Видео

That’s why I enjoy thinking about these things! There is no one answer

Ok, lots of questions here, my comments… A) on Cortes, it’s hard enough for most to repeat one set of mechanics. I think pitchers who are generally mediocre need more because their command or stuff alone isn’t enough B) the inherent volatility of a knuckleball makes it difficult to suggest, teach and then throw. I would love to see more, but I’m afraid it’s too galaxy brain for coaches and orgs to push C) the inherent issue with increasing tunneling is that you’re saying for the most part you want the pitches either 1) moving less or 2) located closer together in the zone. Both of which take away from trying to create diversity or location and stuff models prizing good stuff I really think the phrase tunneling is overused. It’s really just command on an aggregate basis. But in individual batter v pitcher matchups it does exist. I just don’t think people are talking about it that way

​@@LanceBroz A) Well yea, but realistically, if you want to make it out of AA without having any notable metrics you have to figure something else out, and at that point it is almost a full time career so you have time. Anything that can mess up batters timing, reduce their ability to track and predict your pitches is going to be deception more then anything else. B) The thing is, if the knuckleball sees a resurgence and ever becomes prevalent, the pitch itself will die because counter measures and stats will be used to make it useless. If like 30-40% of the league threw it, you would just end up in a position where there would be enough data that you could reliably predict its trajectory changes based on seam position assuming your eyesight is good enough, which at an MLB level I would hope its close. The knuckleball itself is ultimately explained to a degree through seam shifted wake, and this comes into play with the tunneling I am talking about it to. C) I am a sports science student, in all the instances I have seen tunneling used it means that the pitches run down the same path or 'tunnel' initially and then break away at a certain point. So your fast ball and your splitter may be in the exact same spot for 2/3rds of the travel time before separating apart from each other. The purpose of this is both of these pitches look the exact same to the batter and they have to 'guess' or follow the seams with their eyes to hit correctly, which is more cognitive load reducing their chance of hitting perfectly. This is part of seam shifted wake, where you can control how late or early your pitches start to break which is using the seams more then the hand itself to create baseball movement which allows you to throw multiple pitches with less grip variation. Over time, pitchers will slide far more into movement based on pitch axis as its easier to hide and reduce indicators for batters then what is traditionally used. Deception gets a lot of focus from pitchers right now, but it is more heavily focused on pitch mix, batter weaknesses, swing tendencies and catcher placement. The level some catchers are at and their ability to get reliable strike calls out of the zone through positioning can be more impactful then anything a pitcher does, and could in many ways be considered part of 'pitcher deception'.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing. Do you think this is because (from my understanding) the arm doesn’t bend in cricket? So the release points are perhaps more gathered making the path more consistent than in baseball where there’s layback of the arm prior to ball release? 🤔

This was relayed along to me by an individual in an org. I checked with a few others after your comment and the consensus that you need high hip mobility and that it doesn’t need to be IR or ER specific. The best comment I got was something along the lines of, “I wouldn’t know without screening the athlete/pelvic anatomy can vary widely so it depends on the individual. Unsure if that helps, but I probably would’ve reworded what I said to be more general in terms of saying ER specific. I’m not the biggest mechanics guy, so definitely still learning

@@LanceBroz I’m in PT school so I’m studying the names of movement and this is a tricky one! But a pitcher would be rotating his acetabulum on his fixed femoral head. Closed chain concave on convex. Thus same side roll and glide arthrokinematics. Osteokinematically, it’s Internal rotation 👍🏽 Either way you slice it, a pitcher needs good hip mobility and strength

Sewald is a great example. He is a classic low slot ride guy like a Joe Ryan or Bryan Woo. All creating a shape hitters aren’t used to from their arm angle.

m.ruclips.net/user/shortsfNtv6W8V4mk Found where he said it

Great point, thanks for bringing it up. It raises a couple thoughts in my head (in no way refuting May, but purely trying to think it through)... 1) I'm somewhat skeptical that *every* hitter does this every pitch? sounds a bit like purely tipping 2) Even if 1 is true, can hitters ID it within a given pitch such that they can react to it? 3) If I'm wrong with 1+2, then I guess it's an argument that it's all about pitch movement rather than anything happening in the release At the end of the day, it's probably a mix of everything that changes balance based on a given pitcher (lol)

@@LanceBroz Even then, if players are doing this on every pitch, that's where Max Bay's tweets come into play. I follow him and have seen him posting them often. If a hitter may know what pitch is coming, they still don't know location, plus if the pitch is moving more than "expected" or is a really good pitch, they still have to make contact. Knowing the pitch does not equal success of course. Love this point though and would love if you made a follow up video about what you've learned from community engagement and speaking with those in the industry about this subject! Fantastic work as always Lance!

Good note on Ryan! I didn't know that about him. Probably helps to have that and the ability to ride the ball from his slot. I don't think hiding the ball has any relation to command, but I could be swayed perhaps. Most poor command guys skew towards being hard throwers and most of those guys probably need a lower level of "deception" for things to work if that makes sense.

He's the huge favorite right now, I think he's got it locked up

I think the phrase tunneling is widely overused because to tunnel you’re talking about a) pitches that move more like one another or b) are located closer together in the zone. Both of those compete against location and shape diversity (the latter connecting to stuff, which likes hard, big shapes). On an individual game or batter basis, I believe tunneling is very important. But on the aggregate level, I think for the most part it’s a bit overrated. I really think we’re just talking about command

Yep, release height differentials is interesting. I think a lot of sharper folks say it doesn't really matter, but you see guys like Caden Dana come up with big release differentials and it makes me think otherwise. Perhaps one of those things that matters in the specific but is selection-biased out of most MLB pitchers

@@LanceBrozsure some people will say it doesn’t matter, most people will also say you can get outs without being deceptive… but I think subconsciously hitters can definitely pick up on varying release heights which is the opposite of deception

I made one about why he struggled during the middle of the year 😂 - ruclips.net/user/shortsPD97PKH0lnc?feature=share I want more slider and less curveball personally

@@LanceBroz yeah I saw that it was really good, I’m not an expert so I don’t really know what changed but he’s had 3 straight great starts

Lol 😂 while I love that idea, the key is probably having coaches who can speak both player and R&D Make actionable things a pitcher can digest rather than crushing them with numbers

🫡🫡🫡

I don’t follow the frontier league unfortunately, sorry

@@LanceBroz all good just was curious

Thanks! It’s unfortunately not public, I get it from a source in an organization

I think the industry does a really good job of ID’ing which pitching prospects have a chance to be frontline types. And there are less pure misses up in that tier But I do agree that beyond the top ~10 or so, it really turns into a flat tier. And guys pop up all the time who we didn’t project as having a high level of upside (Schwellenbach is a good example).

Lance we need a breakdown of those factors! Like only you can

Thanks! 👍

Obviously not this good, yeah. Sub 2.5 ERA over a multi-year stretch is basically impossible unless you’re deGrom/Kershaw. I think his mix is solid, wish his breakers were harder, but the splitter is really tying things together. He’s probably a league average SP or slightly better (which is a compliment).

Thanks! I wrote about him in my substack. I’ll consider tossing him into an upcoming video 👍

Appreciate that! And yep, this one has more of other people in it, but I’ll be in all of my own vids. Super important to me from a brand growth standpoint 👍

Thanks!

I think for the most part fatigue isn't as much of a factor with starting pitchers as people think. Most of the third time through the order penalty is due to pitch familiarity. Starters who get fatigued are pulled pretty quickly, no longer are starters, etc With that being said, I don't believe the numbers in terms of miss are fatigue adjusted. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some correlation there to a great chance for a "mistake" pitch. Just don't think it's a major factor in this macro analysis.

Or at the very least is going to give you a very noisy data set.

Maybe I didn't make it clear in the video, but intended target isn't purely where the glove is, it's where they believed the ball was intended to be thrown. There's obviously some error in it, but some information is better than no information.

@@LanceBroz No doubt, but as you allude to in your video a facility like Driveline can just confirm this through doing an in house study. My only 2 cents is that when they do their command training they should have some sort of batter. Live or dummy in the box. IMO perception really shapes command. Example guy dots up in the bull pen then gets into the game and can’t find the zone. Flip side guy can find the zone in the pen breaking ball has bad shape then you put a batter in there (usually a specific handed batter) and all of a sudden he can find the zone and the shape is good too.

Did you even watch the video, yes that is a good strategy but Skubal nor the video was talking about splitting the zone. Its about your natural miss direction.

Fixed 🙃

Not public unfortunately, I got it from a source inside an organization

🫡🫡🫡

🙌🙌🙌

🫡🫡🫡

He’s just outside the t20 The differences between like 11 and 30 are small, all same tier I’m lower on him relative to the industry though. His fastball isn’t that great. His secondaries are getting insane whiff numbers. It’s results over stuff. And I tend to lean more heavily on underlying shapes

@@LanceBroz I gotcha