Tomorrow’s elite pitchers have to learn and take advantage of the implications of data analysis. Advancements in technology have brought newly available data on baseball spin rate and pitch movement and other valuable information to the doorsteps of commercial baseball facilities and the future will be never be the same (what!?).
Image above by: http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/
At RPP, we are big believers in data analytics. We use data EVERYDAY in strength training with great success. From working with linear transducers in measuring bar movement, to analyzing degrees of mobility, to capturing reactive strength indexes of players, we put data to work.
In the short period we have had a Rapsodo Baseball camera in-house it has completely changed how we evaluate certain aspects of pitching. Frankly, without it you see the forest, but you don’t see the tree limbs. And when pitchers are moving at rapidly increasing speeds, observing and evaluating a pitcher’s movements with high speed data capture can be truly eye opening. The amount information can be overwhelming at first, but as you begin to grasp it, the aha! moments begin to accumulate. We are discovering things about pitchers that were unfathomable just a year ago without this technology. So here is a toast to the Rapsodo camera:
In order to use data analytics to help with pitch design, we first have to build a good understanding of what the data is telling us about each and every type of pitch. This requires a basic understanding of how different pitches are influenced by the infamous Magnus Force.
Pitching is all about deception and movement, with the ball ending up somewhere other than where the batter expected it to go. All pitche-r-s have movements unique to themselves. And, every pitch is designed to move a certain way. The following chart represents 2017 overall MLB movement info on various type of pitches, all in relation to a gyroball’s lack of any movement at dead center-grey dot (click here for more info on the “gyroball”). The chart below is not a strike zone chart, and is from a right-handed pitcher’s perspective:
For example, a 4-seam fastball (black dot) from a right-handed pitcher in the major leagues is generally expected to break up and slightly in on a righty batter (vs. a gyroball). A curveball (beige dot) from a right-handed pitcher is expected to break away and down. A pure gyroball (grey dot) is expected to go exactly where it’s thrown, as it has no Magnus Force pulling it in any specific direction (hence a 0,0 coordinate on the graph). All this movement, horizontal and vertical, is a function of:
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- Ball’s velocity
- Type of grip
- How the ball is released off the hand/fingers
- Resulting True Spin
- Spin axis
With all this at work, the Magnus Force is pulling the baseball in a specific direction as it travels through the air to home plate. In the chart below, the blue arrows depict the direction of the Magnus Force for each type of pitch and the red lines depict the axis of spin perpendicular to the Magnus Force:
It’s important to note that movement charts are not strike zone charts. So, we better understand both and how they relate to one another (as a side note, all balls above the x-axis have some component of under-spin and any below the x-axis have top-spin).
Below is a good example of two sliders, #1 and #2. The chart on the left is a movement chart showing how far the two pitches steered off course vs. a gyroball at dead center. The chart on the right shows the same exact two pitches inside the strike zone from the pitcher’s perspective. Blue and red dots represent the respective gyroballs for each pitch and the arrows are the direction of the Magnus Force.
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- Pitch #1 – 2212 baseball spin rate, 466 true spin, 21.3% Spin Efficiency, 69.5 mph, -10.1 HB (x-axis) / -0.9 VB (z-axis)
- Pitch #2 – 2186 baseball spin rate, 890 true spin, 40.2% Spin Efficiency, 74.0 mph, -3.6 HB (x-axis) / 1.4 VB (z-axis)
Both of these pitches were strikes, one moved quite a bit from its destination while the other came in much tighter. Here is another look at the same two pitches from the Rapsodo screen from the Pitcher’s perspective (yes the image is flipped):
The solid line is the actual path of the ball and the dotted line is where the ball would have gone in the absence of Magnus Force. So, let’s get back to where we started. These two pitches moved quite differently due to:
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- Velocity
- Type of grip
- How the ball is released off the hand/fingers
- Resulting True Spin
- Spin axis
- Auntie Magnus
All of these attributes have an impact on every type of pitch.
If you’d like to read more on baseball spin rate, pitch movement and or how the spin axis is generated you can click the links.
By Bahram Shirazi (BSEE, MBA, Co-Owner RPP) and Robbie Aviles (RHP Cleveland Indians, Pitching Lab Coach)
