I think of the Maddux Sinker, 4 seam, change-up combo against lefties. Sinker at the batter’s front hip that drifts arm side and clips the inside corner. Then a laser-straight 4-seam that the batter thinks is going to drift away, but is right on the black of the outside corner. Painted. Then a change-up that looks like a strike down the middle, but just dies and they’re either out front on it, or on top of it, or completely frozen by it. I think the 4 seam used that way is completely useful. But, Maddux is Maddux. Asking someone to be like him is asking a lot.
Think you nailed it. When building a pitcher, it's easy to see what could be ideal. But who actually can execute those locations without missing into nitro zones is another story.
Would be interesting to see 4S FB usage split out by starters and relievers. My guess is the drop is more skewed towards starters b/c of their lower velo
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case, FB effectiveness drops a lot under 98mph which most starters don't have. FB's are still good at 99+ but most starters either don't have that or do and are constantly injured.
Was waiting for this video for a little while now. I think your multiplicative analogy is spot on. Offense is always down in April so there is a caveat there but it does seem like pitchers are outthinking hitters rn when they don’t throw fastball as much. Watching the Red Sox I’m seeing Bello throwing my sliders (looks like a cutter to me) earlier in the count when last season it was sinker sinker changeup. Houck/Bello/Whitlock have just gotten rid of the 4 seam entirely, Isaiah Campbell has thrown 5 fastballs and 35 sliders/sweepers. The Bailey effect is in full force rn.
Great concept Lance, I like the idea of repetition and hitters seeing a pitch makes them more used to it. How do you think this correlates with a starter going through the order for a second and third time like the Rays decision to pull the starter because of the hitters projected numbers increasing.
Yeah, I think it’s a pretty fundamental idea to both hitting and pitching that the more a hitter sees a pitcher and a pitch, the better they get against it. I do wonder whether it’s more understanding how the pitcher’s body moves or more familiarity with how their pitches move (likely a combination, more towards the pitch side). So from a planning standpoint. It makes sense to pull a pitcher before that situation. Having a third pitch for each handedness likely helps, but I also wonder how much command helps as well if the mix isn’t deep.
How much do you think the vocabulary change (sinker&2seam) plays into this. Im not sure around what year that happened but what Kevin Brown and Brandon Webb threw in the 90s were called sinkers and even a pitch like Maddux threw was 'just' a 2 seam. I think we still talked about it when Halladay was throwing crazy front hip sinkers to lefties 10 years later? Now it seems that every 2seam is called a sinker. Since practically every 2seam has both run and at least a little bit of drop. Edit: the fact we now differentiate between (gyro) sliders and sweepers will also make comparison in the future more difficult. I mean, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton had what we now call a sweeper. So If were talking best sweepers ever, that means we include the big unit? That feels weird
We just understand more about shapes now than we did back then. It’s very easy to just define a pitch based on the movement of the ball. To me, sinkers have more drop. So we can just set a parameter at which we call everything above and below that given point a sinker or two seam. But we’ve decided that they’re all sinkers for naming purposes, so that’s what the industry rolls with. I think the fact that we can’t totally compare to old pitches 1:1 is fine. I actually like it, preserves the history of the game. We’ll never know exactly how those pitches moved and therefore how to classify them and compare to modern pitches. We can try visually but especially for lefties with offset cameras, I would bet we think they move more than they actually do.
For sure, I think that's inevitable! We're already seeing some sinker increase. I don't think it'll get back to what it was in the 2010s, but I could see it climbing to 20%.
Though the trend start before this year. Could pitch clock be Accelerating the decline of fast pitches. As clubs see injuries increase they are backing off how much they use fast balls?
Yamamoto's fastball went from the elite profile 18vert&14horizontal to 13.9 and 8 in the MLB. Just figured that out the through your video. Any chance you could share your thoughts or look into it? Its basically gone from elite to average
Unsure where you’re getting the 13.9” from, is that the long form movement on savant (includes gravity)? The number I was using removed gravity, known as short-form movement. He was 18.5” vert in NPB He’s at 16.1” vert in MLB So it’s definitely down. Could be a byproduct of the ball primarily, is my guess. Believe I mention this in the Yamamoto video I have from a while back. Can’t be 100% confident with any NPB numbers. But his swing miss from NPB has stayed about the same. I think he’s just pitching down too much. Wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of sinker soon.
@@LanceBroz thanks for replying! I lack the insight to interpret. I indeed got it from Baseball Savant and those indeed do include gravity. I have 2 questions if you don't mind. 1. Do you think the 2.3inches of vertical would make much of a difference stuff-wise if regained? And 2. Does the same thing (using gravity apply to his arm side run? Asking to learn and got into this because I remembered watching your video when I saw him pitch a few days back and thought his fastball just looked different than I remembered. Could be the camera angle ofcourse. Would appreciate a reply but understand if you don't have time to react to such a long post. You're not teaching a class after all. Thanks for all the content btw!
Its hard to say this is unrelated to the injury crisis, right? We know fastballs and particularly high velocity ones are the most dangerous pitch to throw, so using them less makes sense when combined with how solid the contact with a fastball tends to be.
I think the connection is minimal on the injury side. It moreso has to do with your latter point about contact quality. Regardless of injury risk, teams are going to chase the best pitch.
I think death to the fastball is a misleading headline bc really if anything they are making it more prominent. When I read the title I thought no way, most of the highest graded pitches by stuff+ are 4seam fastballs and when I read your title I thought why would you ever get rid of your fastball. The best pitch will always be a well placed fastball, but in your video you articulated well that the fastball isn’t actually dying, they’re just extracting all of the value they possibly can at a smaller volume. Which in my eyes is giving the fastball value, for only a small percentage of decrease in usage. The pitch is not dying is my point
-don’t see how they’re making it more prominent, they’re literally not using it -highest graded pitches are regularly sliders, unsure what you’re looking at with Stuff+ -if you’re qualifying the “best pitch” based on location, it’s a well-placed slider, data backs this up -agree that most are just focusing on good fastballs at a lower volume. “Bad fastballs are dying” is probably a better title, but that is not nearly as catchy haha
@@LanceBroz I was just trying to say in my eyes I see using the fastball as a “more calculated jab” would make it more effective. You specifically dialed in on behind the count stats in the video but what about when the pitcher is ahead or the count is even. Ofc it makes sense to not throw a fastball when the hitter is looking fastball, but if the hitter is looking fastball 3 straight pitches and gets all off speed, the fastball that comes after that is going to be more effective thus making it a more prominent pitch, a pitch that can catch a player off, just as an inverse to a cutter or a sinker or a changeup. I didn’t have numbers in front of me or anything and you are right sliders and sweepers generally rank amongst the highest but some fastballs can touch the leaderboards Fair on the less catchy title and I appreciate you responding bc I def didn’t think you would
Middle of the video I mention a message from a coach stating that if there aren’t good carry or velo traits on a four-seam, go sinker/don’t use it. Glasnow has both ++ velo and good carry, so this doesn’t really apply to him. There will always be exceptions, doesn’t invalidate the premise
that statement is too general, might be because of higher stress on UCLs because of velo creeping up like crazy. If you want you can find various studies that show how a fastball is as stressful as a breaker, the only pitch with a lower stress is the change up
@@izanmaciasgallardo1658as someone who pitched for quite some time with pretty bad ucl damage, the bit about the changeups is 100% true. I started throwing probably 40-50% various changeups because it would hurt significantly less. The palmball especially was great for that, low effort grip, almost no pain and oddly effective haha.
The FB is still a good pitch at 98+ mph, below that they are too hittable. You can't go out there an expect to consistently blow by guys with 96-97mph anymore, those FBs gotta play off of other pitches. So if a team doesn't have a bunch of 98+ mph guys they gotta rely on other stuff. MLB players these days are too good at hitting FBs.
I think your data has some holes, from all the games I'm watching they are throwing a lot of fastballs, and batters are striking out even more. Now are they throwing them consistently for strikes, nope, but I see a lot of fastballs being thrown, there is no trend towards throwing less fastballs.
@@albaniayeet You know I see a lot of stats being thrown around but no proof where it is coming from, for now I will take it as just talk right now. I'll trust my eyes right now, I've watched a lot of games and I believe teams are still throwing a lot of fastballs just to even counts.
@@jayz25roWhat? We can literally track the pitches being thrown, you’re just straight disregarding data because what you’ve seen says differently lmfao. What a terrible attempt to troll
@@bryanzzz748 No trolling I promise... I just think your a sheep that just goes by whatever someone says, I don't.... not once did this person state that they pulled the data from a database to prove this theory of fastballs descending, but hey if you want to believe him go ahead. You aren't gonna tell me that this person is pulling data straight from the MLB site, because that data is faulty and not good clean data to go by....why ????because with my own eyes I have seen the MLB app say a pitcher is throwing a changeup and I'm watching live on TV it and seen the pitcher throw a slider instead.
@@bryanzzz748 Trolling?...lol not my style buddy! I will say this I work with Data all the time, and what I'm seeing is a lot of talk, just some percentages being thrown to get more views, no pies charts, scatter plots, bubble charts...just percentages being thrown at us just to make himself sound smart, but hey whatever. Got to get some views somehow.
I think of the Maddux Sinker, 4 seam, change-up combo against lefties. Sinker at the batter’s front hip that drifts arm side and clips the inside corner. Then a laser-straight 4-seam that the batter thinks is going to drift away, but is right on the black of the outside corner. Painted. Then a change-up that looks like a strike down the middle, but just dies and they’re either out front on it, or on top of it, or completely frozen by it. I think the 4 seam used that way is completely useful. But, Maddux is Maddux. Asking someone to be like him is asking a lot.
Think you nailed it. When building a pitcher, it's easy to see what could be ideal. But who actually can execute those locations without missing into nitro zones is another story.
George Kirby seems to have the control and command , i think he's just too focused on keeping his velo above 95
@@waxknucklebearingjuice5592if he has the control already why would he also not focus on throwing hard as well…?
Would be interesting to see 4S FB usage split out by starters and relievers. My guess is the drop is more skewed towards starters b/c of their lower velo
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case, FB effectiveness drops a lot under 98mph which most starters don't have. FB's are still good at 99+ but most starters either don't have that or do and are constantly injured.
Was waiting for this video for a little while now. I think your multiplicative analogy is spot on. Offense is always down in April so there is a caveat there but it does seem like pitchers are outthinking hitters rn when they don’t throw fastball as much. Watching the Red Sox I’m seeing Bello throwing my sliders (looks like a cutter to me) earlier in the count when last season it was sinker sinker changeup. Houck/Bello/Whitlock have just gotten rid of the 4 seam entirely, Isaiah Campbell has thrown 5 fastballs and 35 sliders/sweepers. The Bailey effect is in full force rn.
Just fyi to Mr. Bailey there, but the jab is thrown like...a *lot* in a fight. A lot.
Good note, I don't watch much/any boxing.
They are thrown a lot in boxing but as said in the video, they aren’t going to get a knockout
Great concept Lance, I like the idea of repetition and hitters seeing a pitch makes them more used to it. How do you think this correlates with a starter going through the order for a second and third time like the Rays decision to pull the starter because of the hitters projected numbers increasing.
Yeah, I think it’s a pretty fundamental idea to both hitting and pitching that the more a hitter sees a pitcher and a pitch, the better they get against it.
I do wonder whether it’s more understanding how the pitcher’s body moves or more familiarity with how their pitches move (likely a combination, more towards the pitch side).
So from a planning standpoint. It makes sense to pull a pitcher before that situation. Having a third pitch for each handedness likely helps, but I also wonder how much command helps as well if the mix isn’t deep.
Dangit my SF Giants being featured on every strike out clip lol
ixnay ivelinedray
players spending their off-season with driveline has been my fantasy draft day cheat
How much do you think the vocabulary change (sinker&2seam) plays into this. Im not sure around what year that happened but what Kevin Brown and Brandon Webb threw in the 90s were called sinkers and even a pitch like Maddux threw was 'just' a 2 seam. I think we still talked about it when Halladay was throwing crazy front hip sinkers to lefties 10 years later? Now it seems that every 2seam is called a sinker. Since practically every 2seam has both run and at least a little bit of drop.
Edit: the fact we now differentiate between (gyro) sliders and sweepers will also make comparison in the future more difficult. I mean, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton had what we now call a sweeper. So If were talking best sweepers ever, that means we include the big unit? That feels weird
We just understand more about shapes now than we did back then. It’s very easy to just define a pitch based on the movement of the ball.
To me, sinkers have more drop. So we can just set a parameter at which we call everything above and below that given point a sinker or two seam. But we’ve decided that they’re all sinkers for naming purposes, so that’s what the industry rolls with.
I think the fact that we can’t totally compare to old pitches 1:1 is fine. I actually like it, preserves the history of the game. We’ll never know exactly how those pitches moved and therefore how to classify them and compare to modern pitches. We can try visually but especially for lefties with offset cameras, I would bet we think they move more than they actually do.
I wonder if in...30 years, if we'll see some cyclical stuff going on with certain pitches.
For sure, I think that's inevitable! We're already seeing some sinker increase. I don't think it'll get back to what it was in the 2010s, but I could see it climbing to 20%.
Also worth pointy out I think, a lot fastball heavy pitchers are out due to injury
Though the trend start before this year. Could pitch clock be Accelerating the decline of fast pitches. As clubs see injuries increase they are backing off how much they use fast balls?
I think the bigger piece of the puzzle here is that fastballs are allowing the most damage. Probably as simple as that
Yamamoto's fastball went from the elite profile 18vert&14horizontal to 13.9 and 8 in the MLB. Just figured that out the through your video. Any chance you could share your thoughts or look into it? Its basically gone from elite to average
Unsure where you’re getting the 13.9” from, is that the long form movement on savant (includes gravity)?
The number I was using removed gravity, known as short-form movement.
He was 18.5” vert in NPB
He’s at 16.1” vert in MLB
So it’s definitely down. Could be a byproduct of the ball primarily, is my guess. Believe I mention this in the Yamamoto video I have from a while back.
Can’t be 100% confident with any NPB numbers. But his swing miss from NPB has stayed about the same.
I think he’s just pitching down too much. Wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of sinker soon.
@@LanceBroz thanks for replying! I lack the insight to interpret. I indeed got it from Baseball Savant and those indeed do include gravity. I have 2 questions if you don't mind. 1. Do you think the 2.3inches of vertical would make much of a difference stuff-wise if regained? And 2. Does the same thing (using gravity apply to his arm side run? Asking to learn and got into this because I remembered watching your video when I saw him pitch a few days back and thought his fastball just looked different than I remembered. Could be the camera angle ofcourse. Would appreciate a reply but understand if you don't have time to react to such a long post. You're not teaching a class after all. Thanks for all the content btw!
Would love to see repitch data on the rate of throwing the same pitch, maybe even to the same location, 2 + times in a row
Fun idea, I actually don’t even know how to search that publicly. So you have me stumped haha
Its hard to say this is unrelated to the injury crisis, right? We know fastballs and particularly high velocity ones are the most dangerous pitch to throw, so using them less makes sense when combined with how solid the contact with a fastball tends to be.
I think the connection is minimal on the injury side. It moreso has to do with your latter point about contact quality.
Regardless of injury risk, teams are going to chase the best pitch.
I think death to the fastball is a misleading headline bc really if anything they are making it more prominent. When I read the title I thought no way, most of the highest graded pitches by stuff+ are 4seam fastballs and when I read your title I thought why would you ever get rid of your fastball. The best pitch will always be a well placed fastball, but in your video you articulated well that the fastball isn’t actually dying, they’re just extracting all of the value they possibly can at a smaller volume. Which in my eyes is giving the fastball value, for only a small percentage of decrease in usage. The pitch is not dying is my point
-don’t see how they’re making it more prominent, they’re literally not using it
-highest graded pitches are regularly sliders, unsure what you’re looking at with Stuff+
-if you’re qualifying the “best pitch” based on location, it’s a well-placed slider, data backs this up
-agree that most are just focusing on good fastballs at a lower volume. “Bad fastballs are dying” is probably a better title, but that is not nearly as catchy haha
@@LanceBroz I was just trying to say in my eyes I see using the fastball as a “more calculated jab” would make it more effective. You specifically dialed in on behind the count stats in the video but what about when the pitcher is ahead or the count is even. Ofc it makes sense to not throw a fastball when the hitter is looking fastball, but if the hitter is looking fastball 3 straight pitches and gets all off speed, the fastball that comes after that is going to be more effective thus making it a more prominent pitch, a pitch that can catch a player off, just as an inverse to a cutter or a sinker or a changeup.
I didn’t have numbers in front of me or anything and you are right sliders and sweepers generally rank amongst the highest but some fastballs can touch the leaderboards
Fair on the less catchy title and I appreciate you responding bc I def didn’t think you would
I just watched Tyler Glasnow strikeout 14 primarily with his fastball. I'm not so sure about this.
Middle of the video I mention a message from a coach stating that if there aren’t good carry or velo traits on a four-seam, go sinker/don’t use it. Glasnow has both ++ velo and good carry, so this doesn’t really apply to him.
There will always be exceptions, doesn’t invalidate the premise
@@LanceBroz Fair enough.
This really helped them against the Orioles keep throwing Not fastballs please.
😂😂
Four-seams down, TJs up? Could there be any correlation?
that statement is too general, might be because of higher stress on UCLs because of velo creeping up like crazy. If you want you can find various studies that show how a fastball is as stressful as a breaker, the only pitch with a lower stress is the change up
Yeah prolly not
@@izanmaciasgallardo1658as someone who pitched for quite some time with pretty bad ucl damage, the bit about the changeups is 100% true. I started throwing probably 40-50% various changeups because it would hurt significantly less. The palmball especially was great for that, low effort grip, almost no pain and oddly effective haha.
The FB is still a good pitch at 98+ mph, below that they are too hittable. You can't go out there an expect to consistently blow by guys with 96-97mph anymore, those FBs gotta play off of other pitches. So if a team doesn't have a bunch of 98+ mph guys they gotta rely on other stuff. MLB players these days are too good at hitting FBs.
The fastball will never die so long as we allow retaliation from batflips.
Huh?
Dude.
Sinkers ARE fastballs.
yeah, and the Red Sox have sucked the past few years finishing in last place....so it's working very well.
They just got a new pitching coach this year Peter Pan
@@MilkyMoose141 How does that explain last years numbers? Jackass....Sox are not a good team period.
And now that they’re using the new strategy this video is about their starters have the best era in the mlb.
Spoke to soon 7-7 and taking a turn for the worst
Best ERA, 5th best FIP
Record irrelevant here, it’s about what their pitching department is doing
I think your data has some holes, from all the games I'm watching they are throwing a lot of fastballs, and batters are striking out even more. Now are they throwing them consistently for strikes, nope, but I see a lot of fastballs being thrown, there is no trend towards throwing less fastballs.
there’s always going to be a lot of fastballs, but the data is clearly showing a trend, especially with teams like the red sox so far
@@albaniayeet You know I see a lot of stats being thrown around but no proof where it is coming from, for now I will take it as just talk right now. I'll trust my eyes right now, I've watched a lot of games and I believe teams are still throwing a lot of fastballs just to even counts.
@@jayz25roWhat? We can literally track the pitches being thrown, you’re just straight disregarding data because what you’ve seen says differently lmfao. What a terrible attempt to troll
@@bryanzzz748 No trolling I promise... I just think your a sheep that just goes by whatever someone says, I don't.... not once did this person state that they pulled the data from a database to prove this theory of fastballs descending, but hey if you want to believe him go ahead. You aren't gonna tell me that this person is pulling data straight from the MLB site, because that data is faulty and not good clean data to go by....why ????because with my own eyes I have seen the MLB app say a pitcher is throwing a changeup and I'm watching live on TV it and seen the pitcher throw a slider instead.
@@bryanzzz748 Trolling?...lol not my style buddy! I will say this I work with Data all the time, and what I'm seeing is a lot of talk, just some percentages being thrown to get more views, no pies charts, scatter plots, bubble charts...just percentages being thrown at us just to make himself sound smart, but hey whatever. Got to get some views somehow.
If you cant throw a fast fastball, why throw it at all.