(The average curveball spin rate this year is 2,536 rpms, up from 2,315 rpms in 2015 ). one base to another, like Home To First. Sticky baseballs: Explaining the physics of the latest scandal in Major try to picture the spin axis on a spinning baseball as it's traveling to the plate. Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. Pitch movement numbers have been available for years -- here, as one example, are the slider vertical movement numbers at FanGraphs -- but they've been somewhat challenging for the viewer to reconcile, because they remove gravity from the equation, instead measuring inferred movement against a theoretical "spin-free" pitch. xwOBA is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle This one from the Dodgers' longtime ace dropped well over five feet, all while barely moving an inch from side to side, and it splashed right into the strike zone for the backwards K. It was part of a 13-strikeout game for Kershaw. In 2021, Morton's curveball was the highest rated pitch by Baseball Savant's Run Value metric, which quantifies how much a pitcher limits run creation with a certain pitch. Teams. How hard, in miles per hour, a pitch is thrown. Let's end this list of nastiest pitches with one of the most famous of them all: Kershaw's curveball. Now that the 2021 season is over, let's look back at the nastiest pitches of the year -- with help from Statcast. Pitchers were so dominant this spring that by mid-May less than seven weeks into the season they had already racked up well more than a typical seasons worth of no-hitters. produces a result. as Active Spin. 3,337 rpm -- Lugo 2. What is a good spin rate for a curveball? Nola's curveball gets tons of break -- his vertical movement last season was three inches above average, and his horizontal movement was two inches above average -- but what really sets him apart is that he has supreme command of it even with how much it moves. Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. Best Curveball pitchers in major league history used arm angle, ball spin,command and set up uncle charlie with fastball. That's a dead-ball strikeout -- one of six slider K's Crick had this season with two-plus feet of break, easily the most of any pitcher. Seth Lugo sets Statcast curveball spin record - MLB A high-spin curveball tends to get more movement, and more break on your curve is good if you want to get strikeouts with it, and also keep hitters from getting it into the air where they can do damage. The remaining 10% of the time, he throws a breaking pitch at 80 MPH that drops 53.8 inches. He struck out 117 batters with it this year, making him the only pitcher since 2008 with 100-plus cutter K's in a season. Phil Maton, SD: 6.0 inches2. Just because the 2020 season hasn't started yet, doesn't mean baseball fans have to forget what it's like to watch the best of the best. 5. Most of the first year of Statcast has been about identifying what we can measure, and how much of it is useful, and why. He teaches us how he throws it, and why he thinks its so effective. How quickly, in seconds, a catcher can get the ball out That's not very impressive. Reds pitchers are spinning the ball the most, on the pitches where it really counts -- their fastballs and curveballs. Kershaws curve is a thing of beauty -- a slow-moving hook that drops from the heavens. Its not even Kershaws go-to breaking ball -- that would be his slider -- but it is the pitch people will remember most long after he retires.\n\n_\\-\\- Andrew Simon_","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Charlie Morton**, Rays** \n_Why he's so nasty:_ 8.1 inches of horizontal movement above avg. You'd think, with all the data we have, those questions would be simple to answer. Youve told yourself visually where that ball is going in less than 0.2 seconds, he added. Statcast's tracking technology lets us see the numbers behind the best pitches in baseball, whether it's a triple-digit fastball or a high-spin curveball or a slider with two feet of break. He was traded to the Pirates in the relatively unpopular Andrew McCutchen trade, and in 80 games for the Bucs over the last two seasons, he's had a 2.41 ERA. Framber Valdez, HOU: 5.9 inches. Baseball Zone. Cleveland Indians activated RHP Trevor Bauer from the 10-day injured list. The highest spin rate in 2019 was Chris Stratton at 3105 RPM. attempt. Statcast Spin Axis All Pitches | baseballsavant.com xBA measures the likelihood that a batted ball will ","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"ExternalEmbed","data":{"__typename":"ExternalEmbedContent","html":", 2019 PitchingNinja Award for Curveball of the Year. With a spin rate (2,886 rpm) that was well above the MLB curveball average (2,523 rpm), the big sweeping hook neutralized all comers, regardless of what batter's box they were standing in, and helped the veteran right-hander finish third in the American League Cy Young Award voting. His horizontal break is top 3 vs the average and vertical break is top 4 (lower vertical break to create drop). No matter what stats you look at, the message is pretty clear: good luck hitting a Glasnow curveball. That might suggest an effect from trying to learn a similar changeup this spring, perhaps. Fastball . Going Deep: Contextualizing Curveball Spin Rate | Pitcher List Richards, the king of high spin, managed a stellar 75-percent grounder rate on his curve, which is to say that three quarters of the curves that hitters make contact with went into the ground. . Generating a 38.1% swing-and-miss rate with the pitch, Morton used his curveball to rack up 136 of his career-high 240 strikeouts last season -- the most curveball strikeouts in MLB. outfield. It's been estimated that Major League Baseball batters reach base on about 30% of the pitches they hit in play. They're throwing easily the most high-spin four-seamers of any team (they're at 2,500-plus rpm 49.2% of the time, and the Rangers are second at 34.7%). So for example, take curveballs in 2018. For sliders, the horizontal movement leaders above average are so much more entertaining. and 32 degrees. and 32 degrees. Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. MLB Swing Profiles | baseballsavant.com as Active Spin. curveball spin rate: 2,515 rpm Hello, Reds. 05/20/2014. (This is satisfying because Richards also had the most curve spin, though it's not always this clean.). Seth Lugo, NYM: 7.7 inches5. So it's impressive that the Reds top both lists. The changes in spin rates measured using data from high-speed cameras that track every pitch of every game are the most direct evidence that substances like Spider Tack were a significant factor in the dominance of pitching in the opening weeks of the season. Tyler Olson, CLE: 8.4 inches4. The average Major League fastball is 93.5 mph. Jacob deGrom vs. Fernando Tatis Jr., June 1194.9 mph slider. These are the pitchers whose spin rates on fastballs fell the most. This high-spin, rising fastball from Cole carried right onto the corner of the strike zone, where Bogaerts could only watch it and walk back to the dugout. xwOBA is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle This amount of movement at this velocity is insane. Neil Ramirez, CLE: 3.3 inches5. A pitchers fastball going from 2,600 revolutions per minute to 2,400 might not seem like much. His slider is probably his best secondary pitch, but his changeup is solid as well. A batted ball with the perfect combination of exit In the case of gripping substances rather than old-fashioned lubricants used strictly to create unpredictable movement pitchers have said having a good grip on the ball makes it safer for batters. All of the pitch movement leaderboards are now live at Baseball Savant. Morton's curveball break was top-10 in the Majors this year. Jump is a Statcast metric that shows which players have 40-Man Roster Depth Chart Coaches Top 30 Prospects Transactions Front Office Broadcasters Minor League Affiliates. MLB Advanced Media, LP. That's why his four-seamer is getting 3.4 inches more rise than an average fastball. Just 23 pitchers have thrown at least 25 splitters this year, compared to the 254 pitchers who have thrown at least 25 curveballs. a batted-ball event with a launch angle between eight become a hit. pic.twitter.com/BbVWZwDDwQ, Aaron Nola, Unfair 80mph Curveball (9th K thru 4IP). @mike_petriello @statcast @MLB is that a good thing? The likelihood, in percent, that an outfielder will be Evan Scribner, -11 inches Sonny Gray, CIN: 10.7 inches4. The only pitch in baseball this year to top 3,000 rpm was Garrett Richards ' curveball, which came in at 3,086 rpm, making it among the game's most impressive offerings.We couldn't help but tweet out what that curve looks like, here destroying poor Scott Schebler That @GRICHARDS26 curveball? How far, in feet, a runner is ranging off the bag at the The 5 pitches that would make the ultimate MLB pitcher - ESPN thrown with. Although applying any foreign substance to a baseball has been prohibited since the 1920s, the use of sticky substances like Spider Tack a powerful adhesive created to help competitive strongmen and strongwomen hoist enormous Atlas stones was an open secret, in line with the sports tradition of winking at scofflaws until the situation gets out of control. Here are five of the nastiest curveballs in baseball. Every pitch drops, remember, thanks to gravity. The Cincinnati pitching staff leads the Major Leagues in fastball and curveball spin rate -- and that's no accident. His slider averaged 21.5 inches of horizontal movement in 2021, topping the MLB leaderboard. This slider started off barely a foot off the ground, and it ended up more than three-and-a-half feet high at the top of the strike zone, making it a true rising slider. Bauer's, which he designed specifically to get vertical drop, is getting 8.9 inches more drop than an average curve. Thornburg, meanwhile, does have elite spin, though his 7.13 ERA this year proves it takes more than that to succeed, and no one should be surprised that Hader's unhittable fastball is about more than just his 95.1 MPH velocity. As you can see, all pitches drop to some extent. Remember, these are being compared to pitches thrown in the same velocity and release range, so this is capturing more than just lower speed. thrown with. Its been 12 years since the left-hander unleashed a gorgeous one to freeze veteran Sean Casey in Spring Training 2008 (before his rookie season), prompting legendary announcer Vin Scully to chuckle in astonishment before dubbing the pitch, Public Enemy No. (Without getting too deep into the weeds on the history of this: Once pitch tracking came online in 2007, a great deal of public work was put into conceiving and presenting these numbers. Making spin rate more useful over a wide range of pitchers of varying velocities. MLB.TV. He calls it a slider, saying to FanGraphs last fall in reply to a question about pitching strategy that "some of it is how my ball moves, both my sinker and my slider." The Reds have two pitchers doing that right now. The Yankees, just outside the top five in fastball spin, added Gerrit Cole, who developed and emphasized his true-spin four-seamer over the last few years. . Let's take a look through each pitch type for 2019, through Monday, and see how this method aligns with our expectations. How far, in feet, a runner is ranging off the bag at the "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second Dustin May vs. Trent Grisham, April 253,539 rpm curveball. Espaol. Pressly, a former Rule 5 Draft pick, developed this devastating out pitch and became a bullpen star. Kirby Yates, SD: 3.5 inches4. Nola struck out over 100 batters with his curveball for a second straight season, and his 109 curveball Ks were second only to Morton's 136. one base to another, like Home To First. Daniel Norris, DET: 6.8 inches. Sims' four-seamer is getting 2.4 inches of rise above average; his curve is getting 6.2 inches of horizontal break above average. Anything below 88mph is considered 0. ","type":"markdown"},{"__typename":"ExternalEmbed","data":{"__typename":"ExternalEmbedContent","html":", Jared Hughes, Nasty 92mph Sinker (Release/Spin Axis/Slow). Bauer Units are calculated for each pitch by dividing Spin Rate by Velocity. Garrett Richards has a unique ability, and the chance to harness its Green has struggled this year, with a 13.50 ERA, and lack of movement on that split makes sense. xERA is a simple 1:1 translation of xwOBA, converted to \n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"rich","width":550},"type":"oembed"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"No, this is more about aesthetics. SINKERS / TWO-SEAM FASTBALLS (leaderboard). How quickly, in seconds, a catcher can get the ball out H/T @kaitlxn1375 pic.twitter.com/7OA4JUuoUO, Trevor Bauer, Nasty 80mph Curveball (grip/release/spin). They're one of four teams, along with the Indians, Rays and D-backs, to have already reached the 100-K mark in 2020. This one by deGrom against the NL MVP candidate Tatis was the fastest strikeout by a starter this year on a pitch that wasn't a fastball. time of a pitcher's first movement or pitch release. Gore has been astounding, but his numbers are slightly higher (3.00 ERA, 3.35 expected . The top five in drop, or sink added over average: 1. Right fibula stress fracture. A batted ball with the perfect combination of exit +20 r.p.m. Williams' unique "airbender" changeup moves like a screwball. One game is an extremely small sample size, but Thornton owns the fourth highest curveball spin rate in baseball. Let's look at two different curveballs from Richards that differ in spin rate by about 500 RPM. Pitch Grading, Spin Profiles, and Coaching Cues - PRP Baseball outfield. A Bolt is any run where the Sprint Speed (defined as Analyzing Spin Rate Standouts Among 2022 Draftees And they know where to throw them -- the Reds are throwing nearly 60% of their four-seamers in the upper third of the zone or higher, the third-most elevated fastballs of any team.\n\nReds pitchers have been among the league leaders in four-seam whiff rate all season all those high-spin high fastballs probably have something to do with it.\n\nNow let's check out the curves. Statcast Pitch Arsenal Verlander relies on 4 pitches. Aaron Brooks, OAK: 6.8 inches5. High spin on a four-seamer is what gives you the "rising fastball" effect, and a rising fastball is more likely to get a hitter to swing and miss. Josh Hader, MIL: 3.3 inches. The data says it could be a curveball. window") of the runner is at least 30 ft/sec. 20 prospect, is a 26-year-old rookie who knew Boddy before Boddy joined the Reds staff (though, as Boddy put it in an offseason Twitter thread, Antone's development, including a big velocity spike, is a credit to the pitcher's own work). Anything below 88mph is considered 0. About a third of them have been 3,000 rpm or higher (32.9%). window") of the runner is at least 30 ft/sec. For those who want to dive even further down the rabbit hole of advanced statistics, Thornton's curveball measures at 37.83 Bauer Units (spin rate). By the way, this works horizontally, too. window.". Its been 12 years since the left-hander unleashed a gorgeous one to freeze veteran Sean Casey in Spring Training 2008 (before his rookie season), prompting legendary announcer Vin Scully to chuckle in astonishment before dubbing the pitch, Public Enemy No. Spin Direction - Pitches. MLB Highest Spin Rates For Each Pitch - YouTube Clayton Kershaw vs. Willson Contreras, June 27Curveball with 64.8 inches of drop / 1.2 inches of break. This chart compares the walk rate each season from before June 3 with the walk rate from the period between June 15 and July 18. You might also notice Bauer's teammate, Sims, right underneath him at No. A Batted Ball Event represents any batted ball that Every pitch drops. Chaz Roe, TB: 15.2 inches2. Blake Treinen, OAK: 7.6 inches. The Reds have amassed a stable of high-spin arms, and they sure look like they're targeting and developing these pitchers for a reason. And his curveball is a big reason why. Joakim Soria got the most drop on his curve, at 76.2 inches, but he also threw the second-slowest curves, at 70 MPH. Antone, the Reds' No. All in all, Ray's curveball has an active spin rate of just 14%, ranking 317th out of 318 qualified pitchers, . Statcast defines a 'hard-hit ball' as one hit with an Earlier this week, we looked at "the spectrum of Statcast," showing how spin rate and velocity intersected for various pitch types. pitch. Zach Duke, CIN:** 8.4 inches \n**3\\. Justin Lawrence vs. Eduardo Escobar, April 29 His spin rates are perfectly in line. able to make a catch on an individual batted ball. Glasnow induced a 43.9% whiff rate on swings against his curve, which ranked seventh-highest among starters to get at least 50 swings against their curves in 19, and was far above the Major League average whiff rate on curveballs of 31.9%. Source: Upshot analysis of pitch data. It's also worth pointing out Crick, a 2011 San Francisco first-rounder who was moved to the bullpen shortly before making his Major League debut in 2017. Slider: Up 12; 97.75% of 2021. For a batter, Best Speed is an average of 50% of his hardest hit balls. Prep Baseball Report > Ontario Statcast refers to the spin that contributes to movement MLB spin rate: Baseball's top pitchers aren't all masters of spin A range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a Reds pitchers on curveball spin rate leaderboardLucas Sims: 3,186 rpm -- #3 in MLB (#2 among RP)Brooks Raley: 2,975 rpm -- #10 in MLB (#8 among RP)Sonny Gray: 2,959 rpm -- #12 in MLB (#4 among SP)Tejay Antone: 2,943 rpm -- #15 in MLB (#8 among RP)Trevor Bauer: 2,862 rpm -- #20 in MLB (#9 among SP). Expected Weighted On-base Average (xwOBA), In order to qualify at all, a pitcher must have 3 How far, in feet, a fielder or runner has traveled on a Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. Trevor Bauer, 98mph and K Scream. All these things are being decided at that moment of truth.. MLB Curves And Sliders Have Gotten Alarmingly Nasty Sims had top-tier four-seam spin last season, averaging 2,641 rpm -- top-five in MLB -- but he's also a big gainer in 2020, with 150 extra rpm.\n\nIn the five years of Statcast tracking, no pitcher has averaged 2,800-plus rpm on their four-seamer for a full season. Jump is a Statcast metric that shows which players have 1. The teams populating those leaderboards are essentially who you'd expect. But no matter how we measured, these pitchers were at or near the top of it. Its spin rate is higher than any other curveball in the game3,294 revolutions per minutewhich is both the secret to its success and a new frontier in hitters' devastation. . In Richards' case, even if he doesn't know or care about the spin, it's served him well. Both Bauer and Gray get a lot of movement on their curves. How much spin, in revolutions per minute, a pitch was Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. How to say it: " In 2021, Seth Lugo's curveball dropped 62 inches. Blue Jays' Trent Thornton spins a curveball like nobody else Estrada has been relying on fastball movement over velocity for years. The answer is probably depends on the pitcher. a batted-ball event with a launch angle between eight Baseballs arent spinning the way they used to. Here are the teams in 2020 with the highest spin rate on fastballs according to MLB Statcast. . A batted ball with the perfect combination of exit deGrom is out there throwing sliders a mile-and-a-half per hour harder than that. Tyler Glasnow, RaysWhy he's so nasty: 2,907 rpm spin rate. Ryan Pressly, HOU: 10.8 inches2. 1. Morton's curveball break was top-10 in the Majors this year. The top five in vertical drop added above average: 1. In fact, no strikeout pitch this season with triple-digit velocity had more horizontal movement than this one by Lawrence. raw numbers and as a measurement against average. Antone's is getting +7.1 inches vs. average. Cole, deGrom and Sandy Alcantara were the only starting pitchers with a 101 mph strikeout this season, and this one by Cole was the fastest called Strike 3. Both numbers were the most in baseball, meaning he added the most movement beyond just gravity. and then Richards himself asked a very valid question in response: It's absolutely the right thing to ask. the ERA scale, A measurement of a player's top running speed, expressed Fastballs were up first. Spin Rate - Baseball Spotlight Spin Rate-What is it, what does it Mean? Tyler Glasnow vs. Josh Harrison, June 884.5 mph / 2,862 rpm curveball with 7.7 feet of extension. A Bolt is any run where the Sprint Speed (defined as From the view of his release below, the pitch is . xERA is a simple 1:1 translation of xwOBA, converted to Over 100 mph and breaking over a foot and a half. We could measure the simple change in spin rate before around the time of the ban, as we did above. in "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second become a hit. The One With the . How fast, in miles per hour, a ball was hit by a batter. Presslys hook sweeps side to side at a level above anyone else's -- he gets 10 inches more horizontal movement than curveballs thrown at similar velocities and release points. Statcast Active Spin Leaderboard | baseballsavant.com Highest curveball spin rate by team pitching staff, 2020 1) Reds: 2,884 rpm 2) Dodgers: 2,763 rpm 3) Astros: 2,754 rpm 4) Cubs: 2,689 rpm 5) Braves: 2,603 rpm MLB avg. Reds pitchers on 4-seam fastball spin rate leaderboardTrevor Bauer: 2,817 rpm -- #1 in MLBLucas Sims: 2,801 rpm -- #2 in MLB (#1 among RP)Michael Lorenzen: 2,644 rpm -- #9 in MLB (#7 among RP)Sonny Gray: 2,405 rpm -- top 25% of MLB (top 28% among SP)Raisel Iglesias: 2,386 rpm -- top 29% of MLB (top 27% among RP). Five of his six strikeouts in his four scoreless relief appearances this season have come on his four-seamer and curve. Sink+ of 100 is MLB average. The same goes with curveballs, where they're 100 rpm higher than the next-closest team and nearly 400 rpm above league average. Of the 131 pitchers in our data set pitchers who had thrown at least 150 fastballs since June 15 fastball spin rates fell for all but 29 of them. Gray and Bauer provide all the breaking-ball spin the starting rotation needs -- Castillo's out pitch is his changeup (maybe the best changeup in baseball), and changeups are low-spin offerings. These are the teams with the highest spin fastballs and curveballs this season. But with a fastball, the pitch is released with backspin, which is another way to say the ball is spinning front to back, from the pitcher's view, and against gravity. How hard, in miles per hour, a fielder throws the ball. attempt. His whiff% was 61.2%, which was 19% better than anyone else. But Britton doesn't call it a curve. Glasnow's electric stuff looks even nastier to a hitter because of how close to the plate he releases the ball. Practice Plans, Drills, Videos & more . So for example, take curveballs in 2018.Joakim Soria got the most drop on his curve, at 76.2 inches, but he also threw the second-slowest curves, at 70 MPH.If we're trying to get to real movement added, then we can say that Garrett Richards' curveball, which dropped 65 inches on the way to the plate, had +12.4 inches more drop than similar curves at his velocity, which you can also word as "24 . Snell's miss rate of 53.2 percent on his curveball in 2018 was the highest by any pitcher in the past 10 seasons (min. The submariner releases the ball, on average, just 1.20 feet off the ground -- the next-closest pitcher, Adam Cimber, has a release point a foot higher than Rogers'. That puts them in a different tier. But in 2020? Measured in miles per hour (MPH). \n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"rich","width":550},"type":"oembed"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"You might also notice Bauer's teammate, Sims, right underneath him at No. Remember, these are compared to the movement of pitches at similar velocities and releases, so each pitcher has their own average to be compared against. What sets Morton's curve apart is the massive amount of horizontal movement it gets. The top five in vertical drop over average: 1. If not, why not? of his glove and to the base on a stolen base or pickoff Corbin Burnes vs. Javier Bez, April 1498.0 mph / 2,957 rpm cutter. Hits were near record lows. Sean Doolittle has one of the most unhittable four-seamers in the game. Guerra has been very good, with a 2.52 ERA, but while his splitter had been getting between 29 and 31 inches of drop in previous seasons, it's dropping only 24.7 inches this year. Shop. Sinker: Up 35: 100.1% of 2021. of his glove and to the base on a stolen base or pickoff You can't even try. Forty-five of the 76 strikeouts Glasnow got last season were on his curveball -- that's 59% of his strikeouts. Prep Baseball Report > Ohio > News As Chatwood could attest, you also need to be able to throw strikes to succeed, because there's no "one secret key to pitching," not spin or velocity or location. By Josh Katz,Kevin Quealy and Tyler KepnerJuly 19, 2021. This is way above that. play. In 2017, his four-seamer had the most rise in baseball, +5.0 inches more than similar fastballs at his 92.8 MPH velocity and release. Highest spin: 2,421 rpm, Daniel Hudson MLB average: 1,746 rpm Lowest spin: 961 rpm, Nathan Eovaldi Eovaldi's pitch is sometimes called a splitter and sometimes a change, but he made an interesting move to add spin with a different grip, even though more spin on a changeup isn't really ideal. pic.twitter.com/PJR0CdVNbI, Kyle Crick, Filthy 81mph Slider (release/spin). The first having 3633 RPM at 84 MPH and the second with 3127 RPM at 81 MPH. player has saved over his peers. How fast, in miles per hour, a ball was hit by a batter. 3,058 rpm curveball / 13.2 inches of break Morton's curveball has elite spin and elite movement, and this one was so nasty it got Rojas to swing even though the pitch nearly hit him as it broke over a foot inside. With a curve, it's with topspin, or essentially spinning toward the plate, and the ground.In that case, more spin on a curveball should mean more downward movement, and in Richards' case, that's exactly what it means. Adam Ottavino, NYY: 10.8 inches3. pic.twitter.com/Yvfvl5ptmC, Tyler Glasnow, Ridiculous 85mph Curveball. "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second In 2019, his four-seamer has the 34th-most rise, at +2.2 inches more than similar fastballs at his 90.0 MPH. Through May 10, the date of his last start before an extended injured list stint, Glasnow had 37 strikeouts on his curveball -- second in the Majors behind his teammate Morton, who had just one more than Glasnow. The Yankee Stadium crowd appreciated Chapman dialing up the velocity, that's for sure. It seems like it might be if you want movement and grounders, and while fastballs that induce flies can be useful, slower breaking pitches in the air don't generally end as well for the pitcher.