Seems almost too good to be true right? Well it’s true. We have cracked the pitching code.
When we think of elite relievers of this decade, who do we think of first? Craig Kimbrel perhaps? Maybe it's Aroldis Chapman or Felipe Vazquez? Now, what do all of them have in common? A four-seam fastball whose average velocity is in the mid-90's.
This is their primary pitch. This type of pitch should be in the arsenals of every pitcher, independent of how they are used. With that said, they need a secondary pitch to compliment it. We have the answer. We breakdown the scope of this selection.
By focusing on the top-100 qualified relievers, based on Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), we breakdown which secondary pitch is utilized amongst this group. From there, we determine the necessary velocity, spin rate, horizontal break, and vertical break for it to be an effective pitch. At the end of this post, we will have formulated the pitch that every reliever should develop.
The Pitch
In analyzing the group of 100 relievers in 2019, approximately 31% of them employ a slider as their secondary pitch in their respective arsenals. The full breakdown is below in Figure One:
Relievers such as Liam Hendriks and Josh Hader, employ a slider to dispatch opposing hitters in the late innings in 2019. From here, we isolate the sample of pitchers who do use sliders and find similar characteristics.
Velocity
Only 31 of 100 relief arms in this study employ a slider as a secondary pitch. According to Figure Two below, about 16 of them average between 82.8 and 86.1 mph in velocity on their sliders. Some names in this range include Taylor Rogers (82.8 mph), Giovanny Gallegos (85.3 mph) and Jake Diekman (85.0 mph):
So, let's look at the slider in the context of velocity. Of the relief pitchers that use sliders as a secondary pitch, their average velocity resides in the mid-80's. Now that we know the pitch type and ideal velocity, let's pivot to spin rate.
Spin Rate
When analyzing which relievers have the highest spin rates on their sliders, we reference Figure Three, as 18 hurlers have spin rates between 2,408 and 2,678 rpm. Names such as Josh Hader (2,618 rpm), Reyes Moronta (2,577 rpm), and Josh Brebbia (2,605 rpm) fall into this range.
When pitchers can increase their spin rates on their pitches, it could possibly increase their movement, lending to more deception to generate outs. And yes, this is a perfect pivot towards this concept.
Movement
When talking about pitch movement, we are referring to vertical (drop) and horizontal (break) motion of a pitch once it is released from the pitcher's hand. In analyzing the sample, eight relievers average between 37.6 to 39.3 inches of vertical drop. Arms such as Julio Urias (37.9 in), Raisel Iglesias (38.1 in), and Brad Brach (37.6 in) fit this quality.
While some relief pitchers in this sample vary in their slider's vertical movement, the majority appear to fall in a definitive range. What gets most interesting is the component of horizontal movement.
For the 31 relief pitchers in this sample, a majority of them either average 5.5 to 6.3 inches or 10.5 to 11.3 inches. Six hurlers fall into the first range while five of them reside in the other.
While relievers can average double-digit inches of horizontal break, it is not as likely, relative to the sample. Now that we have isolated the levels of movement that a reliever's slider should have, we can now construct this ideal pitch.
Pitch Profile
Based on the analysis above, here is the profile of the pitch that every reliever should have in their pitch arsenals:
Now, we could expand the parameters of some of these variables, but in the quest for specificity, we restricted these ranges. With this breakdown, we hope that any relief pitcher on any level of baseball would read this article and start to develop a pitch that fits this profile and be successful with it when used.
Thank you so much for reading The Launch Angle for out-of-the-box baseball analysis! If you like this article, click on this link for our previous post.
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