In 2009 the number one swing and miss pitch in baseball belonged to Brandon League.
Matthew Carruth, FanGraphs, 12/18/09:
And the winner of that award for 2009 goes to Brandon League. It’s a rather remarkable win, because the pitch in question, a changeup — or, possibly, a splitter — was a new one for League, who up until 2009 was a dominant fastball pitcher that tossed out a slider once in awhile. In 2009, League introduced the splitter pitch and relied on it, using it roughly 35% of the time. And boy did it work. 35% of the time that Brandon League threw that splitter, the hitter swung and missed. It was five percentage points better than the person-pitch in second place, an old friend, Ryan Madson‘s changeup, at just under 30%.
The splange was one of the Seattle Mariners’ most oft-cited reasons — justifications — for acquiring League and many Mariner fans were excited to see it on a regular basis. That didn’t really eliminate the apprehension of losing the enigmatic and mismanaged Brandon Morrow, but it was something to look forward to.
Except that League drifted away from the pitch in 2010. He’s said he simply wasn’t comfortable with it this time around, but there were times when it sounded like pitching coach Rick Adair nudged him toward relying heavily on his fastball. It’s a very good fastball, and League was effective in 2010, but how great might he have been with the death splange?
League’s pitch didn’t rank among the top swing and miss pitches of 2010. According to Lucas Apostoleris, the top honors went to Johnny Venter’s slider (100-249 swings) and the changeup of a little-known back-of-the-rotation hurler for the Philadelphia Phillies named Cole Hamels (250+ swings).
Fifth on the 250+ swings ranking? Brandon Morrow’s slider.
The Brandon Morrow for Brandon League and Joherymn Chavez trade was met with skepticism (for some, outrage) at the time and the 2010 season did little to convince Mariner fans that GM Jack Zduriencik made a smart trade. League was decent and Chavez had a monster season for High Desert, but Brandon Morrow began to blossom as a starter with the Blue Jays, putting up a 3.16 FIP over 146.1 innings. Just imagine– Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Brandon Morrow, Jason Vargas, Doug Fister.
Or, for this season, Felix Hernandez, Jason Vargas, Brandon Morrow, Michael Pineda, Erik Bedard.
Heh.
It’s still early, of course. I’ve got to think there was something in Morrow’s file that the Mariners really didn’t like. We’ll see if it makes itself known in the coming seasons.
Regardless of what happens next, seeing Morrow’s name in place of League’s on BtB’s ranking wasn’t the way I would have chosen to end my evening given the choice.
In case you didn’t click through, Felix’s power-change made the ranking, while Luke French’s fastball was mentioned as one of the pitches with the lowest whiff rate in all of baseball.
Original Story:
http://www.proballnw.com/03-2011/old-...
