Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer and the evolution of pitching

Cleveland Indians righty Trevor Bauer is one example of how pitchers have evolved into high-velocity strikeout machines.

One of my favorite parts about the All-Star festivities was the interview with Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer on MLB Network. The interview was before the Home Run Derby on Monday, with Bauer talking to Greg Amsinger, Al Leiter and Pedro Martinez. Al Leiter starts out by telling Bauer he’s on pace for 300 strikeouts, then there’s a pause, which Bauer breaks by correcting Leiter, saying “298.”

The fact that Bauer knew he was on pace for 298 strikeouts, not 300, is telling in and of itself. How many pitchers know exactly how many strikeouts they’re on pace for? Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale are all great pitchers, but I doubt they know exactly how many strikeouts they’re on pace for. Bauer is different. Not only does he know exactly how many strikeouts he’s on pace for, he probably knows the exact average velocity and spin rate on each of his pitches.

In the interview, Leiter than says to Bauer, “I don’t know you, but the science behind your thinking and the answers you give, what’s happening?” He’s referencing the leap forward in effectiveness Bauer has made this season.

Bauer’s response to Leiter is that he has two “plus” breaking pitches now. A “plus” pitch is an above average pitch. For example, some pitchers might have a “plus” fastball or a “plus slider.” During the interview, Bauer explained to Leiter and Martinez the different grips on his breaking pitches, right down to the difference in thumb placement, how the pitch comes off his hand and the resultant spin.

House That Hank Built

Leiter then asked about Bauer’s offseason routine, specifically his work with Driveline Baseball and the Rapsodo Device. In the offseason, Bauer explained, he had all of his pitches filmed at 2000 frames per second. With this kind of detail, he learned where he needs to have his thumb on his curveball versus his slider and how it shifts the axis so he gets different movement on it.

Using this advanced technology, Bauer essentially created a new pitch last offseason, like a baseball-mad scientist working in a lab. According to Fangraphs, he’s upped his slider usage by nearly 10 percent. He also has the highest average fastball velocity of his career.

The results this year have been impressive. From 2014 to 2017, Bauer’s first four seasons with at least 25 starts, he had a 4.30 ERA and 4.06 FIP. The first three of those seasons, he struck out 21.7 percent of the batters he faced. Last year, his strikeout rate jumped to 26.2 percent. This year he has a 2.44 ERA, 2.27 FIP and 31.3 percent strikeout rate.

Bauer is using tools that are available today that no one even dreamed about a generation ago. I grew up pitching in the 1980s. I wasn’t a prospect, didn’t have a legit fastball, but I got people out by throwing a curveball for strikes and relying on my defense. The curveball I threw I learned from my older brother when I was 10 years old.

I played baseball for a dozen years and my pitching coaches were almost always the fathers of a teammate. They were nice guys, but they didn’t know much more than I did about pitching. There wasn’t instruction on spin rate or how adjusting your thumb on a pitch could shift the axis and change the movement because no one was thinking about those things. It was mostly, “throw strikes and work fast.”

Now there are so many more ways for a young pitcher to improve. Spin rate is being tracked and pitchers are learning how to increase it. There are also programs to increase velocity, which can be seen by the proliferation of pitchers throwing in the upper 90s these days. After the All-Star game, Darren Willman tweeted the maximum fastball velocities for each pitcher. Fifteen of the 18 pitchers in the game had a max velocity of 96 mph or higher. Ten pitchers were above 98 mph.

It’s a different world and it’s not surprising that strikeouts are increasing every year. Pitchers are getting better and better. They have more information than they did in the past. They throw harder than ever and they are being coached better than ever.

A very cool Twitter site is Rob Friedman’s Pitching Ninja that shows how different pitches move as they travel from release point to the plate. This example shows an overlay of Trevor Bauer’s 94 mph fastball and 82 mph slider.

The goal for the pitcher is to have those two very different pitches come out of the same wind up and release point. The pitcher wants the batter to have to guess what’s coming and try to make an adjustment in the fraction of a second from the pitcher’s release point to the batter’s hitting zone. There’s a reason they say hitting a baseball is the most difficult specific task in any sport.

Many traditional baseball fans lament the predominance of strikeouts in today’s game. They want more balls in play, more action, like the game had when they were young. It’s easy to romanticize our youth that way.

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Unfortunately for people who want to see more balls in play, it doesn’t look like strikeouts are going away anytime soon. Pitchers these days, like the Cleveland Indians’ Trevor Bauer, have so many more resources available to get better at their craft. Maybe we should just enjoy these artists (and scientists) at work.