Whether you are a fan of blistering fastballs that test the upper limits of a radar gun, or prefer wipe-out curveballs that frustrate the life out of opposing hitters, everybody loves a nasty pitch. Fish Stripes has extensively covered the collective success of the Marlins pitching staff this season, but it’s really the masterful execution of several specific pitches that’s been propelling them to such a high level in 2019. These weapons—belonging to rookies and grizzled veterans alike—rank among the most elite pitches in Major League Baseball.
In this discussion, we will consider a wide variety of statistics—in-zone swing and miss rates, missed chase rates, vertical movement, and horizontal movement for example—to better understand what makes pitches tremendously deceptive and consistent out-inducers.