pitch pitcher, throwing only his changeup and fastball. When he’s facing a RHB, it’s the same scenario except with just a slider and fastball.

On the vertical plot, Hennessey’s changeup and slider are coming in on the same plane, vertically. They both don’t have much downward break and are nearly the same speed. This could cause some problems trying to separate the two pitches in terms of velocity and downward break.

Here is the outcome plot or what happens after Hennessey threw the ball:

One thing you can say about Hennessey, is that unlike Zito, he tended to work around the zone. Zito has a tendency to miss up and Hennessey was missing down more than up in the zone, this is good. For what Hennessey is throwing — 3 average pitches at best — he needs to keep the ball down. He did walk three hitters in 6 innings, something that he might work on for his next start but he was generally around the zone.

Batters made what I would consider to be good contact against Hennessey. He only struck out three hitters and you’ll notice that in the strike zone, you’ll see a lot of ‘in play, out(s)’ icons. Here is a more detailed list of the outcomes of the 16 times hitters hit the ball into play and it was turned into an out.

1 bunt out, 1 error, 3 fly outs, 3 ground outs, 4 line outs, and 2 pop outs. In the traditional box score line, Hennessey had 4 groundouts to 11 fly outs. I’m assuming that the box score is counting the bunt out as a groundout. AT&T will help supress some of the flyballs, but that’s a ratio that could get ugly in some other ballparks really fast.

Thoughts on Hennessey’s Future

Hennessey is what he is, a 28-year-old pitcher (he turns 29 next year) who’s probably best suited for long relief but might be able to sneak in a rotation as a 5th starter. My main concerns with Hennessey is that he doesn’t have a single plus-pitch and the separation concerns. Velocity wise, everything Hennessey throws is within the same 6mph window. Break wise, it’s a mixed bag that tends towards the same. He’s getting some separation horizontally but not vertically.

Add to the fact that if you’re hitting against Hennessey as a RHB, you probably know what’s coming (slider and fastball) and the same for a LHB (changeup and fastball). If you take away one of his breaking pitches from each side of the plate as the handedness of the hitter dictates, he’s no longer getting horizontal seperation. True, the fastball and offspeed pitches are vertically seperated, but neither would rate above average as pitches and major league hitters can pick up a offspeed pitch from a fastball. That is, unless you’re Pedro Feliz.

Hennessey should get a couple of more starts to end the year but what the Giants decide to do with him is anyone’s guess. I think if he pitches well enough, they could bring him back next year but the team has left him in AAA for most of this year, which is a strong statement of how they view him. His age and pitch quality indicate that what you see with Hennessey is what you’re going to get. He has no upside and won’t be better in 2009 than he is right this very moment.

I’ll wait and see what the Giants do with Brad, but they should be able to find a better 5th starter for ’09. He earned $1.6M this year is up for aribitration again after this season. The Giants can either non-tender him or go to arbitration with him. Keep in mind that they cannot offer him less than 80% of his current salary. Meaning that the Giants will have to pay him $1.28M at minimum.

Comment Starter: Do you like Brad for the 5th starter? And will the Giants offer him a contract for ’09?