The Rejuvenation of Brett Cecil

By: Alex Hume

Even with the improvements to the Blue Jays lineup and rotation, the bullpen remained a primary area of concern for the Blue Jays heading into the season in which they were attempting to break their 19-year playoff drought.  However, despite the improvements, the lineup and rotation have been wracked with injuries and inconsistency, while the bullpen has become a fixture.  Early in the year Casey Janssen was the model of dominance and was one of the top three relievers in baseball.  However, over the last six weeks, while Janssen has regressed from superhuman to merely very good, the bespectacled lefty named Brett Cecil has become the stalwart.

After unintentionally walking the first batter he faced on May 31 against the Padres, Brett reeled off a steak of 25 straight batters retired that was broken up by another intentional walk, this time to Michael Cuddyer of the Colorado Rockies, and has since retired all five men he has faced since that point.  Cecil has not allowed a hit to any of the last 38 batters he has faced (a franchise record) and the ten plate appearances before that were also hitless.  In Cecil’s last 50 batters faced, he has given up no runs, two hits and three walks (two intentional).

Brett has discovered success out of the bullpen with increased velocity and a simplification of his repertoire.  Cecil has seen an uptick in velocity from 89.50 mph the last two years (2011-2012) to 93.10 mph this year.  Part of the increase can be attributed to a full-time move to the bullpen, but also a weighted ball program that Steve Delabar brought with him to the Blue Jays when he came over from Seattle at the 2012 trading deadline.  The program results in shoulder strengthening and velocity increase; and the Blue Jays see so much potential in it that they have signed Jamie Evans,  the originator, to an exclusive consulting contract as they try to implement it throughout the organization.  The increased velocity and shift in role has allowed Cecil to significantly modify his repertoire.  Cecil has historically thrown his four-seam fastball about 35 percent of the time, followed by his changeup, sinker and slider all between 14 and 19 percent.  He has rounded out his repertoire with a curve (9.90%) and a cutter (7.02%).  In 2013, without the need to be able to face hitters multiple times in a game, he has essentially pared his repertoire to four pitches, abandoning the slider entirely and throwing his second-most abundant pitch (sinker – 16.14%) 2.69 times as frequently as he throws his changeup (5.98%).  He has also abandoned the changeup to left-handed hitters only throwing it twice all year.  The curveball, which he used sparingly, has now become his primary pitch.  After generating 23.79% whiff/swing coming into the year (590 pitches), Cecil has generated 54.55% whiff/swing on the pitch this year.  The increased whiff rates have led to a sharp increase in strikeout rate to 30.7%, compared with 17.4% in his career.

Perhaps the biggest change in Cecil isn’t necessarily the whiff rates, but most importantly his ability to keep the ball on the ground.  After spending his career around 40% in terms of groundball rate, the number has jumped to 50.6% this year on the backs of three of his pitches, the aforementioned curve, his cutter (which he is working in over three times as frequently as in years past) and the sinker which are generating groundball rates of 57, 62 and 39% respectively.   Not only is Cecil keeping the ball on the ground, but the balls in the air are being turned into easy outs.  Cecil has a career-low line drive rate this year at 18.1% and career low flyball rate at 31.3%.  Only 3.6% of Cecil’s flyballs have left the yard (Vernon Wells got him on April 19...HA!), a rate that can’t be expected to continue and has helped to depress his 1.46 ERA and 1.94 FIP, but even normalizing to a his career average home run rate, it would produce an xFIP (using personal average instead of league average) of 2.85, which would rank 18^th in the league (instead of 10^th) and still, best on the Blue Jays staff.

The true talent level of Brett Cecil likely lies somewhat below the level to which he has performed so far this season, but tanks to proper role identification and the help of a training program, Cecil is no longer a lost cause, but a low-cost valuable asset, and one that Alex Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays should be proud to have.

Statistics from Fangraphs and Brooks Baseball

Alex is a fourth-year university student studying science.  He blogs about the Blue Jays at Hume's Jays Bullpen and blogged about fantasy baseball for a time at Bullpen Banter.  He can be reached on Twitter @AHume92.

BlueJaysPlus Podcast Episode 3: One Week In

Just fooling around with different logos...

Time flies when you're having fun(and losing 13-0). After 6 games, the Jays sit at 2-4, yet have been entertaining every time they've gone out their and played. 3 episodes into our podcast,we hope we're even more entertaining(although it's not likely cause the Jays have Jose Reyes and we just have skype). Int his weeks episode, we look back at the week that was in Jays land, from the Blue Jays horrific defines, to Brett Cecil's awesome first few games, to Colby Rasmus' sweet swing. We also talk about John Farrell's return, whether or not players should be wearing Roy Halladay's number(we're looking at you Esmil Rogers), and as always, have our Jays MILB player of the week. Hope you enjoy!

To download click here

Stream:

Links mentioned on the Podcast:

Gideon Turk predicting how awful the Jays will be defensively in 2013, way back in December.

Gideon Turk examining Brett Cecil's opening day performance.

Ewan Ross on Danny Knobler's Anti-Canada article.

Photo Gallery of Johnny Damon's return to Boston after signing with the Yankees (courtesy of @emilyg819)

Brett Cecil Might be Back...Might

Cecil pitching in the 9th inning last night.
Picture via the awesome @James_in_to.

Coming into the 2010 season, some thought Brett Cecil was the top prospect in the Blue Jays organization(although he didn't actually qualify as a prospect after his major league stint in 2009). The reports on him were making fans giddy with excitement as this young lefty was getting set to hit the Majors for his first full season. He projected to be a middle of the rotation arm who could kill lefties and had good stuff that'd be able to lead him to a long career, hopefully with the Jays. And, he didn't disappoint in his 2010 sophomore campaign. He pitched 178.2 innings that year with a FIP of 4.03 leading to him being worth 2.5 WAR according to fWAR. Everything looked great coming into 2011, but his velocity diminished to averaging under 90MPH, and he was sent down after 4 starts. He came back at the end of June and pitched to a 4.30 ERA, but was still not the same. He didn't break camp with the team in 2012 due to more velocity and control problems, and when he was called back up for the first time, he didn't impress either all that much. But, when the Jays finally ditched the plan of having Cecil as a starter last September, things started to turn around for him. His results didn't exactly show it, but his velocity was back up consistently in the low 90's, and he was getting used to his role as a lefty killer out of the pen going into the off-season.

Cecil started an off-season program that helped fellow Blue Jays reliever Steve Delabar come back from a few surgeries and a teaching job, to the major leagues. The goal was to get his velocity back where it was in the pre-2010 era, and hopefully by doing so become a more effective major league pitcher.

Cecil's velocity chart last night.

It worked. Cecil pitched a beautiful 1-2-3 inning in the ninth last night, but the results aren't what mattered at all. Cecil's pitches were working like they've never worked before. He threw 11 pitches, 3 four seam fastballs, 6 two seam or sinkers, 1 slider, and 1 curveball. Obviously, we're only looking at 11 pitches, which is an EXTREMELY SMALL SAMPLE, but you'd like to think this is a sign of things to come. All of the following numbers and graphs are courtesy of brooksbaseball.net.

Brett threw his four seamer 333 times in 2012, at an average velocity of 89.83 MPH. Last night, he threw it 3 times, and averaged 91.07 while topping out at 93.2. Pretty nice improvement over a year. It also had less movement, which might not be the best thing if you want to get hitters to whiff at it, but if you want pin point accuracy like Cecil is trying to achieve, it's not the worst thing that can happen.

Moving onto his sinker/two seamer. Brett averaged 88.51 MPH on that pitch in 2012 when he threw it 112 times. Last night, when he threw it 6 times? 93.28 MPH while touching 94 MPH. It also rose an extra 2 inches last night over 2012, so that's a good sign as well.

Then, his slider. A pitch Brett threw 53 times last season with a break of 0.13(down) and 1.14 horizontally(left from the batters perspective). Last night, on the pitch he got Drew Stubbs to strike out to record the first out of the ninth, it was 3.50 vertically, and 1.82 horizontally. Only one pitch, so obviously you can't deduce anything from it because of the sample,  but still a welcome sign.

Finally, his curveball. Behold, this GIF of the curve he threw last night.

Awesome. In 223 pitches last year, the curve had sank 5.92 inches and moved 1.93 left(batters view again). Last night(again, take it with a huge grain of salt because it was only one outing and one pitch), it sank 7.35 inches, and moved 3.37 left(batters view again). Another significant improvement. 

Now, I'm not saying that we can judge Brett Cecil based on one, 11 pitch performance. We can't. We can't say that Cecil's increased velocity will stay with him. We can't say that the increased movement on his sinker,slider, and curve aren't just results of luck or other independent factors. All we can say is that Brett looked good, and that all the changes we saw last night make sense. The velocity could be from the Delabar program. The movement could be from a slight change in mechanics or grip on the ball. 

I've always been a Cecil fan, and there's no doubt in my mind that he can't be an above average reliever for a long time. But, what if he can parlay that into a great reliever. Darren Oliver failed as a starter for a while before moving over to the pen. What if Brett Cecil has just done it earlier in his career, and will have the same type of success Darren has had? Only time will tell what the story with Cecil is, but if he keeps this pitching up, I'd think it won't be him being put on waivers in two weeks time when Brett Lawrie comes back from the disable list.

What did you think of Cecil last night? Leave your comments below!

I'll be heading down to the game tonight(Wednesday). If you want to meet up, tweet me. 

You can follow me on twitter, @gideonturk. To connect with the site, Follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook.

Off-Season Interview with LHP Brett Cecil

Brett Cecil has had a turbulent couple of years since winning 15 games for the Blue Jays in 2010. His average fastball speed went down almost 1.5 MPH to 89.1 in 2011(from 90.5 in 2010), and he started leaving balls up in the zone to righties, leading to an increased home run rate(0.94 in 2010 to 1.60 in 2011). But, Brett lost over 30 pounds last off-season, and it looked like he was going to break camp with the Jays as the 5th starter. He didn't. Brett worked hard in AA and eventually earned a call up in Mid-June. Aside from a few starts, Brett was pretty good, but was sent back down in early August with an ERA of 5.72(highly inflated from 2 horrible games). After a month with the 51's, Brett was back in the bigs for September, pitching out of the bullpen, a scenario that many of us fans were preaching for a couple of years already. Brett is a lefty killer, and he fits perfectly in the bullpen, especially because his velocity is higher in the bullpen due to shorter stints pitching. Brett has held lefties to just a .232 AVG in his career, and in 2012, they only hit .214 off of him. Brett will be fighting for a roster spot again come Spring Training in March, but if the Jays were smart, having a lefty killer like Brett available in the bullpen should be a no brainer! I had the chance to ask Brett some questions relating to the Blue Jays managerial search, his upcoming arbitration(which apparently isn't upcoming), and his plan to regain his velocity.

What are your goals for this off-season when it comes to regaining your lost

velocity? Do you have a specific workout plan that is built to regain the

velocity?

My goal is simple. And that is to get stronger. With my weight not being an issue anymore, I can focus soley on getting stronger and not dropping weight for the first couple months of working out. As far as arm strength and regaining velocity goes, I will be doing a completely different throwing program this offseason. The same one that Steve Delabar has done in the past.

With John Farrell leaving, can you reflect on your time with him?

My time was good with John. He had some great things to tell me both about the physical side and the mental side of pitching. 

Of Sandy Alomar Jr, Manny Acta, Brian Butterfield, and Sal Fasano, the 4

leading candidates for the Managerial opening,which would you prefer to be

the new manager of the 2013 Blue Jays?

Having never met the first two I can't really speak personally about them. Brian Butterfield is one of the smartest baseball people that I have ever met. He knows how to keep a very lose but very serious clubhouse. He is definitely one of my favourite baseball people, and it would be very exciting to have him as a manager.
I had Sal as a manager in AA, and the enthusiasm that he shows about
the game of baseball alone can make players better. I think in any
position he has at the big league level it would be an advantage for
us to have him.

What do you prefer to do; start, or be a lefty specialist/long man out of

the bullpen?

I want to do whatever is going to make my team and myself successful.

Has Alex, or the club expressed to you what they believe your future on the

club is?

Not as of right now, I would assume that after the decision has been made on a manager that I will know something shortly after.

You are going to be arbitration eligible this off-season for the first time.

have you had any contract discussions yet, or will those be done after the

world series for a possible extension?

I won't be Arb. eligible for another year. I made the cutoff for super two but not the mandatory 86 days, I think, that I needed in service time this year. I only had 79.

A lot has been said about the Jays clubhouse atmosphere in 2012. What were

your thoughts on it?

Only being there for the short period that I was I cant really comment on anything. Obviously there were some problems that were addressed but as far as going into depth on anything you know just about as much as I do.

Shaun Marcum told the FAN590 recently that he would love to come back to

Toronto. You pitched with him for a while, would you like to see him back

with the Blue Jays?

I wouldn't mind having him back. He's one of the best "pitchers" I have ever seen play the game. When he is healthy he is as good as anybody.

What were your thoughts on your 2012 season? How do you think you will

improve on it in 2013?

I had a very productive 2012. Really only two starts, Detroit and Anaheim, bloated my ERA. In 2013 I'm looking to improve overall, whether that’s in the rotation or out of the pen. I'm expecting to have a good year in either role.

And to end the interview, one last question. Who do you have winning the

World Series?

Well since I took so long to do the interview and the WS is over I was going with Washington. But very happy for the Giants, especially my boy Sergio Romo. No better person then him to get the last out of the game. Unbelievable pitcher, and even better person!

 I'd like to thank Brett for doing this interview with me. I know he's very busy, and appreciate that he was able to take time to do this.

You can follow me on twitter, @gideonturk. To connect with the site, Follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook.