Madson developing third pitch

Last year the Phillies experimented letting Ryan Madson pitch in the starting rotation. That didn’t work out so well. This season Madson will return to the pitching in the bullpen, where he excelled in his first two seasons.

In preparation for the upcoming season Mad Dog has been developing his pitching repertoire. Ryan has a solid mid nineties fast ball and a plus change up. Last season Madson mixed in a curveball that he couldn’t consistently through for strikes. So Madson is dropping the curve and looking to add a third out pitch. Earlier in the off-season Madson was rumored to be working on a slurve or sliding curve. Now he’s let go of slurve and is working on a slider.

"It's a brand-new pitch.” Madson said, “The big thing is trusting it. My fastball and changeup have been good, so I'm working a lot on my slider. If I can get it, it will give me something between my fastball and changeup." Mad Dog’s comments aren’t exactly the whole truth. He used to throw a slider when he was in the minors but replaced it with the curve when he got to the majors.

Personally I don’t think he needs the third pitch. Pitching as a reliever is very different from pitching as a starter. A starter may face the same batter two or three times in one game. Starters need to pitch strategically mixing up their pitches to show the batter different looks. Relievers need to get a batter out only once; they don’t need to worry about the next time. For this reason relief pitchers don’t need to throw a wide array of pitches. A good example of this is one of the best relievers the future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera. Rivera throws cutters, cutters, and some times a cutter. He doesn’t need to throw anything else because he can get the job done with one pitch.

Madson dropped the slider the first time because it wasn’t a good pitch. There’s no reason to expect that the slider will be any better the second time. I would suggest that he perfects his fastball and changeup. He doesn’t need a third pitch. In the end two great pitches is better than two great pitches and one bad one.

Sources:
Garcia’s fastball lags as Madson slings slider
By Jim Salisbury / Philadelphia Inquirer

Picture of Ryan Madson from mlb.com