Sry for commenting on everything, im binging your stuff. Halladay also said his switch to a heavy reliance on cutter+sinker instead of his fastball+changeup had a lot to do with his shoulder issues
This is one of your best videos, and that's saying something. Fantastic stuff, very well explained. I've been wondering this or things of the sort ever since Logan Webb broke out by radically altering his mechanics and becoming the most extreme east-west starter in MLB. Like you, I would hope that the order of this developmental question is very much body - throw - shapes, although that's reliant on guys actually throwing the way they should and not having learned some unnatural patterns, which may go back to well before they were pros.
Thanks! Appreciate that. I think most orgs believe it’s body - throw - shapes. But I’ve run into a lot of conversations where that’s preached and then not executed. Kind of like the “we develop all guys to their strengths!” Idea in development. Cool and logical, but hard. Might be the case here, I hypothesize. Would love to care about the body first, but when your task is make a bunch of MLB arms and you have a stuff model you believe in, might have to take a casualty in a guy who can’t get to big sweep by just forcing him to try to get to big sweep and breaking him.
@@LanceBrozhow much do we even know about the "natural" strengths or movements of someone's body? A guy who was taught to throw north/south, might actually be optimized as a 3/4ths pitcher, etc. So how does a team even try to build from body-throw-shapes? Other than looking at limb length, structure of the hips, etc. I don't know what you could measure physically which would tell you a guy's potential for certain combinations of throw-shapes
I think his biomechanics and pitches changed in tandem. Logan is very very analytical in his pitching. He's got that pitching coach in Florida he goes to all the time. Either 710 or Seattle Times had an article about him and how seriously he takes his biomechanics with all his pitching toys he brings for warm up and cool down and stuff.
Yeah, he’s super sharp. Can tell just from PitchingNinja’s interview with him That’s why I inserted the part about he/the Mariners probably knowing what’s best for him on the movement side of things. 👍
I'd agree with you on the body-throw-shape. I think biomech data is starting to give teams the ability to understand each individual pitcher's range of outcomes for what they are capable of regarding pitch shapes based on how they move, then the coaches can attempt to alter grips, cues, etc in order to attempt to achieve the desired outcome that's within each pitcher's realm of possibility. And I think that's the smart/optimal way to do it? With that being said, I think often times teams might also target larger-scale biomech changes if they believe it'll be better for the pitcher long-term from a health, efficiency, or overall arsenal quality standpoint. And I think there is such thing as small-scale movement changes that attempt to bridge that gap, helping a pitcher increase velocity or change shape with a specific pitch in the instances when grip changes and cues don't work, and doing so without impacting the rest of the arsenal dramatically. But I think it becomes difficult because, very frequently, attempting to alter one pitch DOES end up affecting one or more of the other pitches in an arsenal. It's a difficult tradeoff to navigate! In Gilbert's case, I would guess the Mariners saw the potential for the Cutter addition and Sweeper change based on his current biomech characteristics, then identified movement changes would result from adding these two pitches, and then determined they were ok with the tradeoff in movement changes or that they were so marginal that they weren't worried about it impacting anything else. In this case, the Cutter was especially necessary and beneficial with the undesirable Fastball performance. (I believe you have similar thinking based on what you said in the video) Really interesting stuff! I like those two questions you posed at the end, and would be curious what you hear.
Your thinking lines up with mine pretty nicely here. Not much for me to add apart from saying thanks for the in-depth comment. 👍 Curious to hear what responses are to those questions as well.
My interpretation of the cutter is that it's a 'neutral' pitch. It barely moves, it drops mostly like you would expect, and it's at a speed that is generally right between a four seam fastball and an off speed pitch. In theory, it's the most hittable pitch. However, batters are LOOKING for fastballs that carry and off speeds that break. So by being neutral, the cutter induces a lot of soft contact because hitters think it's either going to be above where it is, or below where it is.
I think there’s some merit to that, sure. I think the risk is just that those pitches which don’t move a ton are often subject to the whims of command. So they run into higher damage-when-in-nitro-zone rates if that makes sense. So in theory they make a lot of sense and seem necessary but we’ve seen a lot of righty cutters just get bludgeoned by lefties and others work. I think this is why we’re seeing a lot of gyro-style cutters that have more drop, so there’s a greater chance for whiffs, even if the command element doesn’t leave, at least the upside is greater.
8:36 I agree that the cutter probably came first, and then mechanics were changed to make it work better. I'm not too concerned with it affecting his 4 seam though, since it was already mediocre last year it can't get much worse. The curve/sweeper usage is pretty interesting, but I do think that is liable to change over the course of the season. Might just be using it to steal strikes for now while other teams aren't expecting it, and could switch it up after that gets stale.
Strider's injury was just a bone fragment that developed back from his 2019 TJ surgery and they said he probably had it since 2022. It just started effecting him this year. His UCL was still in good shape according his interview. Which was why they opted for the internal brace because they normally only opt for it if the UCL isnt all jacked up.
instead of marking pitches on the induced break chart, i’d love if you used a heat map so i can tell if the break is very precise with a few misses, or if it varies a lot
Break plot is showing the movement of the ball. A heatmap is showing where that ball was located. Telling two different stories that are partially related, but stories that should be told independently 👍
@@LanceBroz i know what both are, but on the break plot, i find it difficult to know if they’re throwing the pitch with stable movement that occasionally changes, or if they’re throwing it and sometimes it sweeps 4" more than others, currently, where its most likely, all the pitched overlap eachother so its hard to tell if most of the time it has that movement, or only some of the time, but enough where there’s a ton of dots, another great example of this being a possible issue is on baseball savant, if you look at a starter with a full season of starts and their pitch heat map, then change it to be individual pitches, the same problem occurs where you can’t tell where it is most of the time since the sample is too large and the dots themselves take up too much room
Hey as long as Logan continues to dominate and gives us a great chance to win every 5 days that's all I can ask. He's just that good and not slowing down any time soon. Nice video though!
That’s a “stuff plus” model meaning 100 is the average of whatever they’re measuring, which is more than velocity. That being said, the average is about 94 MPH
Exactly yeah, you have to consider things other than velo in grading a pitch, even if velo is the most important variable. Results prove out is average too, and SEA is telling you it’s average by pulling down the usage
It’s a tough balance because stuff models are historical for the most part, looking at how shapes have done versus hitters. So ascribing value to outliers can’t be dramatic because we don’t exactly know how players would perform versus said outlier. Give it a ton of value? Give it a little? What outlier is it? How much of an outlier is it? I think it’s better to apply adjustments after the fact to Stuff+ based on those outliers than to bake them in.
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High level content. Happy to see you’ve doubled subscribers since I subbed myself. This channel is a gem
Appreciate you coming along for the ride. 🤙
This is EXACTLY the kind of baseball content I’ve been looking for !!!!
Such good depth in information. Not many channels are this well versed. Very excited to see how this content evolves
Appreciate it!
Criminally underrated video
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My favorite channel on RUclips fr
First season I’m trying to get into baseball, your channel will teach me a lot , thank you! Subbed 🎉
Any questions, let me know. My stuff can be dense but trying my best to distill
Great video lance, interesting to see how this change has shifted his results
Sry for commenting on everything, im binging your stuff. Halladay also said his switch to a heavy reliance on cutter+sinker instead of his fastball+changeup had a lot to do with his shoulder issues
No problem haha thanks for binging my stuff!
This is one of your best videos, and that's saying something. Fantastic stuff, very well explained.
I've been wondering this or things of the sort ever since Logan Webb broke out by radically altering his mechanics and becoming the most extreme east-west starter in MLB. Like you, I would hope that the order of this developmental question is very much body - throw - shapes, although that's reliant on guys actually throwing the way they should and not having learned some unnatural patterns, which may go back to well before they were pros.
Thanks! Appreciate that.
I think most orgs believe it’s body - throw - shapes. But I’ve run into a lot of conversations where that’s preached and then not executed. Kind of like the “we develop all guys to their strengths!” Idea in development. Cool and logical, but hard.
Might be the case here, I hypothesize. Would love to care about the body first, but when your task is make a bunch of MLB arms and you have a stuff model you believe in, might have to take a casualty in a guy who can’t get to big sweep by just forcing him to try to get to big sweep and breaking him.
@@LanceBrozhow much do we even know about the "natural" strengths or movements of someone's body? A guy who was taught to throw north/south, might actually be optimized as a 3/4ths pitcher, etc. So how does a team even try to build from body-throw-shapes? Other than looking at limb length, structure of the hips, etc. I don't know what you could measure physically which would tell you a guy's potential for certain combinations of throw-shapes
I think his biomechanics and pitches changed in tandem. Logan is very very analytical in his pitching. He's got that pitching coach in Florida he goes to all the time. Either 710 or Seattle Times had an article about him and how seriously he takes his biomechanics with all his pitching toys he brings for warm up and cool down and stuff.
Yeah, he’s super sharp. Can tell just from PitchingNinja’s interview with him
That’s why I inserted the part about he/the Mariners probably knowing what’s best for him on the movement side of things. 👍
I'd agree with you on the body-throw-shape. I think biomech data is starting to give teams the ability to understand each individual pitcher's range of outcomes for what they are capable of regarding pitch shapes based on how they move, then the coaches can attempt to alter grips, cues, etc in order to attempt to achieve the desired outcome that's within each pitcher's realm of possibility. And I think that's the smart/optimal way to do it?
With that being said, I think often times teams might also target larger-scale biomech changes if they believe it'll be better for the pitcher long-term from a health, efficiency, or overall arsenal quality standpoint.
And I think there is such thing as small-scale movement changes that attempt to bridge that gap, helping a pitcher increase velocity or change shape with a specific pitch in the instances when grip changes and cues don't work, and doing so without impacting the rest of the arsenal dramatically.
But I think it becomes difficult because, very frequently, attempting to alter one pitch DOES end up affecting one or more of the other pitches in an arsenal. It's a difficult tradeoff to navigate!
In Gilbert's case, I would guess the Mariners saw the potential for the Cutter addition and Sweeper change based on his current biomech characteristics, then identified movement changes would result from adding these two pitches, and then determined they were ok with the tradeoff in movement changes or that they were so marginal that they weren't worried about it impacting anything else. In this case, the Cutter was especially necessary and beneficial with the undesirable Fastball performance. (I believe you have similar thinking based on what you said in the video)
Really interesting stuff! I like those two questions you posed at the end, and would be curious what you hear.
Your thinking lines up with mine pretty nicely here. Not much for me to add apart from saying thanks for the in-depth comment. 👍
Curious to hear what responses are to those questions as well.
My interpretation of the cutter is that it's a 'neutral' pitch. It barely moves, it drops mostly like you would expect, and it's at a speed that is generally right between a four seam fastball and an off speed pitch. In theory, it's the most hittable pitch. However, batters are LOOKING for fastballs that carry and off speeds that break. So by being neutral, the cutter induces a lot of soft contact because hitters think it's either going to be above where it is, or below where it is.
I think there’s some merit to that, sure. I think the risk is just that those pitches which don’t move a ton are often subject to the whims of command. So they run into higher damage-when-in-nitro-zone rates if that makes sense.
So in theory they make a lot of sense and seem necessary but we’ve seen a lot of righty cutters just get bludgeoned by lefties and others work.
I think this is why we’re seeing a lot of gyro-style cutters that have more drop, so there’s a greater chance for whiffs, even if the command element doesn’t leave, at least the upside is greater.
8:36 I agree that the cutter probably came first, and then mechanics were changed to make it work better. I'm not too concerned with it affecting his 4 seam though, since it was already mediocre last year it can't get much worse. The curve/sweeper usage is pretty interesting, but I do think that is liable to change over the course of the season. Might just be using it to steal strikes for now while other teams aren't expecting it, and could switch it up after that gets stale.
Yep! I also think the grip he shows at the end is pretty odd for a cutter, which makes me think there’s perhaps a smaller chance it blurs with the 4S.
Strider's injury was just a bone fragment that developed back from his 2019 TJ surgery and they said he probably had it since 2022. It just started effecting him this year. His UCL was still in good shape according his interview. Which was why they opted for the internal brace because they normally only opt for it if the UCL isnt all jacked up.
instead of marking pitches on the induced break chart, i’d love if you used a heat map so i can tell if the break is very precise with a few misses, or if it varies a lot
Break plot is showing the movement of the ball. A heatmap is showing where that ball was located.
Telling two different stories that are partially related, but stories that should be told independently 👍
@@LanceBroz i know what both are, but on the break plot, i find it difficult to know if they’re throwing the pitch with stable movement that occasionally changes, or if they’re throwing it and sometimes it sweeps 4" more than others, currently, where its most likely, all the pitched overlap eachother so its hard to tell if most of the time it has that movement, or only some of the time, but enough where there’s a ton of dots, another great example of this being a possible issue is on baseball savant, if you look at a starter with a full season of starts and their pitch heat map, then change it to be individual pitches, the same problem occurs where you can’t tell where it is most of the time since the sample is too large and the dots themselves take up too much room
Hey as long as Logan continues to dominate and gives us a great chance to win every 5 days that's all I can ask. He's just that good and not slowing down any time soon. Nice video though!
Agreed! He’s a stud
3:39 flat out sickening image.
Sick as in cool? I agree 😉
So 95 is just an average fastball now? Yeah maybe its time to lower the mound again lol.
That’s a “stuff plus” model meaning 100 is the average of whatever they’re measuring, which is more than velocity. That being said, the average is about 94 MPH
Exactly yeah, you have to consider things other than velo in grading a pitch, even if velo is the most important variable.
Results prove out is average too, and SEA is telling you it’s average by pulling down the usage
outlier avgs. should definitely play a role in stuff grade!!
It’s a tough balance because stuff models are historical for the most part, looking at how shapes have done versus hitters. So ascribing value to outliers can’t be dramatic because we don’t exactly know how players would perform versus said outlier.
Give it a ton of value? Give it a little? What outlier is it? How much of an outlier is it?
I think it’s better to apply adjustments after the fact to Stuff+ based on those outliers than to bake them in.