Yu Darvish appears to be the best starter in terms of getting the most out of his slider thanks to some sick movement away from right-handed batters. The 'most dangerous pitch in the game' can refer to the tax in puts on a pitcher’s elbow as well as the damage it can do to a hitter’s pride.

On the starter side, there is a solid mix of candidates, although in terms of total (non-per-100-pitches) value Kershaw is the 'winner.' Slider No surprise here as Craig Kimbrel dominates in terms of the value produced from the heater – it’s why we’re now referring to striking out the side as The Kimbrel. Kelvin Herrera topped the charts with an average fastball velocity of 99.41, but there’s more to a heater than just the gas. In fact, 279 starting pitchers threw at least one this year while an additional 468 relievers tossed at least one. 'Old reliable' is a pitch that just about every pitcher fires out there are least some of the time. Pitch values are in terms of runs above average per 100 pitches. Whiff/Swing is the percentage of swings that results in a miss. The movement values refer to the change in location due to spin on the ball compared to a spin-free ball. So take these designations of 'best pitch' or 'filthiest pitch' with a grain of salt, and understand they're just for fun.Īll charts use a minimum of 200 pitches thrown and 40 innings pitched for relievers and 400 pitches thrown and 80 innings pitched for starters as the cutoff. Tango cautioned as much, too, reminding us not to evaluate an interdependent dynamic like pitch mix as independent items That is, a changeup may look spectacular because of a strong fastball, or to steal an example, a Dickey fastball may perform better than expected since hitters are looking for the knuckler. Since Ben at Baseball prospectus had already identified the surprising leaders and Jeff at Fangraphs identified the top pitch overall, my idea kind of evolved into highlighting the filthiest pitches in baseball in more broad terms rather than just with Whiff Rate.Īs such, today I’ll take a look at each pitch type as classified by Brooks Baseball PitchFX, highlighting the pitchers who had the best fastball, slider and more, in terms of Pitch FX Horizontal Movement, Vertical Movement and Whiff Rate, as well as Fangraph’s Pitch Values.Īs Bill pointed out, we have to be careful with the pitch value measures due to confounding factors.

As a follow up to my piece on Whiff Rate as a leading explanatory factor for strikeouts, I thought it would be interesting to look at which pitches caused the highest rates of Whiffs in baseball.

Mlb swing and miss leaders