What i love about your content is that you provide data that no one else does, not even Fangraphs or PitcherList! Im an absolute nerd over poring through their articles and datasheets, but your content scratches an itch that I can't satisfy anywhere else
Really appreciate that. FanGraphs and Pitcher List do awesome stuff. I’m continually jealous of the stuff they post haha so I have to disagree with you there 😂
Just wanted to hop in and comment that Pitcher List *does* have short form pitch movement, broken out by pitch type on our player pages! On a pitch type's Stuff tab, they're listed as "iVB" (induced Vertical Break) and iHB (induced Horizontal Break). This was a new addition this offseason, but they're up and running now.
Yeah I think Brooks has plots but I believe they used a slightly different measure of movement so the numbers are slightly lower. Not exactly what’s used most often internally by teams.
Thanks Lance! You always have a thoughtful process. This vid helps explain why I'm struggling to add a sweeping slider to my arsenal. I'm a RHP who's over the top -- 3/4. My 4-seam is very good and has ride and a little cut, I mix that with a seam shifted 1-seam sinker (natural 2seam grip, torque it then creep up on the ball and rip down on outside seam with middle finger), and a top spin spike curveball. I've tried to throw something that fits between the mix I have, and plays well with the sinker, and all I can muster in practice is a (0,9) gyro cutter, and a (-3,0) splitter. Could I play around with something to support more glove side movement or am I most likely cursed with bullet balls? How can I throw my seam shift sinker and translate that to a seam shifted sweeping slider without sacrificing tunneling?
Appreciate it man. I’m not totally comfortable giving advice on coaching like this unfortunately! I’ve never worked with athletes and there are much better people out there to inform you. Best of luck this year. 🤙 Your point about tunneling is a good one though! It’s something that I think about a lot and don’t really have an answer to. But I’ll likely be posting something on this soon I think.
All good man, I wasn't expecting a magical fix all tip or anything, but I would love to learn how different variations of slider are created while having a consistent release. Someone like Sonny Gray comes to mind@@LanceBroz
Can someone explain why it’s so hard to convey movement on camera? I had a guy I worked with who played low level Single A ball pitch to me once and it was insane and absolutely terrifying how much the ball moved . Yet on TV or even bullpen videos with these MLB pitchers who are far above this guys level the ball doesn’t seem to move much. Closest I’ve seen is that Yu Darvish slider video. It would’ve been so cool to get a batters eye view of what a Mo cutter would look like.
Haha I think it has a lot to do with camera angles. It’s really important to get out and watch games from scout seats, directly behind home, to see movement. I think we also just intake things differently two dimensionally. Never going to be able to replicate, even with VR
Kind of a silly question but where do knuckleballs fall on this plot? Are they all over the place or do they tend to stay at one point of the plot? Also does Tyler Rogers pitches move the same as others, given the seams, or are they inverted because of the delivery? I never realized until you had the plot up and watching pitchers delivery but the plots kind of mirror them. Logan Webb has the funky side to side delivery. Same with Houck, whereas Glasnow is pretty much north to south.
Yeah, they really do mirror the delivery. Which is where it gets interesting when you see things that are a bit out of the ordinary - like a north-south guy throwing a sweeper (Nick Pivetta). Not silly! Knuckleballs are extremely inefficient pitches, they don’t spin, so they generally hang around the center, but there is some variance because the movement is so random. They’re kind of like splitters in their variance but more radical. The further you go from the center, the more spin-induced movement you have, and therefore the more efficiency you have. So knuckleballs will never get into like fastball or curveball territory. They’ll be mostly around the gyro slider / changeup / splitter area. Rogers’ plot makes no sense. His slider is top left quadrant and sinker is where Glasnow’s curveball is. He’s so under the ball on the slider that it lifts like crazy. And yet he gets drop on his sinker because of his release and the orientation. Would’ve been a fun one to show. True outlier. Probably would’ve been more confusing than anything though if I’m being honest. 😂
@@LanceBrozI’m a Red Sox fan. When Pivetta talked about adding a sweeper I was skeptical. I will say tho, he had a weird year. Going into spring training he was scrapping his 12-6 for a slurve to try to get a few more mph on his breaking ball. Then he got crushed out of the rotation and had to start over. Getting the sweeper meant he could bring back his curveball. I wonder if his grip placement is a little inverted to help his delivery. The knuckleball stuff makes sense because it has even less rpm than splitters. And so does the Rogers stuff because announcers say it’s the only pitch in baseball that truly rises. Thanks for the response! You’ve got great content
9:01 Is it any harder to command an arsenal of pitches like this where they are all over the place both vertically and horizontally? Thinking about the comments at 4:30 with "aiming" pitches, it seems like it would be easier if you could focus more on a single plane. For example, Glasnow's muscle memory for horizontal "aiming" could carry over from his fastball to both the slider and curve, since they are all riding that zero line. Obviously that is a gross oversimplification of an extremely complex idea, but I was curious if there is any sort of truth to it. If so, it kinda makes me think Kirby is a robot. Also I have used that pitch leaderboard a ton because it makes VAA and extension so easy to find along with movement and RPM. Specifically VAA can be a major pain to find so it was an instant bookmark. Dope vid btw!
Thanks! Yeah, I think there’s some merit to that idea. Simply because there’s some very crude research that states it’s harder to control breaking ball with more movement. So the further you go from the center of the plot (gyro), in theory, the harder it would be to command Therefore guys who have good carry fastballs, changeups and short sliders would likely have an easy time being “control” pitchers. Think deGrom here. Kirby is a robot, yes. There are obviously exceptions here, probably a ton of them.
Babe wake up, new Lance breakdown just dropped
this is such a good breakdown, this should be mandatory watching for any modern baseball fan wanting to get into how teams think now
Appreciate it!
What i love about your content is that you provide data that no one else does, not even Fangraphs or PitcherList! Im an absolute nerd over poring through their articles and datasheets, but your content scratches an itch that I can't satisfy anywhere else
Really appreciate that.
FanGraphs and Pitcher List do awesome stuff. I’m continually jealous of the stuff they post haha so I have to disagree with you there 😂
Just wanted to hop in and comment that Pitcher List *does* have short form pitch movement, broken out by pitch type on our player pages! On a pitch type's Stuff tab, they're listed as "iVB" (induced Vertical Break) and iHB (induced Horizontal Break). This was a new addition this offseason, but they're up and running now.
Aye! Sick, I didn’t know that actually. I’ve seen you post player pages on Twitter just wasn’t sure if they were publicly available. Great to hear. 👍
I wanna see a submariner's short form pitch plot.
Or an eephus just to vertically-break the chart.
this was excellent and just what I needed!
Interesting- Thanks!
Good shit as always
What about brooks baseball? Doesn’t that also have plots? Maybe it’s including gravity but I’ve for sure used brooks baseball for pitching graphs
Yeah I think Brooks has plots but I believe they used a slightly different measure of movement so the numbers are slightly lower. Not exactly what’s used most often internally by teams.
Thanks Lance! You always have a thoughtful process. This vid helps explain why I'm struggling to add a sweeping slider to my arsenal.
I'm a RHP who's over the top -- 3/4. My 4-seam is very good and has ride and a little cut, I mix that with a seam shifted 1-seam sinker (natural 2seam grip, torque it then creep up on the ball and rip down on outside seam with middle finger), and a top spin spike curveball. I've tried to throw something that fits between the mix I have, and plays well with the sinker, and all I can muster in practice is a (0,9) gyro cutter, and a (-3,0) splitter. Could I play around with something to support more glove side movement or am I most likely cursed with bullet balls? How can I throw my seam shift sinker and translate that to a seam shifted sweeping slider without sacrificing tunneling?
Appreciate it man. I’m not totally comfortable giving advice on coaching like this unfortunately! I’ve never worked with athletes and there are much better people out there to inform you. Best of luck this year. 🤙
Your point about tunneling is a good one though! It’s something that I think about a lot and don’t really have an answer to. But I’ll likely be posting something on this soon I think.
All good man, I wasn't expecting a magical fix all tip or anything, but I would love to learn how different variations of slider are created while having a consistent release. Someone like Sonny Gray comes to mind@@LanceBroz
Also look at Bennet Sousa's savant page and his slider movement
Can someone explain why it’s so hard to convey movement on camera? I had a guy I worked with who played low level Single A ball pitch to me once and it was insane and absolutely terrifying how much the ball moved . Yet on TV or even bullpen videos with these MLB pitchers who are far above this guys level the ball doesn’t seem to move much. Closest I’ve seen is that Yu Darvish slider video. It would’ve been so cool to get a batters eye view of what a Mo cutter would look like.
Haha I think it has a lot to do with camera angles. It’s really important to get out and watch games from scout seats, directly behind home, to see movement.
I think we also just intake things differently two dimensionally. Never going to be able to replicate, even with VR
Kind of a silly question but where do knuckleballs fall on this plot? Are they all over the place or do they tend to stay at one point of the plot? Also does Tyler Rogers pitches move the same as others, given the seams, or are they inverted because of the delivery?
I never realized until you had the plot up and watching pitchers delivery but the plots kind of mirror them. Logan Webb has the funky side to side delivery. Same with Houck, whereas Glasnow is pretty much north to south.
Yeah, they really do mirror the delivery. Which is where it gets interesting when you see things that are a bit out of the ordinary - like a north-south guy throwing a sweeper (Nick Pivetta).
Not silly! Knuckleballs are extremely inefficient pitches, they don’t spin, so they generally hang around the center, but there is some variance because the movement is so random. They’re kind of like splitters in their variance but more radical.
The further you go from the center, the more spin-induced movement you have, and therefore the more efficiency you have. So knuckleballs will never get into like fastball or curveball territory. They’ll be mostly around the gyro slider / changeup / splitter area.
Rogers’ plot makes no sense. His slider is top left quadrant and sinker is where Glasnow’s curveball is.
He’s so under the ball on the slider that it lifts like crazy. And yet he gets drop on his sinker because of his release and the orientation.
Would’ve been a fun one to show. True outlier. Probably would’ve been more confusing than anything though if I’m being honest. 😂
@@LanceBrozI’m a Red Sox fan. When Pivetta talked about adding a sweeper I was skeptical. I will say tho, he had a weird year. Going into spring training he was scrapping his 12-6 for a slurve to try to get a few more mph on his breaking ball. Then he got crushed out of the rotation and had to start over. Getting the sweeper meant he could bring back his curveball. I wonder if his grip placement is a little inverted to help his delivery.
The knuckleball stuff makes sense because it has even less rpm than splitters. And so does the Rogers stuff because announcers say it’s the only pitch in baseball that truly rises. Thanks for the response! You’ve got great content
9:01 Is it any harder to command an arsenal of pitches like this where they are all over the place both vertically and horizontally? Thinking about the comments at 4:30 with "aiming" pitches, it seems like it would be easier if you could focus more on a single plane. For example, Glasnow's muscle memory for horizontal "aiming" could carry over from his fastball to both the slider and curve, since they are all riding that zero line. Obviously that is a gross oversimplification of an extremely complex idea, but I was curious if there is any sort of truth to it. If so, it kinda makes me think Kirby is a robot.
Also I have used that pitch leaderboard a ton because it makes VAA and extension so easy to find along with movement and RPM. Specifically VAA can be a major pain to find so it was an instant bookmark. Dope vid btw!
Thanks!
Yeah, I think there’s some merit to that idea. Simply because there’s some very crude research that states it’s harder to control breaking ball with more movement. So the further you go from the center of the plot (gyro), in theory, the harder it would be to command
Therefore guys who have good carry fastballs, changeups and short sliders would likely have an easy time being “control” pitchers. Think deGrom here.
Kirby is a robot, yes. There are obviously exceptions here, probably a ton of them.
11:54 lol
Oh man, can’t believe i missed that edit…
Easter egg for those who watch the whole video, I guess! 😂
We've all done it!