Pitch Movement Synergy Notes - Atlanta Braves
Will the Braves sign me for 15 years? My wife wants to move somewhere warm.
I’m going to go through all 30 starting rotations, sorted by fewest runs allowed, within the lens of pitch movement synergy. Please read that article first, as these notes assume the reader has the context from that article.
Max Fried
One of my classmates in high school was Max Friedman, and every time I watch Max Fried pitch, my brain endures some cognitive dissonance, as it invariably adds “man” to the end of his name. I then wonder how Max got so much taller and suddenly able to throw 94. It is for this reason that I just can’t take Max Fried seriously in fantasy baseball. I was hoping his movement synergy could cure said dissonance, but sadly:
The fastball/curveball pair only generate average swing decisions. To be clear, I’m not recommending a change to the curveball shape, however, based on other elite curveballs, he may benefit from lowering his usage of the pitch.
I can’t fully explain why Fried generates poor swing decisions on the changeup and sinker, other than to hand wave that it has something to do with low usage. I think Fried needs a slider with more late movement so that he can lower the usage of the curve, along with aiming it slightly lower out of the hand.
Kyle Wright
Based on the above chart, we should see a distinct four seam fastball that is easy to pick up, right? It’s complicated. Here’s his top 4 pitches lumped together:
Looks pretty good to me, when we include the curveball. However, if we look at his four secondaries, we see perhaps a clearer picture:
The fastball is clearly the only non-curveball that “pops” out of the hand. I think the four seamer also plays a vital role in masking the curve on the vertical plane:
I think what I’m learning is that for pitchers who throw a lot of pitches, it’s a lot less straightforward to analyze. For Wright, who throws his curveball as his primary pitch, it complicates things even further. Which brings us to Charlie Morton.
Charlie Morton
Charlie also throws his curveball more than any other pitch. Let’s see if we can explain him, or just throw our (my) hands in the air.
The fastball-cutter pair do indeed have great synergy, which we see reflected in the swing decisions the cutter generates.
The changeup looks pretty good too, however, despite really low usage, he might be tipping the pitch, as batters are picking it up. Luckily for Morton, he has one of those visually distinct curveballs that he can just throw and it still works:
One day I’ll hopefully figure out why certain curveballs work and others don’t, from a swing decision perspective.
Spencer Strider
Beautiful, but he may be tipping his changeup:
So let’s look at just the FF/SL pair:
Spectacular, with perhaps some room for improvement on the vertical plane. After the complicated repertoires of Wright and Morton, Strider’s is refreshingly straightforward. I hope he figures out how to fix his changeup.
Mike Soroka
Let’s look at 2019 Mike Soroka:
Let’s being with the FF/SL pair:
Very nice synergy, partially explained by the poor slider decisions.
The sinker/four seam pair synergize well on the horizontal plane. The sinker doesn’t make sense to me as the pitch that would get the worst decisions, however it’s entirely possible that the near-perfect horizontal synergy is forcing batters to guess FF. Not entirely confident in that, but not every pitcher fits neatly into the synergy model.
Concluding thoughts
It’s looking like movement synergy is most important with sliders and changeups (which should perhaps have been obvious), and may not matter for other pitch types at all. We do see a pattern emerging for what an elite fastball-slider pairing looks like. I’ll also be on the lookout to see if merely throwing 4 or 5 pitches also reduces the need for movement synergy as the batter has too much to think about. In that case, it’s theoretically more about not tipping pitches. The Braves (other than Strider) have given me a lot to chew on.
Next up the Tampa Bay Rays!