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At the age of 35, Mark Buehrle is pitching like a 25 year old and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Buehrle has had 13 consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins and is well on pace to hit that mark this year. His fastball only gets up to 85 MPH, he throws a changeup that is 6 MPH slower, his curveball is one of the slowest in the league at 71.2 MPH, he gets 45% less spin on his curveball and cutter than the MLB average and players have a 93% contact rate on swings attempted at his cutter. Remarkably, Buehrle is still 5-1 with a 1.25 WHIP and a 2.25 ERA, which might be difficult to sustain as the season progresses. Regardless, he is an effective pitcher because he hits his spots and knows how to use the whole zone to his advantage.

As Steve Stone likes to say during White Sox broadcasts, the most effective combination of pitches in baseball is from a fastball and changeup. In Buehrle’s case, a fastball and changeup make up 73% of his total pitches. Pitchers usually have a slight variance in the release points between these two pitches, but Buehrle’s release points have been nearly identical through his first six starts of the season.

Note: Red fastball release point line is underneath the green changeup line; Bottom two lines are the height the pitch crosses the plate

Another thing announcers often say is that a good pitcher knows how to get batters out with pitches outside of the strike zone. Even though Buehrle’s changeup ranges from 76-79 MPH, 1 out of every 4 outs from a changeup is from a pitch thrown outside of the strike zone and another quarter of them are pitches right on the border of the strike zone. With a lack of movement compared to the average MLB pitcher, Buehrle finds other ways to be a deceptive pitcher.

Even though Buerhle has proven accuracy in hitting the corners of the plate, batters are still more than willing to swing away on him and rightfully so because he has given up 40 hits in 40.0 innings pitched. Through 149 at-bats, only two strikes have been taken on a 0-1 count or 2-1 count compared to 57 pitches that were swung at. He gets hit hard with 32.5% of his hits being doubles, but even so he still has only one start where he has given up more than two runs.

Pitching looks easy when watching Buehrle, but he still seems to be working on his mechanics between starts, even as a veteran. When taking a closer look at his release point from all of his pitches, it seems to be correlated to his velocity. In general, the trend is that as his release point goes higher, his velocity decreases. During his third and fourth starts of the season, his release points raised a few inches, which resulted in a loss of velocity. He has since lowered his release point in his last two starts and the velocity of his pitches has gone back up. Even so, this has not shown to have a negative effect on his pitching, as his worst performance so far this year was April 25th when his velocity was the greatest.

So far this year, Buehrle is only averaging 6 2/3 innings pitched per start, but he can be counted on to give his team a great opportunity for a win every time he is on the mound. Due to this, a bullpen becomes essential to finish off the last couple innings of a game, but I think any manager would still be more than grateful to have this veteran in their starting lineup.

NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 05/05/14

By Danny Malter
AriBall.com

Follow @AriBall Follow @DanMalter