Orioles to Sign RHP Gregory Infante: Add another pitcher with high spin breaking ball(s).

[sportsfan8703]

11 hours ago, byrdz said:

All this talk of spin rate got me thinking about knuckleballers and opposite end of the spectrum. So I checked out R.A. Dickey and have to admit I was expecting much slower spin rate. Stephen Wright is in the same neighborhood.

Kuckleball - 1530

Four Seamer - 1878

Eephus - 1002 

I thought of the same thing. Thanks for posting the data. 

[Luke-OH]

On 1/8/2019 at 6:37 AM, Enjoy Terror said:

My next question is: who are the remaining free agents with high spin rates?

This is the best question of the thread, I have identified a few and hopefully I’ll have an article about it up tomorrow morning. 

But for now, a name who would be on the list but he signed with a NPB team. Pierce Johnson, owner of a 2900RPM curveball who threw an ineffective cutter 20%+ of the time.

[weams]

On 1/8/2019 at 6:37 AM, Enjoy Terror said:

My next question is: who are the remaining free agents with high spin rates?

 

[weams]

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2018/5/15/17355934/a-basic-look-at-spin-rate-and-what-it-means-for-pitches

[weams]

Community research

https://community.fangraphs.com/revisiting-changes-in-spin-rate-and-spin-surgers/

Quote

Because the angle between the palm and ground increases as release position along the y-axis increases, we can confirm our intuition: the longer you hold onto the ball, the more spin it has. Can this be used to help transform pitchers with mediocre fastball spin to elite rotation anchors as has been seen with Gerrit Cole this year? To answer that, we need to have a more sophisticated understanding of the biomechanical process of spinning the baseball.

Quote

This suggests that because higher velocity pitches have to be thrown at a steeper angle downward [because downward acceleration due to gravity has less time to act on the pitch], the pitcher then holds the ball longer as it is traveling down the y-axis and thus has more time to impart spin on the ball. Work is force times distance. If we want to transfer more energy into an object, we can either increase the magnitude of the force or apply it across a larger distance vector. We already knew that higher velocity pitches have higher spin. The results of our regression, however, suggest that even after controlling for velocity, release position along the y-axis (that is, releasing the ball further in front of the rubber) has a statistically significant effect on the spin rate. This means that for two pitchers with equivalent velocity, a one-foot increase in y-axis release increases the spin rate of that pitch by half a standard deviation. While no pitcher can actually extend his release point by an entire foot, small adjustments in spin can have career-altering results. In combination with a velocity increase and z-axis release point increase, it seems Gerrit Cole has found his optimal release point for maximizing spin. If this isn’t his peak, the MLB better look out.

 

[weams]

https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/spin-rate-and-swinging-strike-probabilities/

Quote

• Velocity
• Control
• Movement

History has shown us that pitchers do not need to have all of these skills to excel (very few can claim to have all), and time and time again baseball has shown that different pitchers can have sustained success against hitters despite possessing distinctly different styles. After all, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens were the two greatest pitchers of their era and the only thing either of them had in common was that they were both right handed. Maddux was such a legend in the art of pitch control and pitch movement, that his lack of velocity was an afterthought. But during the prime of Maddux’s career the only one of the aforementioned skills that the public could measure/analyze was his below average velocity; fans could see Maddux’s greatness, but it wasn’t quantifiable (at least on a pitch by pitch basis, Maddux still won four Cy Youngs so don’t feel too sorry for him). With the release of PitchFx data in 2008, amateur analysts now had the ability to plot the location of every pitch thrown, and now with Statcast’s spin rate pitch movement may be next. The goal of this analysis is to build off of Mike Petriello’s (of mlb.com) previous analysis regarding the relationship between spin rate vs. velocity. In part one herein I will examine the relationship between spin rate vs. pitch velocity for individual pitch types (i.e. four seam fastball, sinker, curveball, etc.), specifically what combinations of these two variables lead to higher swinging strike probabilities. In part two to be released later next week I will conduct the same analysis, only this time I will examine which combinations of spin rate vs. pitch velocity lead to higher soft contact (i.e groundball/pop up) probabilities.

 

[scOtt]

Previous
Oriole
Regime(s)

New
Regime

[Number5]

3 hours ago, scOtt said:

Previous
Oriole
Regime(s)

New
Regime

 

[Cumberbundy]

3 hours ago, scOtt said:

Previous
Oriole
Regime(s)

New
Regime

[Cumberbundy]

7 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

This is the best question of the thread

[sportsfan8703]

17 hours ago, scOtt said:

Previous
Oriole
Regime(s)

New
Regime

This stuff will never catch on. 

[Luke-OH]

Article highlighting three pitchers with high spin breaking balls the Orioles could target.

http://www.orioleshangout.com/2019/01/10/spin-cycle-under-the-radar-free-agent-pitchers/

[ShaneDawg85]

19 hours ago, scOtt said:

Previous
Oriole
Regime(s)

New
Regime

The old regime:

 

[Enjoy Terror]

2 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

Article highlighting three pitchers with high spin breaking balls the Orioles could target.

http://www.orioleshangout.com/2019/01/10/spin-cycle-under-the-radar-free-agent-pitchers/

Read your article: guys like Espino have been around for awhile... is there any indication that their spin rates have changed for the better more recently?

[Luke-OH]

10 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

Read your article: guys like Espino have been around for awhile... is there any indication that their spin rates have changed for the better more recently?

No, there isn’t yearly data for me to look at because minor league spin rate data isn’t publicly available. So I’m looking at their MLB time. 

The Astros took pitchers who had been around and changed how they pitched, not necessarily how they threw their pitches. 

Regarding Espino, as recently as 2017 he was in the majors using 5 pitches when most of them were poor. There is opportunity there, the upside isn’t big, he throws 90-92 on a good day, but the CB is legit.