Can Means become the Orioles’ version of Kuechel?

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

The Statcast broadcast of the AL wildcard game has some of their special stats scrolling on the crawl and this one caught my eye.

2019 Fastball Rise Leaders

4th place MLB-wide was 2.5 inches.  There were three pitchers at 2.8 or better, well clear of the field.

Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and John Means.

I guess "Rise" sounds cooler than "Sinks Less".  Since physics and human ability means no fastball thrown from mound 60' away will actually rise due to its backspin and Magnus force lift. 

[Luke-OH]

Did we (as an online community) know that Means gained 210 RPM of spin on his average fastball from his 2018 debut to 2019?

Because I can't find any article about it and I feel dumb that I just realized that it happened. 

I think I'm going to have to pay more attention to the major league team next year rather than just focusing on the minors. 

[Aglets]

17 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

Did we (as an online community) know that Means gained 210 RPM of spin on his average fastball from his 2018 debut to 2019?

Because I can't find any article about it and I feel dumb that I just realized that it happened. 

I think I'm going to have to pay more attention to the major league team next year rather than just focusing on the minors. 

Hmmm,  I had him at an increase of 185.   Guess I need to recalibrate my 4K radar Rapsodo machine.  

Honestly I really enjoyed following the minor leagues this year at the expense of the major league team.   I will probably do so again in 2020, but I admit I will likely want to watch more ML games as the future pieces actually become regulars on the team.

Unless Chris Davis is on the ML roster.   God help them if that happens.

[DrungoHazewood]

46 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

Did we (as an online community) know that Means gained 210 RPM of spin on his average fastball from his 2018 debut to 2019?

Because I can't find any article about it and I feel dumb that I just realized that it happened. 

I think I'm going to have to pay more attention to the major league team next year rather than just focusing on the minors. 

Does anyone know how?  And what are the practical effects of this?  Does that result in a meaningful amount of "rise"?  And I guess just as important: is that repeatable?  How consistent is fastball spin?  Can I set a record for most questions in one paragraph?

Edit: Some of my questions answered here: https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2016/11/spin-rate-what-we-know-now/. (Sorry, browser suddenly decided to not like embedding links).

[SurhoffRules]

53 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I guess "Rise" sounds cooler than "Sinks Less".  Since physics and human ability means no fastball thrown from mound 60' away will actually rise due to its backspin and Magnus force lift. 

I feel like Chad Bradford managed a few FBs that crossed the plate higher than he released it.......Okay, pedantic comment is over now.

[SurhoffRules]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Does anyone know how?  And what are the practical effects of this?  Does that result in a meaningful amount of "rise"?  And I guess just as important: is that repeatable?  How consistent is fastball spin?  Can I set a record for most questions in one paragraph?

I recall reading a number of spin related articles on Fangraphs and Hardball times and the only firm takeaways I could recall is that the time from well a ball is not spinning (in the hand during the throwing motion) to the point were is has been spun is silly small (fractions of a second) so a pitchers spin tends to be very much tied to their specific body type/throwing style. Pitchers with higher release points tend to impart more spin. Spin rate tends to scale linearly with FB velocity. Pitchers avg spin rate is pretty consistent across seasons but it is possible to change your spin rate by altering your release or mechanics (that is to say there are examples of pitchers who have changed their spin rates going forward).

High spin pitchers tend to be more effective than low spin pitchers on a number of metrics (K, pop-up, etc), but a similar correlation is found when you look at dSpin per velocity. That is to say, since spin rate scales linearly with fastball velocity the further a pitcher is away from the average spin on a FB with the same velocity, the more effective the pitch is (think Koji Uhera FB, his spin rate wasn't silly high if I recall, but it was very high for a pitch with such pedestrian velocity).

[Luke-OH]

14 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Does anyone know how?  And what are the practical effects of this?  Does that result in a meaningful amount of "rise"?  And I guess just as important: is that repeatable?  How consistent is fastball spin?  Can I set a record for most questions in one paragraph?

Edit: Some of my questions answered here: https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2016/11/spin-rate-what-we-know-now/. (Sorry, browser suddenly decided to not like embedding links).

Spin is strongly correlated with fastball velocity, average fastball spin increase with average fastball velocity. The way Driveline standardizes spin is with the simple Bauer unit, Spin Rate/Velocity. That's probably an oversimplification of the relationship, but that's what I'll use for Means for lack of a better metric. Means had 24.04 Bauer Units on his 4S fastball in 2018, so he began the year in a similar place and saw some really significant increase in Bauer Units as the season progressed. 

[SurhoffRules]

3 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

Spin is strongly correlated with fastball velocity, average fastball spin increase with average fastball velocity. The way Driveline standardizes spin is with the simple Bauer unit, Spin Rate/Velocity. That's probably an oversimplification of the relationship, but that's what I'll use for Means for lack of a better metric. Means had 24.04 Bauer Units on his 4S fastball in 2018, so he began the year in a similar place and saw some really significant increase in Bauer Units as the season progressed.

Mean's average velocity was pretty constant month to month around 92 mph. So this means that he increased his spin rate from 2300 (24) to 2438 (25.5)? That's a pretty significant bump from what I recall reading.

[DrungoHazewood]

38 minutes ago, SurhoffRules said:

I feel like Chad Bradford managed a few FBs that crossed the plate higher than he released it.......Okay, pedantic comment is over now.

One of my favorite books is Randall Munroe's What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.  So please indulge me...

1. Submariners throw a fastball with topspin, not backspin, so any spin they impart to the ball would result in extra sink.

2. Any ball that reaches the plate higher than release point would have to be thrown at an angle and velocity that would counteract the force of gravity pulling the ball down, plus/minus any spin-related aerodynamic effects.  In other words you'd have to throw it up, higher than level.

3. If Bradford threw a ball at 120 ft/sec (about 82 mph),  it left his hand 18" above plate altitude, and he threw it upwards at 2.5 degrees, it would cross the plate about half a second later at a height of... well.. it would it hit the plate.  Ignoring the topspin, which would cause it to bounce in front of the plate.  So... he'd have to throw it at more than a 2.5 degree angle.  Probably like 3.5 degrees.  So maybe 20' into its flight it would be 2.3 feet above field level (AFL), and would sink from there.  If he wanted the ball to hit the catcher's mitt at more than 18" AFL he'd have to throw it with a launch angle of more like five or six degrees.

4. If a pitcher could throw a perfect knuckleball with no spin whatsoever, at 65mph, releasing 8' from the ground, it could be released at a dead-even 0 degrees relative to the field and it would hit the catcher's mitt just above the ground.

5. In a weird coincidence of units, a ball thrown with no aerodynamic lift/sink will travel about 100 feet for each 100 miles per hour it's thrown, if it's released 8' from the ground at zero degrees from level.  So a ball thrown 100 mph from a mound would hit the bottom of the backstop if it was 100 feet away (actually 103, but close enough).  If you threw the ball 500 mph it would it a backstop 500 feet away, give or take.  1000 mph, 1000 ft. 20,000 mph, the ball would be incinerated by the friction of the air hitting it at 20,000 mph. .8c would result in a small thermonuclear explosion (see book referenced in first sentence).

[Luke-OH]

2 minutes ago, SurhoffRules said:

Mean's average velocity was pretty constant month to month around 92 mph. So this means that he increased his spin rate from 2300 (24) to 2438 (25.5)? That's a pretty significant bump from what I recall reading.

His spin rate bounced around in 2019, but the general trend was upward. Here is spin rate by start, with start 1 on the left and start 31 on the right. Most of the adjustment was the first 6 starts vs the rest of the season. The spin rate the first 6 starts was higher than his average spin of 2166 in 2018, but that difference can pretty much be explained by increased velocity.

 

[SurhoffRules]

28 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

2. Any ball that reaches the plate higher than release point would have to be thrown at an angle and velocity that would counteract the force of gravity pulling the ball down, plus/minus any spin-related aerodynamic effects.  In other words you'd have to throw it up, higher than level.

My favorite effect of the reversed spin for Bradford was the fact that his slider (spinning perpendicular to the plate) had less downward force (due to spin) acting on it than his fastball. He's the only player I can think of off the top of my head with a vertical rise on his breaking pitch(+1-2 with out gravity).  Even given the slower speed (more gravity bringing it down) his FB and SL dropped nearly the exact same amount. Bradford's Brooks Baseball Page

[SurhoffRules]

8 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

His spin rate bounced around in 2019, but the general trend was upward. Here is spin rate by start, with start 1 on the left and start 31 on the right. Most of the adjustment was the first 6 starts vs the rest of the season. The spin rate the first 6 starts was higher than his average spin of 2166 in 2018, but that difference can pretty much be explained by increased velocity.

That is interesting. His velocity in the first 6 starts was the same as it was all year (he carried an amazingly consistent FB from start to start). Eyeballing it it looks like his first six he spun at 2250ish and then jumped up to about 2400ish for the rest of the season. I wonder if he tweaked something intentionally or just found his groove.

[Luke-OH]

8 minutes ago, SurhoffRules said:

That is interesting. His velocity in the first 6 starts was the same as it was all year (he carried an amazingly consistent FB from start to start). Eyeballing it it looks like his first six he spun at 2250ish and then jumped up to about 2400ish for the rest of the season. I wonder if he tweaked something intentionally or just found his groove.

I have to think it was an intentional adjustment he made, perhaps with help from Holt. 

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I guess "Rise" sounds cooler than "Sinks Less".  Since physics and human ability means no fastball thrown from mound 60' away will actually rise due to its backspin and Magnus force lift. 

Amen amigo.  I know Tom Tango's part of the Statcast team, so put my trust there that better due diligence measuring the average sink due to gravity 2019 MLB fastballs felt, and making that the new zero on the scale, is in there more than I could ever do.

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Does anyone know how?  And what are the practical effects of this?  Does that result in a meaningful amount of "rise"?  And I guess just as important: is that repeatable?  How consistent is fastball spin?  Can I set a record for most questions in one paragraph?

Edit: Some of my questions answered here: https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2016/11/spin-rate-what-we-know-now/. (Sorry, browser suddenly decided to not like embedding links).

In The MVP Machine, there's an anecdote about Trevor Bauer basically cheating for an inning by using an adhesive on his hand to impart extra spin on his pitches.  It was told as his proof of concept as he was prosecuting the improved Astro performance of his BFF Gerrit Cole.

Having had a night to digest, Means here is really intriguing.  I generally understand a pitcher's spin to be a personal signature, but this make me wonder if Elias/Sig know how to teach it a little.  I know curating better spin efficiency is teachable and part of the current performance frontier.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

Amen amigo.  I know Tom Tango's part of the Statcast team, so put my trust there that better due diligence measuring the average sink due to gravity 2019 MLB fastballs felt, and making that the new zero on the scale, is in there more than I could ever do.

In The MVP Machine, there's an anecdote about Trevor Bauer basically cheating for an inning by using an adhesive on his hand to impart extra spin on his pitches.  It was told as his proof of concept as he was prosecuting the improved Astro performance of his BFF Gerrit Cole.

Having had a night to digest, Means here is really intriguing.  I generally understand a pitcher's spin to be a personal signature, but this make me wonder if Elias/Sig know how to teach it a little.  I know curating better spin efficiency is teachable and part of the current performance frontier.

Sunscreen, he needed some sunscreen.  Very fair skin, and he's outside all day.  I hear Bullfrog works well.