What's up Dan Blewett here in today's video we're going to
cover a pitcher's repertoire.
And what types of pitches are going to be best for you?
Throw a sinker or a slider, or if you're a high spin rate pitcher.
So basically what I did was I did another Twitter poll and this was the question I'm
gonna put it right up here on the screen.
You're coaching, a hard throwing high 3/4 arm slot.
Collegiate relief pitcher with a high spin four seamer.
He's a clean slate and needs two pitches to add to his repertoire.
Obviously it's not like a real world scenario.
You wouldn't give the guy who just throws a fastball.
Um, but for the sake of this thought experiment, which pairing
do you suggest he chooses?
So.
The winning answer on this poll, which is 152 votes was sinker and slider
at 41% sinker and curveball was the least popular at 13% Keter and slide
are 19% cutter and curve ball 26%.
So really the only standalone winners were cutter curve ball, or sinker and slider.
So yeah.
Let me, I'm going to give my answer at the end, but here's my first take here.
I think sinker and slider is a bad answer.
I think sinker and curve balls, probably a slightly worse answer that
was sort of like the least consensus, but singer's letter is not, I don't
think a very good answer here.
So number one, Slider is fine.
Obviously, if you're a high spin pitcher, here's what high spin rate does.
If you're a pitcher, it allows you to pitch up in the zone where the
ball drops less over its flight than an average spinning four seamer.
And so it gives the appearance that it speeds up and it peers
to rise a little bit on hitters.
So when you throw up in the zone and your ball appears to rise, um, If
they're just going to miss underneath it.
So they swing and miss a little more, even if it's a little bit lower in the,
in the zone, they tend to get underneath it and hit fly balls and popups.
And so if you have a high spin rate for seamer, you can pitch up
in the zone a little, a lot more effectively than as you don't.
Uh, that being said, I said, here's the big thing.
And the reason I think sinker is the wrong answer to give this guy.
And I only gave you two answers, two options, which are sinker or,
or cutter as a fastball variation.
Plus slider curve ball, obviously there's other pitches, but that was this point.
Sinker is gonna be the wrong answer because if you're a high three quarter arm
slot guy, It's tough to make a ball sync.
You have to get off to the side of it a little bit.
You have to get on the inside of it.
You have to add some wobble to that sinker.
So if you watched my morning brushback podcasts with Barton
Smith, who's a, an engineer teaches aerodynamics at Utah state university.
He talked about in his lab where they have a cannon that shoots baseballs.
If you shoot, and there can only shoot stuff out with like perfect batsman.
He said, if you shoot a four seamer and a two seamer, both have identical
backspin they move exactly the same.
There isn't really a difference aerodynamically from a four seamer to
two seamer when they're spun correctly.
And that is actually good validation for a point that I had in another
way, video, which is that two seamers are usually not that good when
thrown by young pitchers, they don't really make them move very well.
Here's my point here.
If you're a high spin rate guy on your four seamer, that means
you're good at two things.
Number one.
Being very through the center of the baseball, applying your force very
much the center where you're not off tilt, you're not getting side spin.
You're not getting side spin here or gyrus been mixed in.
And so you're very good at school cleanly and fast.
And then the other thing.
Um, so being through the middle is about being spinning it very cleanly.
The other thing is you're naturally good at spinning it fast.
I don't know why I could spin a fast ball.
Very well.
A lot of other guys don't know either.
Why can a natural sinker guy naturally just have a lower spin
rate and make the ball sink?
I don't know, but basically you're asking a high spin rate pitcher.
To suddenly from one fastball to the next, not do the two things
he's always done naturally.
Well, which is be through the center of the ball and spin it fast.
Now you're asking me on the next pitch, a sinker to spin it slowly cause sinkers,
we know the good sinkers, have a much lower spin rate and spin it off the
center, meaning it gets to the top of it.
Get on the inside of it a little bit.
So you add this till that actually makes a sink or sink.
That seems like a tough thing to ask to say, Hey, Dan, you're naturally
good at spinning a fast ball very well and very fast on the next fast ball.
I'm going to have you throw a sinker where you do neither of those two things.
It's not really gonna work very well.
Again, adding a slider is totally fine.
You see tons of dominant pitchers in the, in the majors that
throw 96 97 and a great slider.
No problem with that.
Um, a curve ball works really well with the highest four senior because
they both come out of the same tunnel.
Right.
Fast ball stays up.
The curve ball breaks down.
We know that to be well.
And the other thing is with a high spin rate for seamer, you can spin a cutter
pretty well as a cutter is just basically a four seamer that you tilt slightly.
So it's still spinning like a four seamer, but it's tilted.
So that means it has a little bit of gyro spin, but it's basically
traveling slightly off center as it goes towards the plates instead of.
Great.
Backspin, it's got still kind of great backspin at an angle, which means that
there's some gyrus spin in there that was also explained by, uh, Barton Smith.
So I highly recommend on my channel check out that morning brush episode.
So hopefully that cleared up, I thought this was a really interesting poll.
I found the results really interesting.
I think the right answer is cutter and curve ball.
So if you are one of the group that shows that in the 26%.
Kudos to you.
I think that makes the most sense giving the information that I gave high arm slot.
It's tough to make the ball sync really good at spinning the ball.
Tough to make it sink really good at spinning it fast naturally.
Tough to make it sink.
So all those factors considered, um, I thought this was a
really fascinating poll.
Do you agree with me?
Is this a good, take a bad take, leave a comment below
or leave a comment on Twitter, wherever, and we'll talk about it.
Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you in the next video.