MLB Predictions: 10 Pitchers That Will See a Drop in Velocity in 2012

Radar gun readings on stadium scoreboards are sometimes as widely watched as the game itself, usually more by the pitchers on the mound than the fans in the stands.

Teams have been known to juice the radar gun in an effort to boost the confidence of a particular pitcher or turn off the readings all together if a pitcher can’t stop checking the scoreboard after every pitch.

Some home teams have even altered the radar gun by lowering the mph totals when certain visiting teams have pitchers that are clearly affected by velocity readings.  

It is clear velocity affects how pitchers approach the game. Each season a handful of pitchers will lose velocity on their fastball. How that happens is many times a mystery.

Could it be fatigue from a heavy workload, faulty mechanics, throwing through pain or simply age?

This list takes a look at 10 players that could be on the verge of losing the most valuable tool a pitcher can have … fastball velocity.

Doug Fister—Detroit Tigers

Doug Fister improved his velocity across the board in what could be considered a breakout season in 2011.

Previously described as a soft-tossing righty, Fister’s two-seamer increased from 87.4 mph to 89.9 and his slider went from 83.5 mph to 86.4.

He is in his prime years as a player (ages 27-32) and the innings jump from 171 to 216 last season is not alarming, so it’s possible he will be able to maintain the increased velocity.

Fister is on the back-end of this list because his new found velocity was unexpected and there is the chance that those increases were an aberration instead of what is to come in the future.

Chris Carpenter—St. Louis Cardinals

Chris Carpenter makes the list due to age and innings pitched over the past few years.

Adding to the fact he will play the 2012 season at age 37, he has logged a combined 706 innings between the regular season and postseason since 2009.

There has to be concerns on how is body responds to another 30-plus start season at his age and whether or not fatigue could cause a dip in velocity during the heat of a long summer.

How new manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Derek Lilliquist handles the pitching staff in general might be only a minor concern, but a concern none the less.

Daniel Bard—Boston Red Sox

Anytime a reliever moves back to the rotation he can no longer give “max effort” with every pitch, he must instead pace himself so he can pitch deeper into games.

With Daniel Bard attempting to win a rotation spot this spring, a drop in velocity this season would not come as a surprise.

Since his call-up in 2009, Bard has averaged 97.4 mph on his fastball and has touched 100-plus on occasion.

There is no way to calculate what his velocity will be once he is in the rotation, but we can take a look at the recent history of some relievers that became starters.

Alexi Ogando of the Texas Rangers was moved to the rotation last season and dropped from 96.2 mph as a reliever to 95 mph as a starter.

CJ Wilson went from 93.4 mph in 2009 coming out of the Rangers bullpen to 90.3 mph in 2010 and 90.8 in 2011 as a starter.

One more example would be the New York Yankees failed experiment to convert Joba Chamberlain into a starter.

During his 24 innings as a reliever in 2007 he was sitting at 97.4 mph with his fastball. As a full-time starter in 2009, he dropped to 92.5 mph.

Neftali Feliz—Texas Rangers

Continuing with the reliever to starter theme, Neftali Feliz is a very likely candidate to have a dip in velocity during the upcoming season.

Feliz’s velocity won’t drop as significantly as the previously mentioned Daniel Bard given the fact Feliz was a starter more recently in the minors and was much more effective in the role.

Expect him to maintain the same 92-95 mph range he had while a starter in the minors.

Assistant general manager Thad Levine told MLB Network Radio that Feliz will likely be limited to 140-160 innings this season.

Chad Billingsley—Los Angeles Dodgers

The Chad Billingsley selection is purely speculation based due to his numbers continually declining over recent years.

He has seen his innings pitched and strikeout rate both slowly decrease during the past four seasons.

In that same four year span his ERA reached a career high at 4.21 and his WHIP has spiked from 1.34 to 1.45.

He has maintained that his struggles are not injury related.

With the help of pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, he is attempting to smooth out the front leg kick he uses during his delivery.

The new delivery could either get Billingsley back on track or possibly separate him further from the pitcher he was expected to be.

Jonny Venters—Atlanta Braves

Two seasons in a row Jonny Venters has thrown 83-plus innings and two seasons in a row he has struggled during the month of September.

Venters’ tells Mark Bowman of MLB.com that his pitching mechanics have been affected as the season progresses, "As the season wears on, I try to maintain my delivery. But it's tough. I couldn't figure out the adjustments I needed to make to get back in that groove."

That amount of work is the concern for a possible drop in velocity as he will again be leaned upon in Atlanta as the set-up man for Craig Kimbrel.

In preparation for another full season workload, Venters has done less throwing this offseason than in year’s past and more conditioning.

Matt Cain—San Francisco Giants

During Matt Cain’s five consecutive seasons of 200-plus innings his fastball velocity has fell from 92.8 mph to 91.2 mph.

Standing 6’3 and 230 pounds, Cain’s build would seem to allow him to handle that amount of innings piling up.

Looking further into what could have caused this drop in velocity and one might point out his pitching mechanics as an issue.

Not only does Cain appear to “stand tall” upon ball release, but he has a short stride to the plate.

Both of these mechanical flaws put more stress on the arm and also won’t allow the pitcher to locate the ball down in the strike zone on a consistent basis, which is a big factor in Cain having such a high career fly ball rate of 44.2 percent.

So it’s possible that his 230 pound frame is not what’s absorbing the innings, but rather his arm alone.

If that’s the case, then it would help explain the minus 1.6 mph velocity loss since 2007 and unless he is willing to make some minor changes, more velocity loss can be expected.

Yu Darvish—Texas Rangers

The accolades Yu Darvish received in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league have followed him state side, but so have the concerns of transitioning to a Major League Baseball starter.

While having the biggest spotlight of any MLB player this season shined on him daily, Darvish will need to find a way to deal with a few hurdles including how to adjust to a different ball or learning American League hitters.

Perhaps most importantly will be how he adjusts to a five-day rotation instead of the six days he had in Japan.

His four-seam fastball sat consistently in the 91-94 mph range in the NPB—will the adjustment to a five-day turn in the rotation effect his velocity?

Will fatigue be a factor once the Texas heat is added to the equation?

To help offset these potential pitfalls, Darvish spent much of last season imitating the schedule of a MLB starter and using the larger MLB baseball during his bullpen sessions.

Even with the foresight to prepare the way he did, actually going through the rigors of a Major League schedule could cause a dip in his velocity at some point in the season.

Aroldis Chapman—Cincinnati Reds

Aroldis Chapman went through a mini-bout with velocity loss during a mid-April game last season when his high 90’s fastball had trouble reaching 93 mph; only to have his fastball return to its normal 98-plus mph a few days later.

A couple of caution flags go up when considering another possible velocity loss for Chapman this season.

First, he was removed from participating in the Arizona Fall League after only 2.2 innings because of shoulder inflammation, the same reason he was lifted from that mid-April contest when he struggled to hit 93 mph.

There has also been talk of him making the transition to starter, which will naturally cause a drop in velocity.

Chapman’s move into the rotation has become an uncertainty after manager Dusty Baker’s recent comments, “We are going to stretch him out. We are going to see if there is enough time and he can do it. If there isn’t enough time or quality, we can send him back to the bullpen.” – via Chicago Sun-Times.

Brian Wilson—San Francisco Giants

Major League closers come and go at such a rapid pace that no closer outside future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera has held his job longer than four years with his current team.

Could Brian Wilson be the next victim on the closer carousel?

Hampered by injuries that included a left oblique and an inflamed elbow, Wilson only appeared in 57 games which was down from 70 games in 2010 and 68 games in 2009.

Literally adding insult to inury, the past two seasons have seen a drop in velocity from a peak of 96.5 mph in 2009 to 95.9 mph in 2010 all the way down to 94.2 mph last year.

If Wilson doesn’t return to All-Star form this season his shelf life as the Giants closer could slowly be coming to an end with free agency looming in 2014.

Jim Pratt is a Featured Columnist covering the Atlanta Braves for Bleacher Report, MLB contributor for MLBDepthCharts and BravesWire. Follow Jim on Twitter, @2OutSacBunt