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Examining The Most Effective Pitches in Baseball

Aaron Nola - Fantasy Baseball Rankings, MLB Injury News, DFS Lineup Picks

There is just nothing better in sports than Baseball Savant. We can derive almost any insight we want from their pitch-by-pitch dataset. One challenge I wanted to take a crack at was to see if I could find which individual pitches in baseball are most effective regardless of who throws it, just looking at pitch type and location. I did a little Python scripting and generated a data set that has information about each pitch type in each possible pitch zone. The zones break down like this (from the catcher's perspective), so a pitch that ends up in zone one will be up and in to right-handed batters.


The data is 313 rows deep as I broke it down by handedness as well. Here is what I found to be a few of the most effective pitches in the game, and then I add on which pitchers throw these pitches most often.

 

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Low Changeups To Same-Handed Hitters

The pitch class that had the most success in terms of swinging-strike rate (swings and misses divided by total pitches thrown) was the low changeup thrown by pitchers to hitters of the same handedness. Even when contact is made, hitters are rarely able to do damage with it, slugging well below .300 on average. Here are the swinging-strike numbers:

Zone Pitcher Hand Batter Hand SwStr%
9 L L 27.1%
14 L L 25.6%
7 R R 24.4%
13 R R 23.4%
8 R R 23.4%

Pitchers that throw this pitch most often:

Pitcher Pitches Total Pitches Thrown % of Total
Zach Davies 527 3,733 14.1%
Trevor Richards 347 2,864 12.1%
Chris Paddack 331 3,243 10.2%
Luis Castillo 402 4,222 9.5%
Aaron Nola 385 4,479 8.6%
Stephen Strasburg 274 3,468 7.9%
Kyle Hendricks 300 3,852 7.8%
Michael Wacha 215 2,808 7.7%
Pablo Lopez 205 2,696 7.6%

This goes a long way to explain the success Davies has had recently. He is not an overpowering pitcher and has not generated many strikeouts in his career. However, he has attacked hitters in a really smart way, putting his changeup in the right spots at a very high rate. Everybody knows about how awesome Luis Castillo's changeup is, and a lot of that has to do with how he locates it. He attacks righties with the low changeup a ton and has had a ton of success doing so, and there's no reason to expect anything to change.

If we look at what percentage of every pitcher's changeups end up in these desired zones, here are the leaders:

Pitcher Total Optimal Zone %
Eduardo Rodriguez 813 86%
Tommy Milone 909 86%
Stephen Strasburg 717 86%
Zach Davies 1,274 86%
Aaron Nola 932 84%
Luis Castillo 1,344 84%
Ryan Yarbrough 776 83%
Kyle Gibson 650 83%
Max Scherzer 596 83%
Kenta Maeda 867 83%

 

Low and Away Sliders To Same-Handed Hitter

The low slider that runs away from a hitter is probably the most common putaway pitch in the game, so it is no surprise that these pitches are the highest in whiff rate (swings and misses divided by total swings). Here are the two leading sliders:

Zone Pitcher Hand Batter Hand Whiff%
13 L L 64.7%
14 R R 64.5%

Note that zones 13 and 14 are not in the strike zone. Of course, the pitches that lead the way in whiff rate will be pitches that aren't in the strike zone since we are only looking at pitches that generated swings. It's not very prudent to throw this pitch in any count, it is most effective while ahead in the count, specifically in 0-2 or 1-2 counts. That means that you have some work to do to get yourself to the spot where you can utilize this weapon. Here are the leaders:

Pitcher Pitches Total Pitches Thrown % of Total
Mike Clevinger 350 2,739 12.8%
Kenta Maeda 414 3,419 12.1%
Michael Pineda 317 2,639 12.0%
Jhoulys Chacin 242 2,037 11.9%
Carlos Carrasco 266 2,375 11.2%
Felix Pena 222 2,030 10.9%
Jacob deGrom 471 4,326 10.9%
Adrian Sampson 218 2,056 10.6%
Shane Bieber 463 4,461 10.4%

The leaders are all righties just because lefty vs. lefty doesn't happen nearly as often as righty vs. righty in baseball. If we look at the lefty leaders here:

Pitcher Pitches Total Pitches Thrown % of Total
Patrick Corbin 260 4,367 6.0%
Robbie Ray 210 4,122 5.1%
Caleb Smith 137 2,928 4.7%
Tommy Milone 102 2,367 4.3%
Julio Urias 94 2,219 4.2%
Blake Snell 110 2,762 4.0%

This brings up a natural disadvantage left-handed pitchers have. They just don't get to face batters of the same handedness nearly as often as righties. Here's a breakdown of the handedness matchups over the last two seasons:

RHB LHB
RHP 39% 34%
LHP 20% 8%

If we look at just the low-and-away sliders that stayed in the strike zone, here are the numbers:

Zone Pitcher Hand Batter Hand Whiff% SLG
7 L L 32.6% .265
9 R R 29.9% .218

And the leaders:

Pitcher Pitches Total Pitches Thrown % of Total
Mike Clevinger 350 2,739 12.8%
Kenta Maeda 414 3,419 12.1%
Michael Pineda 317 2,639 12.0%
Jhoulys Chacin 242 2,037 11.9%
Carlos Carrasco 266 2,375 11.2%
Felix Pena 222 2,030 10.9%
Jacob deGrom 471 4,326 10.9%
Adrian Sampson 218 2,056 10.6%
Shane Bieber 463 4,461 10.4%

 

Low Curveballs

Much like the low changeup, low curveballs are also a very commonly used pitch. Here are the numbers for curveballs in the lower third of the strike zone.

Pitcher Hand Batter Hand Zone SwStr% Whiff% SLG
R L 9 19.9% 29.6% .429
L R 7 17.5% 26.1% .637
R R 9 16.3% 24.6% .331
L L 7 14.6% 21.9% .300
L R 8 13.7% 19.9% .526
L L 8 13.2% 18.7% .491
R L 8 12.7% 18.1% .546
R R 8 11.6% 16.4% .592
L R 9 10.1% 17.7% .443
R R 7 9.8% 16.4% .463
R L 7 8.3% 15.4% .380
L L 9 7.4% 12.7% .537

Here are the leaders in this pitch:

Pitcher Pitches Total Pitches Thrown % of Total
Aaron Nola 391 4,479 8.7%
Zack Godley 176 2,101 8.4%
Charlie Morton 304 3,798 8.0%
Adam Wainwright 263 3,714 7.1%
Stephen Strasburg 242 3,468 7.0%
Framber Valdez 154 2,224 6.9%
Domingo German 153 2,247 6.8%
Jose Quintana 194 2,917 6.7%
Jose Berrios 275 4,234 6.5%

If we include zones 13 and 14 in this, the leaderboard looks almost exactly the same with Jorge Lopez entering the picture.

If we look at what percentage of every pitcher's curveballs end up in these desired zones, here are the leaders:

Pitcher Total Optimal Zone %
Andrew Heaney 724 83%
Blake Snell 591 82%
Jose Quintana 801 80%
Shane Bieber 985 80%
Jon Lester 597 75%
German Marquez 921 74%
James Paxton 559 74%
Framber Valdez 753 72%
Aaron Nola 1,480 71%
Jorge Lopez 855 71%

 

Low Sinkers

The sinker is not a pitch that gets many swings-and-misses. The pitch is mainly used to get ground-balls. Unsurprisingly, of course, the best sinkers at doing this are the ones low in the zone. Here's the rundown:

Pitcher Hand Batter Hand Zone SLG Angle Velo
L L 7 .222 -13 87.7
L L 8 .313 -7 90.7
R R 9 .330 -7 90.6
L L 9 .347 -6 88.2
L R 9 .368 1 87.7
R L 7 .426 5 87.5
R R 8 .432 -5 93.3
L R 7 .435 6 91.4
R R 7 .473 -3 90.5
R L 9 .498 9 93.1
L R 8 .561 6 94.1
R L 8 .575 10 93.0

Here are the pitchers who most frequently locate their sinkers in these zones.

Pitcher Total Optimal Zone %
Adrian Houser 1,057 27.5%
Zach Eflin 1,033 25.8%
Mike Soroka 1,202 25.5%
Marcus Stroman 1,106 23.6%
Framber Valdez 1,059 23.3%
Dallas Keuchel 1,224 23.0%
Jose Berrios 1,003 22.9%
Patrick Corbin 1,448 22.8%
Zach Davies 1,853 22.8%
Jake Arrieta 1,596 22.7%

 

High Four-Seamers

If you look at where four-seam fastballs do the best, the top of the zone really pops off the page. Looking at all possible zones, here are the top five in swinging-strike rate:

Zone Pitcher Hand Batter Hand SwStr%
1 R L 19.4%
3 L R 19.2%
2 R R 18.8%
2 R L 18.4%
3 R R 18.1%
2 L R 17.9%
2 L L 16.9%
1 L L 16.3%
1 R R 15.9%
3 L L 15.5%

The top eleven four-seamers by swinging-strike rate are all in the top third of the zone. Pretty convincing. Here are the pitchers that throw the highest percentage of their four-seamers in these zones:

Pitcher Total Optimal Zone %
Jake Odorizzi 1,694 28.9%
Rick Porcello 1,023 28.4%
Blake Snell 1,355 26.4%
Hyun-Jin Ryu 1,011 26.3%
Charlie Morton 1,170 25.7%
Gerrit Cole 2,310 24.9%
Brandon Woodruff 1,175 24.6%
Julio Urias 1,266 24.1%
Justin Verlander 1,657 23.9%
Jordan Lyles 1,626 23.9%
Caleb Smith 1,568 23.8%
Matthew Boyd 2,055 23.6%
Trevor Bauer 1,894 23.3%
Lance Lynn 2,560 23.2%
Jacob deGrom 2,046 23.0%

 

Takeaways

Pablo Lopez's name appeared a few times here. He was already one of my favorite mid-round starting pitcher picks and I am even more firm in that stance now. Some other names that appeared multiple times would be Jose Berrios, Aaron Nola, Jacob deGrom, Shane Bieber, Zach Davies, Kenta Maeda, Julio Urias, and Carlos Carrasco.

This may not have been the most relevant article for concrete fantasy draft-day advice, but I hope you can take away some information that will be useful. There is a lot more to this story, and if you want to take a look into my data source yourself, you can do that here!



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