MLB pitcher breaks down data analytics in baseball

Lane Ramsey

Chicago White Sox Pitcher

The sport of baseball has gone through a seismic shift pertaining towards player development and team performance. For years, the sport relied upon “eye test” and basic data points (Batting average, ERA, etc…) to equate how well a player is performing and using that as a predictor for present and future success. New technology and a wave of fresh ideologies on how we interpret performance and grade have created an entirely different scouting world.

The new technology that I have alluded to revolves mainly around ball tracking systems that give us a deeper dive into certain pitch movements and batted ball profiles that allow us to quantify performance in a deeper way. In the scouting world, “eye test” can only take you so far when judging a player. Having access to specific players’ pitch movement or batted ball profile gives scouting departments for front offices much more conviction when grading a player.

There are examples littered across baseball on how important data analytics are when determining outcomes for players and teams. To narrow down the plethora of options, I will focus mainly on pitchers and how far the game has come in recent years in the developmental realm of the sport. When determining how well a pitcher should perform, we look at a few measurables that include; velocity, pitch type, pitch movement and command. I will dive a little deeper into each one of these measurables and explain how analytics have progressed them.

Velocity has always been an extremely important aspect of pitching. The harder you throw, the more you typically succeed. For the longest time, the game focused purely on the velocity of the fastball. With the advancement of pitch tracking and batted ball analytics, we have concluded on how important breaking ball (slider, curveball, splitter, cutter) velocity is to the outcome. For years, pitchers were taught to have a massive velocity separation from their fastball compared to their breaking pitches to keep hitters off balance. The implementation and understanding of analytics has taught us that higher velocity of breaking pitches actually helps the pitcher get more whiffs and it drives down harder contact. The ultimate goal of a pitcher is to create the most swings and misses and create soft contact. Technologies like Trackman & Hawkeye have given us valuable information on how hitters react to certain pitch types and shapes and this allows us to have a better understanding on how to attack hitters. The player development space can now use this data that shows more velocity on breaking pitches actually predicts more success and can use this when training or scouting a player. 

I’m going to lump pitch type and pitch shapes together because one can’t coexist without the other. Classification of pitches and how they move has taken an enormous leap in recent years because of technologies like Trackman, Rapsodo and Yakkertech. Pitchers can now practice their pitches on the mound and get immediate feedback after throwing the pitch on how that specific pitch moved both vertically and horizontally, where their release height/side was, the total spin of the pitch, efficiency of the spin and the type of spin it has (gyro, backspin, topspin). This gives us a clearer understanding on how to classify the pitch, predict the outcome in terms of swing and miss or batted ball profile, and how to build the overall arsenal of the pitcher. To go even deeper into how important ball tracking information is, it can give us a look into the anatomy of the pitcher. The game has begun to bucket pitchers into two different anatomical profiles, pronation and supination. Pronators typically throw 4 seam fastballs that have super efficient spin, which leads to more carry that creates swings and misses along with having the ability to throw good change-ups but they struggle to throw breaking pitches hard or create big movement profiles on breaking balls. Supinators are the opposite, they struggle to throw high efficient pitches but this opens an avenue to create a seam shifted wake which we will get into. Supinators have more potential for a bigger arsenal than pronators because of the advancement in technology and analytics. For the longest time, the sport thought that pitchers who threw a good sinker were pronating to create the sinking action, while that can still be true, we now know that most good sinkers are actually thrown by supinators and that is because of a new phrase called “Seam Shifted Wake”. Seam shift is based upon air flow and how the seams of the baseball interact with the flow of air. Using pitch tracking machines and deciphering between the different data points gives us a clearer understanding of what pitches to throw and how to implement them for a pitcher’s development. Knowing that sinkers are actually thrown more and, quite frankly, better from a pitcher that supinates allows us to give better and clearer mechanical cues when developing them. Pitching coaches used to tell people that threw sinkers to “pronate” more to get it to move the proper way, we now know that cue can be dangerous if you’re working with someone who supinates and creates the sinking action because of seam shifted wake and not from pronating. Their anatomical profile limits their pronation and can create worse pitch shapes or lead to injuries by giving them certain cues that don’t make sense for them. Ball flight tracking has allowed us to have a better understanding of how to implement and train pitchers in a safe and productive way.

A pitcher’s command has always been a vital aspect of their performance. The better you are at putting the baseball in its desired location will typically lead to more success. Analytics and ball tracking technology now give us exact movement profiles for each pitch and how they come out of a pitcher’s hand and this gives us a massive advantage when determining where to throw the pitch. Pitching coaches have always told pitchers to throw their fastball down and away in the strike zone from the hitter. Due to ball tracking advancements, we now know that not all fastballs are created equally. Some fastballs carry more than others, come out of lower release heights, and have more horizontal movement. All these data points we receive give us a better understanding of where that specific pitcher should throw their pitches. A pitcher that creates high vertical break (carry) on their fastball should typically aim to throw their fastball at the top of the zone because of hitters swinging underneath that pitch because of the amount of carry. Throwing a high carry fastball in the bottom of the zone where pitching coaches, for the longest time, told pitchers to throw, can actually cause a lot of issues for that pitcher. Understanding the entire arsenal of a pitcher and how their pitches move gives them a better game plan on how to use their pitches and where to throw them. 

The game of baseball is ever developing and ten years from now we will know far more than we know now, and a lot of that will be because of data analytics and the adoption of it.