I think all Cardinals fans can say that they were excited by Jason Motte's debut last season with the Birds on Bat.  It is not every day that you see such raw cheese being tossed by a pitcher, let alone one that suits up for Dave Duncan's Pitch to Contact Army.  He and Chris Perez look like they could be a two-headed relief monster for years.  However, the biggest knock on Mr. Motte has always been the fact that he really only throws one pitch: that upper-90's fastball. 

While watching the Rays dramatic rise through the playoffs, one figure in their bullpen really caught my eye: Grant Balfour.  Balfour is sort of a wiry bloke from the Land Down-Under (I wonder if that is his warm up song? Maybe it should be!) who has the arm that allows him to throw a strawberry through a freight train and the brain that makes him try to do it on every single pitch.  Fun guy to watch, for sure. 

I know I can't be the only person who saw similarities between these two...so let's take a look...

How did these guys get here?

Grant Balfour made his major league debut in 2001 with the Twins.  His 2.2 innings there did not go well, recording as many bombs as K's (2 of each).  He popped back in with the Twins for 26 innings in '03 and 39.1 more in '04.  He walked a lot of guys (35), but also struck out a bunch too (72).  He wasn't terrible, but I'm sure his propensity to walk guys drove managers nuts and made it difficult to toss him out there in relief appearances with much confidence.  He then got hurt, played in the Reds and Brewers organizations, and continued his anti-Sonnanstine ways by walking and K'ing a whole bunch of hitters.  He reappeared in majors with the Brewers in 2007 after shredding AAA (a 2.11 FIP and 4.27 K/BB ratio), but was DFA'd and traded to Tampa Bay for Seth McClung that same season.  His overall 2007 didn't seem much different from the rest of his career...lots of K's, lots of walks.  Once again, his FIP wasn't bad, but when you walk a bunch of dudes it's kind of hard to put you into the game as a reliever.  Let's just say that the nickname "Ball-Four" Balfour fit.

I think we all know how his 2008 season went, however.  He was simply brilliant.  Glancing at his numbers, the biggest key to his success was a dramatic decrease in his walks.  He was still walking 3.7 hitters/9, however that was a massive improvement for him compared to his career major league numbers.  His K/BB ratio was 3.42 and he posted a 2.22 FIP to go witih a nifty 1.54 ERA.  His K numbers were astounding, as they'd always been, recording 82 K's in 58.1 innings pitched.  His playoff performance wasn't great, as he walked 8 guys in 8.2 innings and gave up 2 home runs.  However, his brilliance during the season was a big part of the Rays success.  If he maintains low walk-rates, he should expect to be a pretty solid set-up guy and spot-closer from here on out.

Motte's story is better known around these parts, so I'll be more brief (insert sounds of readers applauding).  Basically he didn't hit much as a catcher, so they converted his live arm to the mound and it's been pretty successful to this point.  He's shown okay-to-very good control and a live fastball in the upper-90's.  A slider became his second pitch, but wasn't much of one.  As our very own azruavatar noted on July 21st, it doesn't move too terribly much horizontally.  He made his major league debut on September 3rd against Arizona and compiled an 0.82 ERA and 1.04 FIP over 11 innings.  His K/BB numbers were 16/3.

Are they really that similar?

The first question in any comparison is this question: are you comparing apples to apples, apples to some other kind of fruit, like a pomegranate or something?  To answer this, I looked at fangraph's pitch-type data for both Balfour and Motte.  There is a caveat that Balfour's data is based on a small sample of his total pitches, but I can't imagine that his pitching style is all that different over the course of a season. Here are the links, as I am quite dumb and can't seem to make a functional table:

Balfour

Motte

As you can see, they both throw a ton of fastballs.  Balfour uses his at a slightly higher percentage (91.3 percent compared to 89.4), but for all intents and purposes they are basically fastball specialists.  Motte's is harder at 96.6 mph on average, compared to 94.6 for Balfour.  Motte also uses his main secondary pitch, a slider, at a higher percentage than Balfour does.  Both use a third pitch (splitter for Motte and deuce for Balfour) sparingly.  Also, given that neither's secondary offering is particularly good, it is fair to say that these guys are pretty similar pitchers.  Both are apples, and neither is a pomegranate.  

Where do these guys go from here?

Balfour is an interesting case.  The BB rates he posted last year were the best of his Major League career by quite a bit, although he posted similar rates in the minors in 2007.  He was also a bit lucky in the BABIP category, but unlucky in 2007, which may have also hurt his cause that season.  This is his BABIP graph if anyone is curious.  I think from a development standpoint, the almost-31 year old Aussie is pretty much what he's going to be at this point.  The guy throws chedd, but also has a nasty history of walking people and other command issues.  If he should revert back to that dude, then it could get ugly again.  He's a one-pitch guy, and if that one pitch should elude him than he's up a certain creek.  However, that is one pretty good pitch.  Teams had to know that was what he was coming with, and yet no one could do much about it this season. 

Motte seems to be the same pitcher as Balfour at this point.  He's developed into what Balfour is, if that makes any sense at all.  He basically has two options from this point on: stick to that one pitch with a show-me slider and improve the command of that electic fastball, or develop that slider more.  He throws the slider very hard (88 according to FanGraphs' data), so that counts for something.  However, it's a pretty straight pitch.  That won't work so well as a true-second offering.  If that pitch develops into a viable second-pitch, however, than Motte should be a pretty tough guy to hit.  If not, then he'll be like Balfour is now...totally reliant on his ability to command his overpowering fastball. 

Sources

Here are these two flamethrowers' profiles at fangraphs.com.  That is a great resource, and if you haven't checked it out (which I doubt for most VEB members) it is a true treasure-chest of data.

Jason Motte

Grant Balfour

I was also a bit unsure of some of the background info on Balfour, so I went to the source of all that is true and verified and peer-reviewed...Wikipedia.  I just failed in life and should return my history degree as of 26 minutes ago, the exact point at which most people probably bailed on this behemoth of a post.