Driveline Mechanics

Pitcher Analysis: Craig Hansen

May 15, 2008 – 11:15 pm

Craig Hansen, a 24-year old fireballer with the Red Sox, is the subject of much debate. Out of options (2008 is an option year) and signed to a major league contract, Hansen’s high ratings from scouts don’t match up with his performance in the major leagues. While he has been good in the minors, he has hardly been dominant - Hansen walks too many batters and doesn’t strike out enough. Hansen is stingy with the long ball, however, so that’s a major point in his favor. The elephant in the room is his slider, of course. Hansen’s slider is either a 70-75 pitch (on the 20-80 scouting scale; a comparable 70-75 slider would be a Jake Peavy offering, while an 80 would be vintage Randy Johnson) or complete garbage, leading to tons of free passes on the bases.

SoxProspects.com has this to say about Hansen:

Scouting Report: Hansen’s fastball has historically topped out in the high 90s, and he consistently hit the mid-90s. In 2008, he’s been sitting more around 92 mph.  He also possesses an excellent high-80s slider, which has been somewhat of a mystery — sometimes its absolutely dominant and other times it just isn’t there.   A fierce competitor who has struggled with adversity early in his professional career.  Seems to have the tools to be a successful major league closer, just needs to work on his confidence and composure on the mound.  Struggles with getting behind early in counts.  When he gets first pitch strikes, he can be dominant. Had surgery in December 2007 to correct sleep apnea.  All in all,  if Hansen can get his slider going on a regular basis, he is an MLB-caliber reliever.

MLB Comparison: Joe Nathan (emphasis mine)

Joe Nathan, you say? Give me a break.

Joe Nathan is one of the game’s best closers and possesses pure stuff that Hansen can only dream of touching. After he had his breakout year in 2003, Nathan slashed his walk rate and increased his strikeout rate in every year from 2003-2008 with the exception of 2007, where he was merely ridiculous rather than immortal. Comparing Hansen to Nathan is a no different than comparing Randy Winn to Barry Bonds, much like the San Francisco faithful did after his fluke performance upon arrival. (Speaking of, GM Brian Sabean must be so happy that Francisco Liriano flamed out. Now he’ll only be insulted for trading a league-average starter and a top three closer for one year of A.J. Pierzynski.)

Anyway, enough bashing of SoxProspects.com. Hansen does not succeed because he can’t throw strikes - it’s that simple.

(source: Fangraphs)

Though he’s only thrown 99 pitches in 2008 to date, this is not an acceptable k/bb ratio for someone who is supposedly has elite-level talent. Hansen’s minor league stats are not terribly impressive, either: 127.2 IP, 117 K, 61 BB, 2 HR, good for a 2.61 ERA but also a 1.34 WHIP. His ability to not give up home runs and strike out a lot of batterslooks great, unless you factor in the performance at the MLB level, where he has thrown 46.3 IP with a 19/37 bb/k ratio and allowed 7 home runs, resulting in a 6.80 ERA. If there’s such a thing as a AAAA-level pitcher, Hansen is currently one of them. Minor league players can’t touch his mid-90’s heat and sharp mid-80’s slider, probably for the same reasons they are in the minors and not in the majors: They can’t control the strike zone and swing wildly at Hansen’s slider. Unfortunately for him, major league hitters either learn how to control the strike zone and draw walks, or they can hit balls six inches off the plate for doubles.

Though it’s over a small sample size, Hansen is throwing more sliders in 2008 in comparison to his previous work at the major league level. He is throwing a 64/35/1 split of FB/SL/CH, and in 2006 the ratios were 76/22/2. John Farrell (the Red Sox pitching coach) may be instructing him to throw the slider more to get the feel for it.

I watched a Red Sox / Tigers game where Hansen made an appearance. It was the May 5th game, where he walked two batters, gave up two hits, struck out no one, and allowed two earned runs over 1.2 innings of work. Hansen’s control looked poor, as usual, but his slider was sharp. Unfortunately for him, when your slider is sharp but you can’t locate your fastball, major league hitters just wait for you to throw a fastball and then crush it, or they’ll just take a walk. That’s what happened.

Pitching Mechanics

Let’s take a look at his mechanics:

Tempo: Hansen is 19 frames from maximal leg lift into footplant, which is Very Good.

Arm/Body Action: Hansen has late stepover right before footplant, which will help delay shoulder rotation and thusly increase velocity. His back foot is rolling over at footstrike and he keeps his momentum going forward, which is great. However, his arm action is questionable right from the start. He breaks his hands with his elbows, much like Mark Prior, and short-arms the ball as he gets his arm into the ready position. This implies significant tension in the shoulders at all times and could explain his poor control (he will fatigue faster). Though Hansen shows no signs of hyperabduction (Inverted W), as you can see in the still photo at the top of the page, he shows the ball to second base / center field. In combination with a supinated slider release, this will wreak havoc on Hansen’s ulnar collateral ligament. Fortunately, Hansen is not too late at footstrike, getting his arm up and past the horizontal plane of his shoulders mostly on time. I will give him a Bad grade overall.

Ball Release: It looks funny, doesn’t it? You can tell that he is actively trying to keep his head still at the point of release - watch it move, then abruptly stop, then jerk forward. He is clearly focused on his command/control problems. I don’t like the fact that he seems hunched over at release - we call this “pitching uphill.” This slowed-down animation clearly shows that he is trying to muscle the ball past the hitter:

I will grade his Ball Release phase as Bad.

Followthrough: Hansen pulls his glove-arm elbow back and flys open through shoulder rotation. As you can see in the animated image, his arm stops short of hitting his body, which means he is actively braking his arm to some extent. You want to let the arm followthrough all the way to the back and allow the strong posterior muscle group do it’s job - but if you are actively braking your arm, you are unnecessarily stressing the anterior shoulder structures and rotator cuff. Much of his bad followthrough has to do with his bad Ball Release phase, as he is clearly intending to muscle the ball rather than stay loose and trust his arm. I grade his Followthrough phase as Bad.

Overall, I don’t like Hansen’s chances to stick in the major leagues for very long. He has major questions about his performance which we can see statistically, and his mechanical quirks lead me to believe he will have shoulder problems (or possibly elbow problems if he keeps throwing his slider a ton).

Taking college closers and trying to breed them into high-leverage MLB relievers can work, but Craig Hansen sure doesn’t look like another Huston Street.

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