When watching certain pitchers, it is clear that they have the pitching arsenal needed to overwhelm hitters. Whether it’s via the eye test or by analyzing data, there are different ways to judge a pitcher’s ability to generate a lot of swings and misses.
Thus, I have a proposal: what if we come up with a method to take all the different pitch characteristics, and use them to compute a single pitch grade?
To compute these grades, there were two key steps that needed to be taken.
I ran correlation studies based on the pitch characteristics and whiff rates of certain pitches that MLB pitchers have. This information came through Baseball Savant and allowed me to come up with a weighting system for each characteristic. Here are my findings for each pitch:
Fastball: The main components of a fastball are its spin rate and velocity, as you’d expect. Besides those two factors, vertical movement, extension, release height, and horizontal break are all smaller parts of the equation. Additionally, the bar is higher for a fastball, this is the pitch that is easily the most important for a pitcher; it is the pitch with the most components factoring in, and the one that pitchers build the rest of their arsenal off of. (Order of Importance: 1. Spin Rate, 2. Velocity, 3. Vertical Movement, 4. Extension, 5. Release Height, 6. Horizontal Movement)
Breaking Ball: For breaking balls, velocity and spin not only take up the entire equation, but have equal importance. (Order of Importance: 1. Velocity, 2. Spin Rate)
Changeup: Changeups are more similar to fastballs in that velocity and extension are critical factors, with spin rate and horizontal break factoring in as well. Velocity differential could give one an outlier changeup, but it’s far more rare than just throwing a hard changeup. (Order of Importance: 1. Velocity, 2. Extension, 3. Horizontal Break, 4. Spin Rate)
I then found the MLB average for each pitch characteristic. Paired with the standard deviation, I was able to come up with a grading system based on the 20-80 scale; 50 is average, 60 is one standard deviation better, and so on. Rather than rounding up for the pitch characteristic grades, I’m using specific linear equations to compute a more accurate grade.
Now that we’ve gone over the grading process, let’s answer our main questions: which pitchers have the best pitches in the MLB, and which have the best overall pitching arsenal?
We’ll start by looking at the top-ten pitches per pitch type:
Fastballs (w/20-80 Grade)
Daniel Bard (65.77)
Corbin Burnes (64.92)
Luke Bard (64.49)
Zack Burdi (63.42)
Tejay Antone (63.12)
Jose LeClerc (62.5)
Garrett Richards (62.06)
Thomas Hatch (61.75)
Jason Adam (61.31)
Lucas Sims (61.18)
All of these fastballs have 70-grade spin rates, and, thus, are able to work at the top of the zone. Overall, it’s a very interesting blend between low workhorse starting pitchers and relievers. Daniel Bard is unique in that he can manipulate his fastball as both a sinker and a traditional four-seamer, which adds to is effectiveness. Corbin Burnes, meanwhile, has relied on his fastball en route to being a Cy Young candidate this season, and most of these pitchers have played meaningful roles for their respective pitching staffs. The outlier to that would be Luke Bard, who pitched just 5.1 innings this season. On the bright side, he struck out over twelve batters per mine last season, so perhaps the Angels (or another team) should give him a shot!
“I looked up the spin rates of major leaguers, and mine was higher than theirs. [Bard’s four-seam spin rate was an eye-opening 2,730 last season.] So I learned, and kind of experimented. This was in 2016, in High-A, although I didn’t completely abandon my sinker until last spring training. I went to camp and threw all four-seamers. Any time I got ahead I would throw at the belt instead of the knees. I started getting a ton of swings and misses, so I stuck with it.- (Luke Bard To Fangraphs’ David Laurila- 2018)
Breaking Ball
Dillon Maples (68.08)
Joe Kelly (67.77)
Sam Dyson (66.01)
Garrett Richards (65.75)
Austin Adams (65.51)
Ryan Pressly (65.42)
Dustin May (65.38)
Miguel Castro (65.17)
Tayler Scott (64.33865)
Clarke Schmidt (64.08)
If Dillon Maples could improve upon his drastically high walk rate, it’s safe to say he could be a high-leverage option; he has a career 15.04 K/9 in 23.1 innings in the MLB. The same goes for relievers Tayler Scott and Miguel Castro, and to a lesser extent, Austin Adams. Also, color me intrigued on young pitchers Dustin May and Clarke Schmidt, who can use their tremendous breaking balls to complement their sinkers. Overall, simply based on watching these pitchers, it isn’t a surprise to see them make up this list.
Changeup
Codi Heuer (68.05)
Jacob deGrom (64.56)
Luis Patino (64.33)
Noah Syndergaard (62.38)
Miguel Castro (62.27)
Ian Anderson (61.8)
Joe Jimenez (61.61)
Stephen Strasburg (61.61)
Gregory Soto (61.57)
Jimmy Cordero (61.42)
Perhaps Codi Heuer should throw his changeup more than 9.4% of the time? The pitch has excellent pitch characteristics and benefits from the elite extension he has, and it would play off of his sinker tremendously.
After that, deGrom, Patino, Syndergaard, and Jimenez all feature hard changeups, while Castro gets nearly 19 inches of horizontal break on his. Ian Anderson, additionally, has a beautiful changeup, and as he continues to rely on it as his main complementary offering, his stock should only increase; he has all the makings of an effective frontline starter.
Let’s go through our last order of business; it’s time to find out who has the best “pure” stuff in the MLB? Rather than average out all of their pitches, I’ve decided to weight the pitches based on pitch usage, as it rewards the pitchers who actually throw their most intriguing pitches:
Daniel Bard (63.81)
Garrett Richards (66.67)
Corbin Burnes (63.15)
Austin Adams (62.28)
Zack Burdi (62.27)
Ryan Pressly (61.31)
Dustin May (61.06)
Miguel Castro (60.46)
Gerrit Cole (60.2)
Tanner Scott (60.13)
Since relievers can concentrate more on one specific pitch, it’s not a surprise to see them make up most of this list. However, Bard isn’t your prototypical option, as his pitch usage actually mirrors what you’d expect from a starting pitcher; he isn’t just a two-pitch pitcher. Ironically, he has a more balanced pitching arsenal than Richards and Burnes, though when you have two dominant pitches, should you really be spending any time mixing in another offering? It’s also nice to see Gerrit Cole appear on this list. He doesn’t throw his changeup much, but his four-seam fastball has elite velocity and spin, while his knuckle curveball also has that combination. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that he’s the highest-paid pitcher in MLB history?
So, what should we take away from this? Mainly, this is just another attempt to quantify the pure quality of a specific pitch. Thus, it’s more of an interactive tool that can make us aware of the untapped potential of certain pitchers (Luke Bard, Dillon Maples, and Jason Adam), and also a way for us to appreciate the pure filthiness of all of these pitches. Upon conducting this research, I now have a much greater appreciation for Corbin Burnes, Garrett Richards, and Daniel Bard, and, for the most part, these grades certainly line up with the eye test. Nevertheless, this also explains the amount of different variables there are when it comes to generating whiffs; execution, pitch tunneling, and pitch sequencing are all key components for a pitcher maximizing on his abilities. At the very least, we should appreciate how many filthy relievers we are able to watch. I purposefully kept the minimum requirement of pitches throw to a very low amount, so it will be fun to see if these pitchers can continue to display some absolute filth!