Collette Calls: Analyzing Last Year's New Pitches

Written by

Updated on February 28, 2017 2:09AM EST

The fourth installment of the New Pitch Tracker is now live at Fangraphs. I began that project in 2014 with a piece declaring new pitches the new "Best Shape Of My Life" story. I've continued to pursue these stories each year, even though the results on the new pitches have been mixed. The theory goes that a new pitch should make it more difficult for batters because they now have to think about something new when facing the pitcher.

It could be a power righty who adds a changeup so that right-handed batters have to think about that while lefties now must look for something fading away instead of all movement coming into them. It could be a lefty adding a cutter (see Matt Moore last year) so that he can come in on left-handed batters and get weaker contact or freeze them on the inner half. Sometimes it's a pitcher changing the shape of his breaking ball, or the grip on his changeup.

When looking at new pitches, the ones that intrigue me are the swing-and-miss pitches: the changeups, the breaking balls and the splitters. I am not so intrigued by cutters or changing to two-seamers because those are not pitches designed to limit the quality of contact rather than any contact. This entire project began with me looking for a hidden source of strikeouts for pitchers and, as secondary wish, some that might be on the verge of a breakout with the new approach to pitching.

Last year, we had a number of pitchers with new pitches. Let's look back and see how that group did last year compared to 2015. The biggest challenge of this particular project is pitchers will sometimes talk about the new pitch, use it in camp, and leave it in Florida or Arizona. Let's start by looking at the new pitch list from last year and who actually used it.

To qualify for the list, the pitcher has to have used the "new pitch" fewer than five percent of the time the previous season or have made a substantial change to the pitch with a grip (2 to a 4 seam, standard to a spike curve). The yes/no column below is using a five percent threshold using data from Fangraphs and showing pitchers who worked at least 40 innings in 2016. If the pitcher used the pitch less often in 2016 than in 2015, they earned a "No."

PLAYER	NEW PITCH	USAGE?
Kyle Hendricks	Curveball	Yes
Kendall Graveman	Changeup	No
Noah Syndergaard	Cutter	No
Hector Santiago	Slider	No
Jimmy Nelson	Changeup	No
Drew Pomeranz	Cutter	Yes
Jon Gray	Curveball	Yes
Ivan Nova	Cutter	No
Michael Fulmer	Cutter	No
Matt Wisler	Changeup	No
Michael Wacha	Cutter	Yes
Taijuan Walker	2-seam FB	No
Tyler Duffey	splitter	No
Andrew Cashner	Knuckle-Curve	Yes
James Paxton	Cutter	Yes
Sonny Gray	splitter	No
Aaron Nola	changeup	No
Joe Ross	splitter	No
Nate Karns	curveball	No
John Lamb	changeup	No
Brandon Maurer	losing curve	No
Blake Treinen	changeup	No
Kevin Siegrist	curveball	Yes
Justin Wilson	slider	No
Craig Kimbrel	splitter	No
Joe Smith	changeup	Yes
Koji Uehara	slutter	No
Jesse Hahn	changeup	No
Enrique Burgos	splitter	No
Cam Bedrosian	changeup	No
Sean Doolittle	split-change	No

Let's look at those who did use the new pitch more often or used the re-tooled pitch more frequently than they had the previous year.

Kyle Hendricks was already throwing a curve, but he made some changes to it last year. He told Fangraphs' Eno Sarris in March that he was working on the curveball and wanted to steal strikes with it and get more groundballs with it. Heck, he even evolved the pitch during the season. He did not use it demonstrably more in 2016 than he did in 2015, but it was there and it did serve its purpose as he went on to finish third in the Cy Young vote:

YEAR	PITCHES	SWING%	CONTACT%	STRIKE%	CALLED STRIKE%	SwSTR%
2015	205	39	83	54	25	7
2016	226	25	84	57	43	4

Drew Pomeranz went to the San Diego front office with his desire to be a starting pitcher. He had been mostly a two-pitch guy, but added the cutter in the offseason to give him the necessary third pitch to be a starter. He was awesome for the Padres with the new pitch even though he worked through shoulder soreness that was eventually uncovered when he was dealt to Boston. After a rough start, Pomeranz continued his strikeout success in the American League, though he struggled to keep the ball in the yard.

All in all, the cutter was a big difference maker that allowed him to find success as a starting pitcher that he had not had. He saw a slight uptick in his swing-and-miss rate and actually improved his strikeout rate while transitioning from the bullpen to the rotation.

Jon Gray decided he wanted to defy the laws of physics and add a curveball to his fastball/slider/change mixture. By linear weights, Gray's curveball was an above-average pitch, and while his slider is still the better of his two breaking balls, being able to put four pitches in the minds of batters was a plus for Gray as he improved his strikeout rate from 22 to 26 percent and his swinging-strike rate from 10 to 12 percent.

TYPE	PITCHES	SWING%	CONTACT%	STRIKE%	CALLED STRIKE%	SwSTR%
Curve	307	32	68	56	36	10
Slider	752	58	57	69	27	25

Michael Wacha used his cutter more, but it was not an effective pitch for him because his fastball was not that good, either. Cutters work well when the fastball is in good shape, but when the heater suffers, the cutter loses some of its effectiveness, as well. The league hit .320 off his fastball, and it is tough for any pitcher to do well when the ol' numero uno is stinking up the joint.

Andrew Cashner has always thrown a curve, but he changed the grip on it to get more movement. The knuckle-curve is good for getting more depth on the pitch, but it is tougher to control and throw for strikes. He did not throw the pitch a ton, but he threw it enough to qualify for the list. Let's see how the pitch improved last year from 2014-2015:

YEAR	PITCHES	SWING%	CONTACT%	STRIKE%	CALLED STRIKE%	SwSTR%
2014-15	110	43	85	66	41	6
2016	136	35	77	58	35	8

He got the desired effect of the pitch with less contact, but his overall strikeout rate fell a bit last year while he struggled pitching for both San Diego and Texas.

James Paxton changed his repertoire and his arm slot, and I think the arm slot has more to do with his success last year than anything else because he could finally command his heater. However, we cannot completely slight the cutter because it was a very effective pitch for him:

YEAR	PITCHES	SWING%	CONTACT%	STRIKE%	SwSTR%
2015	29	41	67	52	14
2016	325	56	66	67	19

Paxton took that pitch and threw it for strikes and generated swings-and-misses on the pitch, which is very unusual for the cutter. In fact, Paxton had a higher swinging-strike rate with his cutter than any of his other pitches. Have I mentioned he is my bold prediction to finish in the top three for the AL Cy Young yet?

Kevin Siegrist was reshaping his curve last spring to get more spin and action to it. His strikeout rate declined last year, but it was not the fault of his curveball as he generated more than double the swings-and-misses with the pitch than he had the previous year:

YEAR	PITCHES	SWING%	CONTACT%	STRIKE%	SwSTR%
2015	85	35	73	45	9
2016	113	36	49	44	20

Lastly, Joe Smith wanted to add a changeup to help him against lefties. He said he had not thrown one since 2010, and the data agrees with him, but even then he only threw 10. Last year, Smith threw 30 changeups but was better against lefties as he held them to a .220 batting average coming off a season when they hit him at a .283 clip.

Pitchers are just like the rest of us in that they'll say they are going to do something, but they do not always follow through. Plenty came to camp with a new pitch, but only a handful used it during the season, and some found a lot of success with it. If you would like to see which pitchers might be doing that in this season, check out the 2017 New Pitch Tracker. An early trend to watch is the number of pitchers, particularly hard-throwing relievers, that are working on changeups. The thought of Andrew Miller and Edwin Diaz using changeups is practically unfair to batters.