You might think the rarest pitch in the game is the knuckleball — only two pitchers regularly throw it right now. But there is a pitch that only Brad Ziegler throws often.
Ziegler throws a changeup — out of a submarine arm slot. Nobody else throws the same pitch with the same mechanics.
Only six sidearmers threw at least 25 changeups last year, and if you up that number to 100 thrown, there’s only Ziegler and (lefty) Aaron Loup on the list. If you limit the list to just submariners, Ziegler’s the only one that throws a changeup regularly.
Turns out, the physics of throwing a ball from that angle could be the reason so few sidearmers boast a solid changepiece.
Take Ziegler’s slider as an example. Back when he threw overhand, before 2007, he was putting traditional slider spin on the ball from his old arm slot. Thanks to Matt Lentzner at The Hardball Times, we know what that slider spin looks like. From his piece, here are the spins on the ball on pitches leaving from your traditional three-quarter arm slots:
Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.
You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
In case you didn't read all that, here's the short version. Membership includes:
✓Ad-free browsing
✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles
✓Historical & platoon projections
✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps
✓One-click data exports
✓Customizable player-page dashboards
✓Dark & Classic site modes
✓Weekly Members-only mailbag
✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review
✓Optional homepage photo removal
✓Gift articles to non-Members
✓Full postseason coverage
Link is broken.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/brad-ziegler-sidearm-changeup-rarest-pitch-111714
Link if ya want it!
This feels like kind of a cheat. Submariners are almost as rare as knuckleballers. By these parameters, a fastball from Ziegler probably qualifies as the 3rd or 4th rarest pitch in baseball.
I admit as much, so I agree.
I love submariners. Too bad you dont see many in mlb these days, though many seem to still thrive in japan and Korea.
It doesn’t seem like it should be possible to throw a change up submarine style.
I throw one. It’s easy, albeit the damn thing is hard to locate horizontally. It often goes straight at a RHB. Granted, I converted to submarinering earlier this summer and have maybe 20-25 innings under my belt. So maybe I shouldn’t expect to be able to locate a new pitch when I’ve used it 5 times in a game.
That being said, it’s not any different than an overhand change. I even use the same grip.
More rare than the screwball?
Eephus?
My first thought also. Every five days, Dickey is throwing a bunch of knuckleballs. How many months of pitching would we have to watch to see as many Eephus as we see knucklers in one Dickey start?