Alfredo Simon never had a great deal of success in the minors – or in his brief time in the majors – as a starting pitcher. He never struck out a lot of batters, or showed better than OK control. His stuff was pretty marginal. Simon missed almost the entire 2009 season due to Tommy John surgery, and when he came back this year he looked much improved at Triple-A with 17 IP, 15 H, 4 R (3 ER), 5 BB, 14 K, 1 HR in three starts and one relief appearance. With the Orioles bullpen having some trouble to start the season, Simon was called up to help solidify the unit, and he was thrown right into the fire, being called on for the save attempt yesterday with the O’s up 5-2 on the Yankees. He sure didn’t look like the old Alfredo to me:
I don’t expect Simon to sit at 96 with the fastball all the time, but it sure looks like a power offering with both good tail and some sinking action on it. Last year he threw 92-93 (though as a starter) with a heater that was more of a high riding (and straighter) variety. The Pitch/FX says that Simon was throwing a change-up, but they identified it as a split-fingered fastball at the park yesterday so that’s what I’m going with. It had pretty similar movement to the fastball – a little less tail and more sink – but came in 10 mph slower (though still pretty hard). He through 4 sliders, but the seemed to come in two varieties (though they’re lumped together above). One was almost a cutter at 90-91 mph which he used to strike Jeter out, and one was more of a traditional slider with more downward bite and in the mid 80s. We’ll see if there continues to be a distinction there, and if so the pitches will likely be separated out. It definitely looks like a closer’s repertoire to me.
Another good sign was that despite leaving the ball up in the strike-zone a little, Simon didn’t allow a single ball in the air and threw about 62% of his pitches in the zone. I’m not saying the soon to be 29 year-old is going to be a shut-down reliever for the team, but the transition of Jim Johnson (amongst many others) shows that a mediocre starter can turn into at least above average pitchers coming out of the bullpen. It also shows why it isn’t that smart to invest a lot of money into free agent relievers.
