What's Wrong With Chien-Ming Wang?

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

On the heels of yet another loss to the hated Red Sox, and entering a crucial series with the hated Mets, the New York Yankees have some 'splainin to do.

Namely, they have a pretty tall order explaining the continued presence of one Chien-Ming Wang in their starting rotation, given that he seems, statistically at least, to be no closer to returning to the form that twice amassed 19 wins for them.

Those storied* times, the salad days of 2006 and 2007, seemed much farther than two years away as I watched Wang unravel yet again on Wednesday night against the Red Sox, allowing four runs, including six hits and three walks in less than three innings of work.

*Not steroid.

Believe it or not, that start actually constituted an improvement for him, lowering his ERA ever so slightly from 14.46 to 14.34. Oh goody.

Much of the talk about Wang has centered around his heavy, sinking fastball, and the idea that he somehow needs to either get his velocity back or his mechanics straightened out so this pitch can again be the grounder-inducing menace that so frustrated the American League in 2006 and 2007.

The trouble with this, however, is that he's got all his velocity back, averaging 91-92 MPH and often hitting 95 MPH on the radar gun with his four-seam fastball.

The problem isn't his fastball. It's the lack of anything else.

According to FanGraphs.com, between 2005 and 2008, Wang threw his fastballs (including the four-seam and the sinker) 76.5 percent of the time, with a velocity averaging between 91.8 and 93.1 MPH.

This year, while his velocity is just as good (91.7 MPH average), he's throwing one or the other of his fastballs 84.7 percent of the time, a significant difference from his usual modus operandi.

Moreover, most of the extra fastballs are coming at the expense of his slider. Previously, he threw the slider about 15 percent of the time on average, ranging from 12.9 percent in 2005 to 17.1 percent last season.

This year, he's used it only 11 percent of the time, meaning that there are about a half dozen pitches or more per start that used to be sliders but are now fastballs. And, of course, Wang has been getting tattooed all year, so we have to wonder if this is somehow related, right?

This in itself may not be significant, but it got me to wondering why Wang (or his catchers) would be so reluctant to use the slider this season, when he seemed to use it more often and with greater success in the past.

Looking at the MLB Gameday data for his last two starts and comparing them to a good start from last year gave me a possible answer:

The slider isn't, well, sliding.

Last year, Wang pitched a complete game, one-run, two-hitter against the Red Sox in April—no small accomplishment given that those Red Sox finished second in the AL in runs scored in 2008 and eventually won the Wild Card.

During that game, he threw 93 pitches, and according to MLB Gameday, 20 of them were sliders. In addition to the speed of each pitch at release, Gameday provides two measures of the pitch movement, "Break" and "Pitch F/X".

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