Professional athletes look for advantages anywhere they can get them — the Biogenesis scandal should be a testament to that fact — but they’re typically not found via Bloomberg articles.
On Thursday, Bloomberg’s sports offshoot, BSports.com, posted an article breaking down C.J. Wilson‘s split stats, pitch selection and location based on the results of a fan poll. The article isn’t exactly sabermetric, but it is a very interesting analysis if you’re the kind of person who’s fascinated by pitch sequencing.
It turns out that Wilson, himself, is one of those people.
Wilson took the mound Thursday night and, despite a couple lengthy innings, held the Oakland A’s to three runs over seven innings to earn the win for his Angels. After the game, he made sure to thank the entity responsible for his success — that very same BSports.com article.
Wilson apparently stumbled upon and read the article at some point, and what he took out of it was to throw more inside fastballs late in the count. It turns out that was a successful strategy.
Check out Wilson’s hat tip to Bloomberg below.
[tweet https://twitter.com/str8edgeracer/status/360806126343815168 align=’center’]
[tweet https://twitter.com/BSports/status/360824696796741634 align=’center’]
