Fifth video. Watched and listened to baseball for decades before I learned that a sinker is a fastball! I heard about rising fastballs - supposedly, Bob Gibson threw one. But I also heard that physicists insisted that gravity would make a rising fastball impossible. Your video here gave me a better grasp. All fastballs drop, but spin rate determines how fast they drop. The harder thrown heaters spin faster and resist the downpull more than the average delivery, or the even slower RPM sinker. I think I've got it! Thank you!
Exactly! This is a tough concept for many people to grasp in the beginning, but once that lightbulb goes off it all makes sense. Thanks for the comment 👍🏻
This video is the best explanation of Spin Rate and the relationship to pitch movement and the physics behind it. Physics can be tough to understand. You made is "Simple". Thanks a million. By the way what doodle tool do you use to create these great illustrations? I would love to get it for my marketing department and training team at EMMsphere.
Thanks for the comment, Chris! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the channel. The animation software I use is called VideoScribe. It’s super intuitive and easy to use.
Semantic question: Why is it called revolutions (instead of rotations) per minute? As far as I know, in science a revolution is one thing moving around another, while rotation is moving around its own axis. The baseball is moving around itself, so why is it revolutions instead of rotations?
This is a great question - something I believe has come up with other metrics as well! For example, spin axis refers to the direction the ball is spinning (not the points in which the ball is revolving around). I believe there may not be a quality answer as for why these metrics are called what they are - but you do raise a good point!
Funny, I was just trying to explain the word "revolution" to my son, and thinking about the revolution the earth takes around the sun. But then I thought, that's different than a revolution of a baseball. I think at the end of the day, the meaning of "revolution" just means the measure of revolving. So a fan can revolve slowly around it's axis, as can a baseball. Or the earth can revolve around the sun.
As an individual pitcher’s velocity increases, there is a positive correlation with their spin rate. Aka when a pitcher throws harder, their spin rate increases. However, that does not mean that pitchers who throw higher velocities ALWAYS have a higher spin rate. Spin rate (currently) cannot be trained or increased substantially legally. It’s a lot like a fingerprint, everyone is unique. Thanks for the awesome comment - hope this helps!
Where should people with average spin rate attack? Also are there instances were people with high spin rates attack better lower, and people with lower spin rates attack better higher in the zone?
This is a very interesting idea, I’m not sure if anybody has done something like this before - and after a little bit of searching I wasn’t able to find anything on it either. Definitely something to look into, thanks for the comment Michael!
Fifth video. Watched and listened to baseball for decades before I learned that a sinker is a fastball! I heard about rising fastballs - supposedly, Bob Gibson threw one. But I also heard that physicists insisted that gravity would make a rising fastball impossible.
Your video here gave me a better grasp. All fastballs drop, but spin rate determines how fast they drop. The harder thrown heaters spin faster and resist the downpull more than the average delivery, or the even slower RPM sinker. I think I've got it! Thank you!
Exactly! This is a tough concept for many people to grasp in the beginning, but once that lightbulb goes off it all makes sense. Thanks for the comment 👍🏻
This video is the best explanation of Spin Rate and the relationship to pitch movement and the physics behind it. Physics can be tough to understand. You made is "Simple". Thanks a million. By the way what doodle tool do you use to create these great illustrations? I would love to get it for my marketing department and training team at EMMsphere.
Thanks for the comment, Chris! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the channel. The animation software I use is called VideoScribe. It’s super intuitive and easy to use.
Semantic question: Why is it called revolutions (instead of rotations) per minute?
As far as I know, in science a revolution is one thing moving around another, while rotation is moving around its own axis. The baseball is moving around itself, so why is it revolutions instead of rotations?
This is a great question - something I believe has come up with other metrics as well!
For example, spin axis refers to the direction the ball is spinning (not the points in which the ball is revolving around).
I believe there may not be a quality answer as for why these metrics are called what they are - but you do raise a good point!
Funny, I was just trying to explain the word "revolution" to my son, and thinking about the revolution the earth takes around the sun. But then I thought, that's different than a revolution of a baseball.
I think at the end of the day, the meaning of "revolution" just means the measure of revolving.
So a fan can revolve slowly around it's axis, as can a baseball.
Or the earth can revolve around the sun.
Does higher velocity lead to higher spin rate or vise versa, or very minimal to no correlation between the two at all? Thanks for the great content
As an individual pitcher’s velocity increases, there is a positive correlation with their spin rate. Aka when a pitcher throws harder, their spin rate increases.
However, that does not mean that pitchers who throw higher velocities ALWAYS have a higher spin rate. Spin rate (currently) cannot be trained or increased substantially legally. It’s a lot like a fingerprint, everyone is unique.
Thanks for the awesome comment - hope this helps!
Where should people with average spin rate attack? Also are there instances were people with high spin rates attack better lower, and people with lower spin rates attack better higher in the zone?
Is there any correlation between higher/lower spin rates and higher/lower ERA or FIP?
This is a very interesting idea, I’m not sure if anybody has done something like this before - and after a little bit of searching I wasn’t able to find anything on it either.
Definitely something to look into, thanks for the comment Michael!
Simple Sabermetrics For sure! Thanks for looking into it. Happy to chat offline as well! Love the videos also. Please keep them coming!