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October 04, 2009

What should we call Rivera’s other fastball?

Mariano Rivera is famous for his cut fastball. So famous, in fact, that it's a common misconception that he only throws one pitch. Of course, from PITCHf/x data, as well as some newspaper reports, we know he throws another type of fastball. I've often seen it referred to as a sinker or two-seam fastball, but its spin deflection certainly looks like a classic four-seamer.

In a discussion about Dave Allen's post about Mariano Rivera that took place at the Book blog, I had the occasion to look for images of Rivera's two fastball grips. I thought I'd share them here for yuk-yuks with the other two of you in the world who care about what to properly name Rivera's "other" fastball.

First, here's his cutter grip, with index fingertip and middle fingertip on the seam. As far as I can tell this is close to a typical cutter grip--a four-seam grip with the ball set a little off center in his hand. (There's a better picture here, but I don't have permission to post the image.)

Rivera throws a cut fastball against the White Sox, July 16, 2006. (Icon/SMI)

Now, here's the other fastball, the one I tend to call a four-seamer because of how it moves. It's the one others call a two-seamer, though I'm not sure why. If you look at how many seams he's holding, should we call it a one-seamer?

Mariano Rivera throws his other fastball against the Rangers, August 7, 2008. (Icon/SMI)

Posted by: Mike Fast

October 01, 2008

Bullpens down the stretch

The STATS Inc. blog has a post documenting how each contending team's bullpen fared in the last few weeks of the season. As you can guess, the Mets' pen rates poorly, but it wasn't the only one in the stretch drive doldrums.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

August 07, 2008

Closers in non-saves

Over at Statistically Speaking, Eric Seidman takes a look at one of those things I always hear: closers perform worse in non-save situations. Eric finds that this truism appears to be true, a finding that begs a slew of follow-up questions. The good news is that Eric plans to investigate them, such as, how do they perform in easy saves vs. "real" saves?
Posted by: Dave Studeman


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