I've spent a lot of time thinking about Phillips Valdez lately. For example, the amount of Seam-Shift Wake movement on his changeup is 6th-best in all of MLB (min. 100 pitches)!
But, here's something odd I stumbled across -- his release point on his slider relative to the rest of his repertoire looks to be totally out of whack:
Just to summarize what we're seeing there -- the difference in average release point between Valdez's slider (5.28 ft) and the next closest release point, on his changeup, (4.75 ft) is more than half a foot (.53 ft). The difference between his slider release point and that of the pitch with the furthest away verticle release point (his sinker) is .59 ft. It seems a batter could pick that up and tell what's coming based on the difference, no?
It's true that some pitchers might want to mix up their delivery in order to keep hitters off-balance, but the best research I could find suggests pitchers should keep their release point as consistent as possible.
So, I went to the leaderboard of the best sliders in baseball this season to see if there might be something about the pitch that makes it more effective if there is some separation in the release point between it and a guy's other pitches. Here are the results for the guys with the best three sliders so far this year:
Kershaw, Clayton: (-.14 in) meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 14/100ths of an inch below that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his curveball) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
Darvish, Yu: (+.01 in), meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 1/100th of an inch above that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his sinker) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
Musgrove, Joe (-.14 in), meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 14/100ths of an inch below that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his curveball) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
***Please note that for some reason Savant uses 10ths of a foot rather than inches so it's not quite "of an inch".
Nope, that's not it.
So, what's up? And, is a little over half a foot enough of a difference for a batter to notice so that Valdez could be tipping his slider?
But, here's something odd I stumbled across -- his release point on his slider relative to the rest of his repertoire looks to be totally out of whack:
Just to summarize what we're seeing there -- the difference in average release point between Valdez's slider (5.28 ft) and the next closest release point, on his changeup, (4.75 ft) is more than half a foot (.53 ft). The difference between his slider release point and that of the pitch with the furthest away verticle release point (his sinker) is .59 ft. It seems a batter could pick that up and tell what's coming based on the difference, no?
It's true that some pitchers might want to mix up their delivery in order to keep hitters off-balance, but the best research I could find suggests pitchers should keep their release point as consistent as possible.
So, I went to the leaderboard of the best sliders in baseball this season to see if there might be something about the pitch that makes it more effective if there is some separation in the release point between it and a guy's other pitches. Here are the results for the guys with the best three sliders so far this year:
Kershaw, Clayton: (-.14 in) meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 14/100ths of an inch below that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his curveball) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
Darvish, Yu: (+.01 in), meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 1/100th of an inch above that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his sinker) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
Musgrove, Joe (-.14 in), meaning the release point on his slider is about*** 14/100ths of an inch below that of the pitch with the furthest away vertical release point (his curveball) -- pretty much the same as far as the eye can tell, I assume
***Please note that for some reason Savant uses 10ths of a foot rather than inches so it's not quite "of an inch".
Nope, that's not it.
So, what's up? And, is a little over half a foot enough of a difference for a batter to notice so that Valdez could be tipping his slider?