Bannister and PITCHf/x

Brian Bannister explains how he and Zack Greinke used PITCHf/x do to in-game experimentation with their pitches:

“I remember Greinke and I would try to see if we could improve our spin or improve the movement of our pitch — and we’d literally go check in between innings,” Bannister said.

…

“We were very careful about it, and it was really only in blowout games,” Bannister said. “But the system only existed mounted permanently in major-league stadiums. If it had been in the bullpen, that’s where we would have done it. If it had existed in the offseason somewhere, we would have used it then. But you literally had to be pitching in a major-league game in order to get access to it.”

In addition, they learned something about the change-up:

“The name of the pitch is almost deceiving,” Bannister said. “What I spent years trying to do was take more speed off it. We always watched James Shields, Felix Hernandez, and their changeups didn’t look like anybody else’s. Everybody was telling us, ‘Hold this circle change grip and just throw it slower.’ These guys, their ball is going straight down. They’re actually manipulating it. Those were the ‘Aha’ movements. My last year, in 2009, my ground-ball percentage went up before I got hurt like 10 percent that year, and it was purely because I’d figured out how to make my changeup move. Greinke is still using that today.”

Hat tip, BBTF.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2aS3uyx