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Baseball has been littered with new metrics over recent years and in turn, our process for understanding what makes great players has been better for it. Both at the major league and amateur scouting levels. However, quantifying things like deception within the baseball pitching landscape has long been esoteric. This is for multiple reasons; but the mystical nature of it revolves around the inability to properly define deception and associate a metric to it. Although there is some preliminary research circulating, there has been no publicly crowned method on deception. Emphasis on the PUBLIC aspect.
Common thinking would suggest organizations have out-paced the public, as they usually do, and have identified avenues in which they can quantify deception. Information of that type is no doubt valuable at the pro level but the biggest edge to be gained may be within the amateur scouting landscape. And some recent quotes from Mariners President of Baseball Ops Jerry Dipoto lead me to believe it’s fully on teams’ radars.
While discussing some Mariners draft strategy in a recent FanGraphs article, Dipoto had this to say, “Taylor Dollard was identified by our pitching strategists as an interesting mover, We do movement assessments on draft-eligible pitchers, and from there we identify picks in the middle rounds that we think we can really do something with. Dollard was very high on our list that year.”
When discussing “interesting movers” Dipoto could be speaking of literal physical movement & fluidity within the pitching motion. Targeting athletes, who project to have more in the tank yet. All of which was discussed recently on Prospects Live by Draft Director Joe Doyle.
Beyond that, the criteria of “interesting movers” could go as far as pitch tunneling. Which was chronicled in an award-nominated piece for Prospects Live headed by Tieran Alexander.
The genesis of Alexander’s piece had to do with this quote found within, “batters react to what they think the pitch will do.” The simplest form of pitching is being able to miss barrels. This is done most often by deceiving hitters and creating pitches that don’t do what hitters expect them to.
I believe the zenith lies somewhere in the middle of those two articles. This piece will serve as the bridge between those two. Discussing how through a variety of avenues, MLB organizations are identifying pitchers who perform above the surface level expectation. And thus, are creating exceptional value for the organization by being so-called diamonds in the rough. This is where consistently great organizations win.
Arsenal / Slot Expectation
“Batters react to what they think the pitch will do.” I’ll reiterate that aforementioned quote many times throughout this piece, but I believe this is where the identification begins. Find pitchers who do things that make a hitter believe one thing, then do something different. There is a lot of value to be had dissecting movement profiles as compared to slot expectation.
This has been chronicled by Austin Marchesani, pitching analyst of the Los Angeles Angels. His research suggests there is no set “dead-zone” fastball profile. Which was previously defined as nearly identical vertical and horizontal breaks. The true “dead-zone” fastballs rely on an ever moving scale based on the pitcher’s slot.
Hitters have seen so many pitches and on the aggregate expect higher slot guys to have more ride on their fastball than run. And vice versa, expect pitchers with lower-slots to have more run than ride on their fastball. This is an over-simplification but hitters rely on averages and what their eye is trained to see.
Research of this type has led to an influx of low-slot, low-launch, high-ride FB ride guys within the professional ranks. This is because those are the outliers.
Outliers like Minnesota Twins righty Joe Ryan. Ryan pitched to a 3.55 ERA, held a 9.2 K/9 and had a top-5 run value on fastballs during his rookie season. All while averaging 91.9 MPH on his heater, over 2 MPH below average. How is that possible?
Ryan pitches from a slot that is below the well major league average but compensates for in extension and an outlier VAA.
Joe Ryan
With below average velocity, Ryan is able to beat hitters with his fastball because they largely expect it to have increased run and to not cross the plate at that steep of an approach angle. Batters react to what they think the ball will do. By having a pitch that doesn’t conform to expectation, it allows Ryan to be successful and the rest of his stuff to play up.
Metrics of FB w/ 4th best Run Value in MLB
No wonder the Rays drafted him in the 7th round out of Cal State Northridge. Evidence of digging deeper to find outliers. The Rays are known for doing it better than about anyone else.
So, who fits that mold?
Look no further than Dan Ativia from Grand Canyon University. Our 42nd rated college prospect in the 2024 Draft Class. Ativia works from a low-launch, 10 inches below average. And holds one of the steepest VAA’s at -3.92, which led to a 34% whiff rate on his FB.
The fastball played a large role in the 108 K’s he accumulated in 80 innings as a true freshman. Our evaluators love the pitch, “Avitia is a bit of a unicorn in that he has an extremely low launch and still induces a good bit of hop on his fastball. It's the prototype heater that explodes at the top of the zone. Avitia lives in the upper 80s and low 90s, but misses a ton of bats due to his metrics.”
Avitia already outperforms “stuff metrics” but if he can find a few more ticks of velocity and develop a true swing-and-miss offspeed, it’s 1st-round upside. A la Cooper Hjerpe, the low-slot high VAA fastball that just plain misses bats. Hjerpe had the breaker, Ativia will need to find that.
Deception Derived from Ball Optics
The other avenue in which to identify outliers is through biomechanical assessments which have infiltrated the baseball landscape in recent years. You’ve likely seen the videos of athletes’ bodies littered with motion capture sensors. All transposed onto a skeleton broken down frame-by-frame. The insights that can be pulled from that data feels nearly endless and the organizations who have dove in first are reaping the rewards.
Beyond basic movement inefficiencies one of the other data points to be pulled is some form of a “ball-hidden” metric. When broken down frame by frame, you’re able to pinpoint the exact point in time when the ball comes into view for the hitter. This is one of the bigger factors in perceived velocity. Select teams are no doubt screening for this and it is playing into their models.
Like the previous Joe Ryan example; this can be found at the major league level as well. Jason Adam was lights-out in the pen for the Tampa Bay Rays this past season holding a 1.56 ERA in 67 games. Adam does hold above average velocity (95 MPH) but only marginally among MLB relievers.
It’s his deception and ability to hide the ball right behind his head with a short arm action that gets the job done. Beyond that, it’s a lightning quick arm that has pitches getting on hitters at an elite rate. Those factors surely played a role in his percentile rankings looking like this.
Rest assured, it’s happening at the college level too. Down in Hattiesburg, Mississippi Southern Miss righty Tanner Hall has been the beneficiary of some deception. Hall checks in at #63 in our latest 2023 draft prospect ratings.
It's a semi-crossfire delivery that begins on the far first base side of the rubber. And with the pitch mix Hall features, including a sinker with 20 inches of arm-side run, it makes hitters extremely uncomfortable. Evidenced by his 12.1 K/9 over 108 innings in 2022. The FB/SNK combo only averages 89.5 MPH but induces the 3rd highest GB rate in college baseball. Even the changeup holds a 51% whiff rate, it’s clear hitters are having a tough time squaring up anything Hall is offering.
A funky set-up, cohesive movement profile and arm swing combine to make Tanner Hall one of the best at creating deception in the college game. It allows below-average velocity to play for one of the best pitchers in the sport. Hall could hear his name called on Day 1 this year if everything goes right.
Hall has some hidden value and it’s likely orgs will pick up on that.
CONCLUSION
I’ll say it again, batters react to what they think will happen. Whether it be seam-shifted wake, tunneling, slot expectation, deception, whatever it is; the best pitchers find a way to do it. For those without pure stuff, it's the clearest route to success. Organizations will find those guys with outlier traits, some will find them more efficiently than others. The best scouting departments and player development crews win on the margins.
Very rarely are high-level pitchers successful based on pure luck. It’s about looking beyond the surface metrics and really digging into how those guys get the job done at an elite rate. The answers are in there somewhere and it may not be low-hanging fruit. The best at identifying are the ones who reap the rewards.
Going deep into the toolbox to evaluate arms via biomechanics and deception is already the new frontier. Get on board or get left behind. There’s levels to this type of evaluation and I look forward to digging even further as we approach July.