The Early Season Tendencies of Jon Niese

Jon Niese has been somewhat of a steady presence in the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation. How is he doing it?

I think our good friend Josh Taylor summed it up in one tweet.

TFW you realize Jon Niese is the only Pirates starter to go longer than 6 innings so far this season… pic.twitter.com/pAXN0T2LO6

— Josh Taylor (@JoshTaylorHD) April 26, 2016

This storyline has been one of my personal favorites throughout the early season. Josh is correct; as it stands now, Jon Niese is the lone Pittsburgh Pirates starter to have gone for seven innings or more this season.

Why is that? Going into the 2016 season, many felt that Niese could be an anchor in the middle of the rotation, a means to an end between the horses at the top in Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano and the considerably murkier back end. A career pitch-to-contact hurler, Niese would surely be an innings eater, a pitcher that would benefit from having a solid bullpen behind him.

To be sure, he has had some clunky starts, with two of his four appearances being marred by four earned runs in each. Overall, he has been just a bit better than advertised. He has even shown a bit more strikeout ability than anyone would have expected.

What can we make of Niese’s tendencies thus far? Can we expect to see this level of production for him throughout 2016, or is there another level that he can reach? For an answer, let’s take a deep dive look.

I decided to look at how Niese approaches hitters both when he is behind in the count and ahead. This can clearly illustrate a “go to pitch” in two different ways. We can first see what Niese likes to throw to catch up to batters, and what he might like to throw to put them away, along with the corresponding outcomes. As we dissect his offerings, it’s easy to label these into three camps.

Tendencies when Niese is ahead in counts

Niese has thrown 87 total pitches when ahead in counts thus far in 2016. While in that scenario, he tends to rely on his two-seam fastball. Thrown 35.6 percent of the time, the pitch is effective. The two-seam has only been put in play nine times when ahead, resulting in just two runs. This pitch does not fool anyone, as it has not yet resulted in a swinging strike when the hitter is already behind.

The four-seam fastball is not far behind, at 34.5 percent. Curiously enough, this can be labelled as a somewhat more-effective pitch. In this scenario, the straight heat results in 12 strikes – 11 looking – and only seven balls.

I found it very interesting that Niese did not rely much on his cut fastball here. It has been thrown just 16 times, and touched up for two runs. It does have the larges number of foul balls of any pitch when ahead, suggesting that perhaps the pitch is still doing its job by getting batters to chase it. As the season goes on and the pitch picks up more bite, these foul balls may turn into swinging strikes.

Here is a chart of pitch outcomes on pitches thrown when Niese is ahead in the count

Tendencies when Niese is behind in counts

Things get really interesting when the left-hander falls behind to a hitter. Jon Niese nearly eschews everything in favor of the four-seam and the cut fastball. Niese has thrown 98 total pitches to try to get back to level playing field with a hitter, and these two pitches combined make up 68.3 percent of his offerings, and with good reason. Neither pitch has been tagged for a run when Niese is behind,

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Niese struggles to get back to even or better with hitters, as this chart will show:

Breakdown of pitch outcomes thrown when behind in the count

To many, the mark of a good pitcher is the ability to battle back to re-gain the advantage or even, perhaps, gain equal footing. For Niese, that ability is simply not there. While it’s not entirely earth shattering to see a pitcher struggle to climb out of a hole, Niese would greatly benefit from going into more of an attack mode. He clearly has the stuff to do so as seen when he is ahead.

Speaking of attack mode, does Niese have that killer instinct when a batter has two strikes?

Tendencies in 2-strike counts

23.8 percent (86) of Niese’s 380 total pitches have come when he has a hitter on the ropes. Once again the winning duo is the four-seam and cut fastball. Together these two pitches were thrown 66 times as an “out pitch,” and 22 of those were balls. The cutter has had five swinging strikes while the four seam has had four. The four seamer in particular seems to be a bit more effective to get a hitter out no matter the method. 13 of the 38 straight fastballs have been put in play for outs, opposed to four for the cutter.

Overall, I was very surprised to see the fastball be as effective as it has been thus far. The pitch has also seen a fair amount of foul balls, suggesting batters may be late on it, which is something that no one really expected from Niese, whose career velocity on the pitch tops out at 92 mph.

Conclusions

While a still-small sample size makes it a bit difficult to draw solid conclusions as to Jon Niese’s tendencies, the overall picture that’s painted is a surprising one. Going into the season, few would have suspected Niese to rely on his four-seam fastball as much as he has thus far.

In a broader sense, if Jon Niese is to continue to surprise Pirates fans and observers alike, he will need to do a better job of getting back into the at-bat should he fall behind. Without the pure strikeout ability of Cole or Liriano, the importance for Niese to stay ahead – or at least battle to keep hitters honest –  takes greater precedent.