I love pitching. Perfection on the hill is an amalgamation of ability, strength, stamina, philosophy, execution, and tactics, where every pitcher is uniquely assembled in a sea of talent. Some have blistering heat, some a variety of breaking pitches, and others are masters of approach and execution. We often find similarities in their numbers, but the means by which they arrive at those numbers can vary wildly. An understanding of how a pitcher attempts to prevent runs is essential to better understanding the what of his results — and that can most easily be grasped by simply watching him hurl a baseball.

Exactly how one observes a pitching performance can determine a lot about the sort of conclusions one can reach. I’m in the camp that believes there’s a significant choice to be made between watching a game on TV or at the stadium. If the purpose of the evening is to share an emotional experience with thousands of others, then obviously the ballpark is the only real way to facilitate that. If I’m trying to grasp a game’s flow, observe generals manipulating their troops on the fly, and truly grasp how each player is performing on a given night, however, I need the live broadcast. There is no substitute.

With the latter, there is the understated advantage of sitting down and respecting the craft of your team’s daily slinger: the presentation of the game itself. If I want to marvel at the horizontal ride of Aaron Nola’s changeup, I’m hoping he’s playing at a stadium that gets right behind the ball at release. Or maybe I’m curious how much depth Miles Mikolas gets on his curveball. If he’s in Oakland, well, it just isn’t my night.

So today, we’re going to talk about camera angles. Carson Cistulli put together a fantastic ranking back in 2015, showcasing which stadiums were best to watch a pitcher do his thing. Which broadcasts allowed us to see the movement on pitches, their true locations, and exhibit the game for the best eye test possible.

I’ve made thousands and thousands of pitching GIFs in my day (it’s what happens when you run PitcherList.com) and I’m honored to present my personal ranking of camera angles to update Carson’s former piece. I’ve grouped broadcasts into five tiers, showcasing which camera angles are best to observe a pitcher’s arsenal and illuminate what is truly happening on the field.

There is one major issue when making this list that I need to address. These ranks — well, they aren’t exactly consistent across all pitchers in the majors. Not only does the throwing arm of the pitcher matter, but also where he stands on the rubber greatly affects the presentation of a pitch. Let me give you an example. Here is the Milwaukee Brewers’ broadcast:

This looks incredible, right? Straight on camera, not too elevated, but not so low that fastballs look like breaking balls. Now let’s look at three different pitchers:

I think you can see the problem. With the first two, the Brewers create one of the best experiences out there. You can see the subtle ride on Anibal’s heater with clarity and the fade on Brent Suter‘s changeup enough to nod your head in approval. However, I’m sorry to say that Corey Knebel’s fastball does not have six feet of cutting action. It’s an illusion.

Keep this in mind as we go through these tiers. Some of these angles are the perfect balance for all arms. Some of these angles are better than others for certain pitchers. And some are flat out horrible and need to burn in a fire.

I wanted to create as best of a control group as possible when jumping between each stadium’s angle, which led me to choose four different relievers to showcase each broadcast. Our heroes are as follows:

• Archie Bradley
• Blake Treinen
• Edwin Diaz
• Jeremy Jeffress
• Gerrit Cole (Just for Houston. Don’t ask.)

I elected to mostly feature the same pitch with each, save for a few exceptions, to help give you an idea of how each broadcast displays the same pitch. Edwin Diaz has a slightly different windup and rubber location than the rest, which I wanted to include for the sake of showcasing how some camera angles can be better for different arms.

That’s enough of an introduction, let’s get to it.

Tier 1: The Models of Excellence

Whenever I want to enjoy a pitcher — really enjoy him — I try to find a game at one of these stadiums. They have the right amount of zoom, are slightly positioned off center to the right, preventing the pitcher from blocking part of the view, while also preventing the cataclysmic “horizontal illusion” that I previously described with regard to Knebel’s fastball. If only all stadiums had the capacity to place their cameras in the same locations.

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