#Pitch out swing and miss iso

For reference, here is Burnes’ heat map of ISO per fastball: When paired with his elite slider (31% career SwStr%), he could post one of the league’s best strikeout rates. If Burnes decided to average 3.0 feet of vertical, he could see his fastball’s swing-and-miss rate double. Another near-90 mph pitcher, Rick Porcello, has a better swing-and-miss fastball than Corbin Burnes and his 95 mph heater. Kyle Hendricks stays in the league with his 87 mph fastball by throwing it high and having an elite changeup. I’m going to continue with the 3.3-to-3.7 rate for now. The average vertical height, which is available at, is an OK proxy. Here is the 3.3-to-3.7-feet-high zone compared to the average vertical position for pitchers with a minimum of 100 four-seam fastballs: Before creating another unwanted stat, I checked to see if the average vertical position correlates with this high zone and could function as a proxy. The pitches in this zone have a 17.7% SwStr% and pERA values between 2.10 and 2.20. So how about everyone else?Įyeballing the above images, I created a high zone between 3.3 feet and 3.7 feet. Pineda isn’t the ideal example, but he helped unearth some usable information. While sample size variation limits consistent values from season to season, the 20 values line up, except for the three-foot value. Here are the groundball rates of various four-seam velocities and vertical locations: Pitchers are already trying to throw everywhere, and the results show that it’s not exactly working.Īnd the additional strikeouts do come with a tradeoff: more balls hit in the air. They need to keep batters guessing when it comes to the pitch and its location.

I understand that pitchers can’t just throw high fastballs down the middle of the plate. No wonder most pitching coaches encourage their pitchers to live up in the zone. A 90 mph fastball at the top of the zone has a better swing-and-miss rate than a 98 mph bullet right down the middle (14% SwStr% vs 11% SwStr%).

The swinging strike rate can change by a factor of three-to-four times depending on the pitch’s vertical location in the strike zone. A four-seamer’s swing-and-miss ability is all about location, location, location. The rulebook strike zone changes based on the batter’s height (these values are in feet), but 2.5 feet is standard for the middle of the zone, with 1.5 feet the bottom and 3.5 feet considered to be the top. From these values, I found the swinging-strike rate depending on the four-seam fastball’s vertical location (min 100 pitches per grouping) from 2015 to 2019.

To begin my study, I examined only those pitches in the horizontal strike zone and grouped them into 2 mph increments. While a higher fastball location can lead to more fly balls, can it increase a pitch’s swinging strike rate by 50%? It turns out, yes, and here is the proof. If I squint hard enough, maybe the pitch location is moving up.

Pitch out swing and miss