In light of the difficulty faced by those who play the sport, it should come as no shock to the reader that the game itself is so full of nuances, intricacies, "unwritten rules," and other assorted quirks that it would appear to be almost too daunting to learn for a novice. This could not be farther from the truth. In spite of its difficulty and trickiness, baseball is at its core a children's game, played at its highest level by some of the world's finest athletes.
Most people know the rules of baseball in some form or another- maybe they gleaned it from many visits to a local ballpark with their dad (or mom). Maybe they played little league, high school, or fastpitch softball as they grew up. Maybe they figured it out from playing kickball or slowpitch softball in gym class. Maybe they learned it from watching on TV or playing a video game simulation of it. Either way and for all intents and purposes that this post will serve, the author assumes you know the rules and have a grasp of the basics of the sport. (Nine innings, three strikes you're out, four balls you walk, three outs per inning- the fundamentals.)
As intimated above, baseball can be a tricky, complex sport. And the trickiest, cleverest guys on the field, besides the catchers, are the guys on the mound- the pitcher. And they need to be. It is their job to make grown men fail at any even higher rate than they do typically. Consider: the all-time leader in on-base percentage (a stat measuring how often a hitter reaches base safely), Ted Williams, got on base an average of 48 times out of 100 throughout his illustrious, Hall of Fame-worthy career. And he's considered almost universally "the greatest hitter who ever lived." All that despite failing 52% of the time. And there are many more examples similar to Williams who were considered menaces to opposing pitchers, yet still failed more often compared to him!
The bottom line: all of these hitters are pros and they are facing the very best the world has to offer. What's a pitcher to do? He better have some good weapons to work with if he's going to attack these guys. Failure to do so will result in you having to find a new job. Luckily, baseball's 150-year history has seen plenty of pioneers who, as pitchers, developed, learned, and created a plethora of different pitchers as a way to bamboozle and befuddle these hitting machines.
To start off, let's agree on some vocabulary when it comes to pitching and pitch types ("pitches").
1. The term "break" refers to how much a pitch moves. This could be any pitch that has movement.
2. This movement is most important in the strike zone. Plenty of pitches that end up as home runs or hits moved either very fast or from one side to the other (as through across an x- or y-axis). Having late break or lots of it through the zone is what generates outs, which is what the pitcher wants.
I group pitches into 3 categories: fastballs, offspeed pitches (sometimes called breaking pitches or breaking balls, but this is inaccurate), and miscellaneous pitches- the ones you can't classify either way.
There are 4 distinct pitch types under the genre, if you will, of "fastball." The most common is easily the standard four-seam fastball, so named for its grip. This pitch is all about speed and relies very little on lateral movement. It can be thrown to overpower a hitter with pure speed or when a pitcher needs a strike, since it moves straight and is the easiest pitch to aim. The hardest one thrown to date in a MLB game was thrown in San Diego by current Reds relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman. It was clocked in at 105 MPH. In select cases when it's thrown well, this pitch can rise as it approaches the hitter.
Here are some examples of the 4-seam fastball doing its evil work.
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| Craig Kimbrel, San Diego Padres Note the rising action as it reaches the hitter. |
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| Michael Wacha, St. Louis Cardinals |
Some pitchers throw a variant of this pitch called a sinker, which breaks away and down at the same time with good amount of speed to it, giving the impression that it is sinking through the strike zone. Many baseball announcers, fans, and analysts will use the term interchangeably. For purposes of learning, it is best to remember that a two-seam fastball has more horizontal break (sometimes called "cutting" or "break") with downward movement (sink), but a sinker has more downward motion. If that doesn't make sense, I am sure these gifs will help. The sinker's primary function to is get the hitter to hit the ball on to the ground in an attempt to avoid fly balls. That is why having downward motion is so important- it creates momentum that a round bat can't change without hitting the pitch from below the baseball to create lift. Pitchers who throw sinkers that don't sink enough or start them too high in the zone usually don't last in the majors and give up tons of home runs and extra base hits.
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| Marcus Stroman, Toronto Blue Jays |
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| Zach Britton, Baltimore Orioles |
Don't worry if they look similar. A lot of pitchers have perfected the 2-seam fastball to make it move laterally with a lot of sink on it. In the latter, note that the pitch a lot of drop when it gets to the plate, more so than Stroman's pitch.
Another very common, very popular fastball in today's game is the cut fastball or the "cutter."
This pitch is gripped like a 4-seam fastball but is altered by slightly rotating the thumb inwards and the two top fingers to the outside to create more spin. This makes the pitch move away from the pitchers' handedness. If he's a righty, this pitch breaks to the left. If he's a lefty, it breaks to the right. It is sometimes confused for a slider (more on those later) seeing as both pitches are thrown from similar arm angles and move in similar directions. A slider is usually slower and has more break, which is how I differentiate them.
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| Jon Lester, Chicago Cubs (seen here with the Boston Red Sox) |
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| Mark Melancon, Pittsburgh Pirates |
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| Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees |
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| Hishashi Iwakuma, Seattle Mariners |
Up next, breaking balls!
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