Marcus Stroman’s Strange Breaking Balls
Here’s a weird thing about Marcus Stroman’s slider: it has more drop than his curveball. We still call it his slider because it goes four miles per hour faster than his curve, but the curve has slowly tilted sideways. Or, to say it better, Stroman’s other pitches have tilted downwards and the curve has stayed about the same.
Check out Stroman’s release points. For every pitch other than the curve and the sinker, Stroman is an inch or two more over the top this year.
In related news, all of Stroman’s pitches — other than the curve — are dropping more this year.
| Year | Fourseam | Sinker | Change | Slider | Curve | Cutter |
| 2013 | 9.1 | 0.0 | 6.4 | -0.7 | -3.9 | 4.3 |
| 2014 | 9.2 | 3.3 | 3.9 | -1.4 | -2.3 | 4.9 |
| 2015 | 8.6 | 1.8 | 3.6 | -2.0 | -1.1 | 4.0 |
Could this just be mucking with classification systems? Maybe. The two pitches are only three mph apart. Let’s look at the movement on both of his breaking balls in one place and see if they’ve moved from last year to this year, then. Use the filter to change years.
Yup. The slider drops more than the curve, and the curve is more horizontal this year. He’s also using the slider more this year, and the curve less. But the whiff and ground-ball rates on the curve are better than they are for the slider.
Going more over the top has increased the ground-ball rate on all but his slider, and that may be why he’s pitching today. Not going over the top as much on the curve has made that pitch more of a frisbee than a round-house curveball.
Maybe he’s still getting his feet under him, and things will change again in the future. But for now, Marcus Stroman may be the only pitcher in baseball that has a slider that drops more than his curveball. PITCHf/x classifies his pitches a little differently, but we can forgive that system. He’s got a strange mix.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Baseball is so cool
Is that difference in release point between the fastball and the sinker enough to tip hitters off on which is coming?
It’s an inch or two, so doubt it. But it looks like it had an affect on movement.
The NotGraphs/Banknotes parody headline would be exactly the same as this headline.
Strange-breaking balls can’t stop me. As long as they don’t touch my head.
Only thing that can stop you is my glove.
I was hoping this was a Carson article that started with “While some (i.e. me) would consider the titular and titillating AMC series Breaking Bad the most enlightened form of human existence, we (i.e. me) now have to consider that Marcus Stroman’s breaking balls may be the most enlightened form of any (i.e. both human and non-human) form of existence.
Fuck all this shit, you see my fucking slider?
No, it’s very fast so hard to track.
Yes, you are a great Pitcher.
Wouldn’t you like FanGraph to get you WAR stat right (Updated) and all the other stats put beside your name? I think you would.
I was looking at the WAR after the Jay’s disaster in KC. These numbers have not been changed to keep up with the most recent game or first half of the season. It would be very helpful to be able to compare players and teams at the half season points: Regular Season, Half & Close, End of the Divisional Series, End of the Championship series for both leagues. There have been important trades of players, players on the Disabled List who are not playing and so on.
This affects the Team WAR as well as the individual player. The statistics as presented undated and not revised throughout the season makes the numbers meaningless.
I know it is extra work for someone to input new data but it should be done. Using your formula and Exel Spreadsheet the revised and up to date WAR statistics mean something and become reliable.It can easily be done once the spreadsheet and formula are inputted.
Admittedly, that means revising a huge amount of data, Teams, Players and other stats printed here.That means one person calculating the revised WAR and another inputting the up-dated data. Currently on a scale of 0 to 10 both Donaldson and Edward Enconacion are up in the 8-9 range, not the 4 + whatever level. That is just one example.