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On the impending Mark Melancon crisis

You, as a Pirate fan, have almost certainly seen some of the things being written about Mark Melancon’s alarmingly decreased velocity to open the 2015 season. I’m a little behind on this one (I apologize that I’m just getting to this now, I’m awfully crunched for time at the moment between TAing and trying to not be a grad student anymore), but it’s pretty easy to display how stark the situation is:

melancon velocity 2015 jpg

Over at Bucs Dugout, Joshua Choudhury has a good rundown of the situation, why it’s an almost immediate concern (fastball velocity stabilizes quickly) and why it might not be an outright disaster (Melancon’s release point has changed a lot since last year).