Change up analysis

Interesting!

I still believe the change-up is the best pitch in baseball, and yet- the hardest to throw effectively. A good change-up is the one that appears wicked fast for half the distance and then seems to just float in the rest of the way in what appears to be some other time dimension- its what fools hitters.

A good change-up looks like a magic trick.

The best pitch in baseball has always been, and will always be a live fastball. If a pitcher possesses this and a great CU, you are looking at a HOF pitcher. Nice stuff SP thanks!

I asked the players on my team what pitch they fear most and they tell me its the change-up. They aren't afraid of a wicked fast or live fastball, they always feel that they can get around to hit it and can see it coming out of the pitchers hand- no deception involved- you get what you see- no magic.

The change-up on the other hand is dreaded by good hitters because of its extremely high deceptive value. You don't hear of good hitters waiting for the change-up to hit, no, they like the fastball to hit- always have and always will. The best pitch in my sons arsenal is his change-up. It gets hit less, creates more swinging strikes, and when it is rarely hit, it doesn't go anywhere far- almost alway a ground ball weakly hit to an infielder.

I have always felt that the best pitch a pitcher throws is the one the batter dreads. And for most players, it is the change-up or curveball- something other than the fastball.

Change-up/offspeed pitch is always best because of the deception value. It has been proven that any good batter can hit any good fastball located around the strike zone. Fastballs have no deception- you can see it coming and just swing and hit. Change-ups when thrown properly not only has the fastball appearance but has the compounded ability to have more late movement and timing issue for a batter to deal with.

How bad do hitters get fooled by it? Take this test for example- Try and throw for a first pitch a fastball or a change-up to a good hitter. Chances are you can float in a change-up right down the middle without good contact or any contact while almost always the fastball right down the middle for a first pitch will get creamed.

I don't know exactly what goes through a batters head when they are up to bat and swing foolishly at the change-up for a first pitch strike but it is so effective they can't fix it either. We did this approach with the best travel team in our area years ago. We pitched change-ups for the first pitch to batters on that team 75% of the time and every time they would swing out of their shoes and come up with nothing- they flat out could not tell it was coming slower and adjust to it. The coach was getting very ****ed off also- kept telling them not to swing on the first pitch, and so when they didn't swing they still got a strike.

A good change-up will make a fastball look better anyday than a good fastball making a change-up look better.

How many 90MPH fastballs have your players faced this year?

How many scouts do you see at HS games looking at the guy with a 83 MPH fastball and a killer change up?

I think the major point made in the blog is that a change up is only as good as the fastball that sets it up. One without the other is not likely to strike fear in any good hitter.
I was trying to find out what defines a plus change-up. I've heard it said that a 10 mph differential is ideal, but any more can lead to decreased success. Movement is also key. It seems most crucial to know when to throw it, and when it's most likely to be effective. That is discussed in the piece and backed up with data. It would be really interesting to compare other pitchers who use the change up effectively (eg Santana or Hoffman) and see if the data is consistent.

quote:

How many 90MPH fastballs have your players faced this year?

How many scouts do you see at HS games looking at the guy with a 83 MPH fastball and a killer change up?

It works all in relativism. A good change-up has the same exact effect in high school or the majors.

There are plenty of pitchers in professional ball most of which can throw 90+mph (if not all minus just a few). Of those who is effective? The guys who have great offspeed pitches. A pitcher with 91 mph velocity coupled with a great change-up will advance to the majors way quicker and is more projectable than a pitcher who throws 96mph with a weak change-up. Whos more deadly- pitcher with an average fastball with above average change-up or a a pitcher with above average fastball but weak change-up?

Hey SP thanks for the link. They have all kinds of great stuff on this site. A great resource.

GBM:

Take a look at this.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leade...y&type=4&season=2009

Now go down through and look at pitchers who have a plus FB with a CU that is used less than 6% of the time. I will help you out a little on some of them.

Edwin Jackson
Clayton Kershaw
Zack Greinke
Roy Oswalt
Matt Garza
Roy Holladay
Chris Carpenter
Joba Chamberlin

That should answer your question. Now go to the bottom of the list and look for someone with a below average FB using a CU a lot....there are a couple Moyer and Buehrle but that is it.

Everyone talks about Cole Hamels CU but guess what he throws a 90MPH FB 60% of the time. I did not realize he threw such a hard FB until looking at this site. Interesting stuff.

quote:

Fastballs have no deception- you can see it coming and just swing and hit.

A two seam fastball has quite a bit of deception.

Regards,

CAEflash

There aren't a lot of guys that have a plus plus change-up in the majors. For that matter, there aren't many at the pre MLB that have a plus plus change-up. Down to the college and HS levels there are even fewer and fewer. At the pre HS level you may see 3-4 pitchers all year long that have a great change-up.

I was saying earlier that we once played the best travel team around and that we would start them out with a first pitch CU and it would get in their heads so bad that you could throw anything after that pretty much - mostly fastballs and then come back occasionally with the CU deep in a count and get them to strike out.

I will agree with you that a live plus fastball in the 90's is something special- a rare talent in and of itself! But, it is my opinion that if a pitcher also has a plus CU to go along with his hard live fastball that batters fear the CU the most in their at bat. This is why I believe most batters wait and watch for the fastball. They analyze when a pitcher is most likely to throw their fastball and then step into the box with a predetermined idea of when the pitcher is going fastball and then swing.

The art of the pitch is its - what I call "magical deception". Here is why I prefer the CU as the best pitch in baseball-

The eye is trained to pick up the initial velocity of the torso, arm and hand motion. At this very early stage the mind predetermines the exact future moment that the pitch will enter the zone ready to hit. A great CU will be thrown on the same exact plane at release as the fastball. The mind seeing the velocity of the arm as the same as the fastball will automatically trigger a subconscious timer based on the speed of the arm initially and then later it recalculates. If a CU is thus thrown on the same plane as the fastball, the odds are that the mind will automatically trigger fastball swing and thus why hitters will look so foolish when after they start their fastball swing they readjust and try to slow the bat down.

Timing a great CU out of the hand is thus impossible for the mind to calculate as every visual trigger says "fastball, fastball, fastball". It is that fear that screws up a good hitter. Good hitters are conditioned generally to hit fastballs because it is the easiest pitch to calculate actual velocity out of the pitchers hand at release. We did a test with batters who would swing hard on the change-up. Instead of switching off and on with the fastaball we would just have the pitcher throw a harder CU the very next pitch- and sure enough the batter would swing even harder the next pitch convinced that it was the fastball. We could strike out batters with this method on three straight change-ups with each consecutive CU thrown slightly harder than the last. It told us as coaches that the batters mind must always think fastball out of the hand and then readjust after some time from that moment. The mind doesn't like to think oppositly because that is where he gets burned- if he thinks CU and it is the fastball he never gets the bat around.

The magic trick of the CU when thrown perfectly is that by the time a batter realizes it isn't the fastball it is almost always too late to readjust and make good contact. If they do recalculate it is more of a defensive type of swing that leads into lots of pop-ups or grounders.
One of the problems that exists is that in my opinion not very many pitchers at the pro level know how to effectively throw a CU. I went to a MiLB game last weekend and of the 6 pitchers I saw, only one had a good enough CU that I honestly couldn't tell what he was throwing until the ball was over halfway to the plate. The other pitchers would change their delivery just enough that you could tell right at the moment of release if it was the CU or not.

I enjoy learning from this board.

Earlier this year I read a major league hitter saying that the reason Johan Santana was so tough was that his changeup was completely indistinguishable from his fastball.

In terms of pitch sequencing, I was recently reading up on Orel Hersheiser. I was surprised to learn that he had become a professional poker player with a fairly high level skill. Interesting.

Then, when reading one of the old articles from the SI vault written during his prime, one of his coaches said that Hersheiser was one of the biggest gamblers on the mound that you would ever find. He meant that Hersheiser would throw pitches at spots in the count where almost no one else would throw that pitch. Interesting.

Re: the prior post. I think in any sport, if you can instill in an athlete the fear of looking foolish, it freezes him and reduces his performance significantly. Hitters don't fear missing a fastball, or not getting it solidly. Thats just part of the game to them. Missing a slower pitch or hitting a chopper or pop-up from it isn't the same, and they feel it is an embarassment to them. The boys who don't have the physical makeup to bring the hard heat can survive in the meantime by perfecting movement, location, and keeping hitters off balance. As the Lincecum chart above shows, its not easy either. There is a relatively small range of velocity in which his changeup has positive value. Too fast or too slow and it has no value.

Here's another piece on Lincecum and his change up.
Changeup makes Lincecum dominant

BOF your spot on. The cu's effectiveness is directly related to the ability of the pitcher to challenge and locate with his heater. When hitters are forced to sit hard on a pitchers fb because he has one that they have to sit on to hit the cu becomes the great equalizer and is "killer". When a pitcher does not have a fb that forces hitters to sit hard on it in order to bang it the cu is not nearly as effective.

The best pitch in baseball always has been a well located heater everything works off of that. Folks its the reason velo is so important. It forces the hitter to speed the process up.

Let me add this. If Lincecum did not have a dominate fb would we ever hear of him or his cu? It starts with the fb and everything works off of that.

Every pitcher has his "out" pitch. For some its a fastball and for others its a hard curveball. For Lincecum its his change-up. It is by far his best pitch in my opinion. Every pitcher wants an edge- whether its velocity or movement or just plain deception. Lincecum has a little of all which is what makes him great.

But I like to think of the whole fear factor in batters- let them state what they fear in a pitcher. For batters facing Lincecum, it is obvious that they fear his CU- they even state that and how difficult it is too pick up. If a pitchers best pitch is what is defined as instilling fear in a batter then the CU is definately Lincecums best pitch he has.

Couple things to keep in mind.

1 - Lincecum was drafted in the first round before he had developed a changeup. He is where he is at due to his fastball.

2 - He throws his change up in the mid 80s. It's basically a splitfinger.

In order to throw an effective changeup with mid 80s velocity a pitcher needs to have a mid 90s fastball, which is something he does have. So if the change is his best pitch, it's largely because of his fastball. He was absolutely outstanding without the change. The change has made him even better.

You are right in that without his fastball the CU is nothing. There are many things that make Lincecum special- his deceptive windup and delivery to his small frame and yet large stride.

But the thing propelling him into stardom is his use of offspeed pitches. Specifically, his CU as a pitch to screw batters up is what is making him so great. Almost every pitcher in the big leagues can throw with his velocity but very few can throw a CU with such effectiveness as he can, and that is specifically why he has a low era and is again in line to get the Cy Young award.

I ask- is it his fastaball that is exceptional or is it his CU? It is obviously the CU. That is his best pitch.

I will always argue the best pitch in baseball is a properly thrown CU because it mimicks the properties of the fastball in every way only that batters can't hit it- its like its a cruel magic trick.

quote:

Almost every pitcher in the big leagues can throw with his velocity

Incorrect!

I have to agree with PG here...most MLB pitchers (especially starters) aren't pumping 95+ consistently. I would guess that average major league velocity range for starters is something like 88-92. Just a guess...now bullpen guys that can air it out for short bursts average more, but they aren't going to have the depth of stuff that Lincecum has either. There are many reasons for pitchers going to the bullpen...one of the biggies in my mind is lack of a third pitch.

I agree with PG in the fact that he was pretty darn good before the CU. I think due to him being such a max effort type thrower , it helps him really sells the CU even more. You don;t see a lot of max effort throwers who can get a feel for the CU and repeat it. He is special.
Not to mention he competes his rear end off.