The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Charlie Furbush

Many popular opinions of pitching prospects are formed from general scouting reports. While these reports are invaluable resources, they can’t always be trusted. Hundreds of minor league hurlers are credited with “mid-90’s velocity,” but very few MLB starters actually have that grade of heat, for example. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear about a pitcher with “a mid-90’s heater and plus curve,” only to have him come up to the big leagues and show a fastball that averages 90.5 mph and a slider.

When a pitcher come up to the majors, we can finally get a foolproof reading on what exactly his arsenal is comprised of, thanks to the great Pitch F/X system. In this series, I analyze just that–the “stuff” of recently-promoted MLB pitchers. Now that they’ve achieved their big league dreams and thus factor directly into the MLB picture, it’s high time that we know exactly what these guys are providing.

This time, I’m taking a look at Mariners starting pitcher Charlie Furbush.

Charlie Furbush struck out 183 batters in 159 innings across three minor league levels in 2010, but he got very little prospect cred. Baseball America ranked him just 26th in a weak Tigers system, and the consensus was that he was just a deception lefthander with no velocity. To quote part of BA’s writeup:

"In fact, he doesn’t have a true plus pitch, relying more on the deception…with an 89-91 mph fastball, a loopy curveball and a straight changeup."

Everything coming from the major prospect evaluators on Furbush simply pegged him as a finesse guy preying on young hitters. The thought was that his future was either as a lefty specialist or Triple-A insurance, not a big league rotation mainstay.

Well, he’s become a rotation member for Seattle this season after being traded from Detroit, and has met with mixed but not terrible results in nine starts between the two teams, with a 5.06 FIP and 30/16 K/BB in 44 2/3 innings. He also has 16 relief appearances, and he pitched rather well in that role.

The interesting thing with Furbush is that he actually isn’t a finesse lefty, at least not in terms of velocity. He’s averaged 91.0 mph with his fastball this season. One might chalk that up to the fact that ~1/3 of his innings were in relief, but he’s still thrown the pitch at 90.7 mph for the Mariners (his time with Seattle consists of seven starts and just one relief outing).

Clearly, the 89-91 tag underestimated Furbush’s ability to crank his heater up there, as did the bevy of “mid-to-upper-80’s” designations that were tossed around a year ago. Furthermore, he actually throws two fastballs: a two-seamer and a four-seamer, to give batters different looks.

Furbush throws three other pitches: the curveball and changeup that the BA report mentioned, and a slider. In addition to his two fastballs, he therefore has a broad arsenal to draw from.

Furbush gets good separation on his changeup–a bit over 10 mph–and it’s been his most effective pitch this season, particularly because he uses the pitch judiciously.

His slider has been hit around, which can be attributed to some odd usage patterns. The slider typically has a very large platoon split, but Furbush almost completely eschews the pitch when facing lefthanders, preferring to use it as a pseudo-cutter to righthanders. At 80-83 mph, the pitch simply doesn’t have the sort of velocity to make that work, and the big lefty is going to need to reverse his usage of the pitch if it’s going to become a valuable part of his arsenal.

Furbush’s curve isn’t spectacular in terms of break, but it’s a mid-70’s offering with tilt that plays up to the good deception in his delivery, which features a slight hip turn and high elbow (here’s a video example). It’s nearly impossible for lefties to pick up, as they’ve swung and missed at 17.4% of Furbush’s curves since he joined the Mariners. Righties have a far easier time with the pitch, whiffing on just 7% of their swings. Perhaps his struggles with the curve to righties explain why he’s tried to use the slider more with them; regardless, he’d be better off going with more of a fastball/change approach or trying to add a harder cutter.

Ultimately, this is a pitcher who got unfairly labeled a soft-tosser when he really isn’t, but nonetheless needs to make some adaptations with his usage patterns of his offspeed offerings to become a successful major league starting pitcher. There’s enough skill here for that to happen, and plenty of guys have taken lumps in their first nine big league starts before going on to solid careers. At the very least, Furbush could be a very tough lefthanded reliever, but he has a consistent delivery, a solid fastball, a good pitch to lefties (curve) and righties (change), and solid command. He just needs to put all the pieces together.