This weeks nuttiest pitches might even have a point. But lets just begin with the GIFs. Because its fun to look at crazy pitches do crazy things. Lets do the uncle charlies
Ronald Martin Jersey , the yakkers, the yellow hammers curveballs are on recption menus today. As usual, were exploring the last 3 years because thats what MLB.tv enables us, and were sorting PITCHF/x to find the pitches most abundant in extreme vertical and horizontal movement, in addition to velocities. Biggest DropThats the one thing you consider first when you imagine a curveball anyway, is the drop. Watch this curve start above Ryan Doumits eyeballs after which land on the plate. Thats twenty inches of drop. Amazingly, this is the second-biggest drop in the last three years, and Yu Darvish owned the first-biggest (-22), and it arrived *the next at-bat*, however this was one was more visually pleasing. Darvish struck out 11 in 6.2 innings that day, so we know why. They had no chance around the big, old, slow, disgusting, hammer. We mi s Yu. Biggest SwerveWhat would you call horizontal movement? Sweep? Run? Its a curve, so lets call it swerve. Scott Feldman turns
Brandon Marshall Jersey up all over their list, but the weird thing is, theyre all in one game. On May fifth this past year, Scott Feldman did this a ton: Oh he hung that certain, said the announcer immediately after the pitch, and his partner agreed: A number of these breaking pitches are just getting away from him. So maybe Feldman shouldnt get credit to get his swerve on. Lets look to Corey Kluber, who usually leads the league in horizontal movement on his curve and had the sixth-most extreme swervey curveball over the last three years. No way thats a strike not a way thats a not a way not a way. No way. SlowestThats one more thing we keep company with normal curveballs, is they are a change of pace. Slow and bendy. The problem with looking into the PITCHf/x database for these is that so many of the slow curves are mistakes in the PITCHF/x system. And then the others look like this: Thats the slowest actual curveball thrown with a pitcher in the last 3 years, also it registered at 52.4 mph from the hand of Jered Weaver. But was it even actually a curveball? I mean, we all know Weavers taking the slow, slower, slowest trail that Jamie Moyer once blazed, however this is ridiculous. Its a
Dakota Dozier Jersey flub. Lets return to Yu, because he prides himself around the slow curve. He should. YuSlow.Gif indeed. Thats an actual slow curve, registering at 53 mph. Of course Mike Napoli didnt swing. He probably had the capacity to laugh and rethink his strategy and choose not to swing again. FastestNow heres where we get to the stage. If a curve is fast and difficult, is it even a curve anymore? Because all the hardest curves in PITCHF/x are in fact cutters. The ones along with some drop. Heres a curve from Mark Melancon. It went 90 mph coupled with 2.5 inches of run, and 6.5 inches of drop. If you take away the velocity from that line, in ways, sure that could be a hard curve. The typical slider gets about eight inches le s drop than that pitch, so yeah, sure its a curve. But this is what it looked like. Nasty, yes. A curve? Now that youve (probably) decided that theres
Calvin Pace Jersey not a way thats a curve, lets try something else. Harry Pavlidis helps run Brooks Baseball, where they clean up the definitions of pitches manually. I asked him for that hardest actual curve of the last three years. Voila: Thats an 89 mph pitch from Craig Kimbrel.
Claude Pelon Jersey Once more, its nasty, especially because it came after 97, 97, 97, 98 as well as on a 1-2 count. But could it be a curve? It had only 1.7 inches of run and three inches of drop. Melancons pitch had more curveball type movement, but its known as a cutter and we all agreed it wasn't a curve. And making this why its so hard to state prescriptive things about pitches. We can barely even define them correctly. We may not really understand what defining them correctly means. Hey at least we know these pitches are nasty in their own ways, I gue s.
