Tyler Glasnow Throws the NASTIEST Pitch in Baseball | Baseball Bits

this episode of baseball bits is brought to you by the athletic they're back for the best baseball coverage online use my link at the athletic.com foolish baseball for 40 off your annual subscription who knows you could even read a story about me oh sweet this is one of those pitch overlay things and look the baseballs are touching i'm sure they'll walk together side by side in perfect harm nah crap [Music] in september of 2018 rey's pitcher tyler glass now threw this curveball to yon gomes [Music] not a great outcome for glass now as gomes crushed that ball 435 feet but since that moment tyler glasnow has thrown his devastating curveball 398 times i mean just look at this thing just look at it ew gross since the gomes blast that curve has generated 59 strikeouts and zero home runs glass now throws hard he was one of eight starting pitchers to throw a triple digit fastball in 2019 that one-two punch makes him a rare breed despite throwing the occasional show me change-up glass now is a starting pitcher who essentially relies on just two pitches fastball and curveball in this video the curveball will be the primary focus i'm about to break down exactly how this pitch operates and what makes it special and you already know we'll be talking about bad trades oh man spin rate remember that a year and a half ago a young foolish baseball made a video about kate upton's husband by imparting backspin kate upton's husband's fastball fights off the forces of gravity and becomes extremely difficult to hit even giving off the appearance that the pitch is rising so to get that textbook curveball drop spin rate is once again key although the goal is now top spin rather than backspin i hate to name drop here but right before embarking on this video i spoke to the pitching ninja ninj as i call him cause we're tight he pointed out that glasnow's massive hands help him in part spin on the ball that's one of the three keys to acquiring a good spin rate you're born with it some pitchers are just natural twirlers the second method is pretty much an open secret not calling out glass now but a lot of pitchers use substances to help with their grip a very common combination bullfrog sunscreen and rosin because biological factors play such a role spin rate is actually really difficult to improve naturally but higher velocities correlate with higher spin rates ergo a jump in velocity will generally lead to a jump and spin in glasnow's case his curveball's velocity is certainly a huge component to its nastiness we know his curveball spin rate is among the league's highest but so is his velocity averaging over 83 miles per hour this pitch is paradoxically fast and slow it's fast in the context of other curve balls despite possessing similar spin rates it looks nothing like ridge hill's gorgeous looping curve this is a hard braking pitch but in the context of glasnow's repertoire it's a serious change of pace check out those velocity ranges versus his fastball he also missed 4 months last year due to forearm tightness and somehow came back throwing harder but it's not just velocity that makes glass now stuff so difficult to hit let's talk about extension extension is simply how far off the mount the pitcher gets before throwing the baseball glass now uses his six foot eight frame and strides right at home plate despite the position of the pitcher's mound his curveball isn't coming from 60 feet 6 inches away it really travels just 53 feet from his hands as glasnow's average extension is 7.6 feet that's a foot and a half ahead of justin verlander and two feet ahead of mike soroka the only pitcher i can find who's certainly extended farther than glass now is carter capps who made headlines a few years ago with his ludicrous hop delivery this is baseball's euro step great pitches don't exist in a vacuum except for mariana rivera's cutter that one definitely does put simply glass now's curveball is nasty because of how it interacts with his fastball you can't sit curveball because his most likely pitch is a heater high in the zone he'll throw the old uncle charlie in the dirt when you're most vulnerable to it this wasn't always his mo glass now has faced some serious adversity to get here well at least as much adversity as someone who's six foot eight and looks like silly and murphy can face that's a tough hand to be dealt in life yet he somehow perseveres [Music] glasnow was always a guy would blow you away stuff he was a top prospect in the game for years and years in the pirates minor league system the pittsburgh pirates pitching philosophy that's a lot of peace has been both praised and maligned over the last decade they were masters of reclamation projects getting great seasons from guys like francisco liriano and aj burnett but when it came to young talented pitchers with swing and miss stuff they were often the ones left whiffing glass now is part of a prolific trio of hurlers who found greener pastures after leaving pittsburgh i don't want to fall into the lazy narrative of simply blaming the pirates for glass now not reaching his full potential in pittsburgh so let's look at the data glasnow's heat map shows some serious growing pains 2017 glass now threw his curveball below the zone that's good but his foreseemer wasn't particularly high and he also threw a sinker it's all just too low a guy with his stuff should be challenging hitters up in the zone instead he nibbled around the corners walked far too many guys and rocked an era above seven that's nasty and not in a good way you could chalk it up purely to pittsburgh's ignorance but dig this glass now and the jolly roger were already making serious adjustments leading up to his trade to tampa in 2018 he told fangraphs that fastball's up and breaking balls down were his formula for success but that he was already making those adjustments in a pirate's uniform before changing clubs the pirates raised deal at 2018's trade deadline deserves a video of its own but here's the skinny in a win now mode pittsburgh traded two former top prospects in austin meadows and tyler glass now for chris archer archer has generally struggled as a pirate while the rays made out like bandits with meadows and glass now emerging as stars the following year oh and to make matters worse they received a player to be named later and it turned out to be shane boss a former first round pick and current top 100 prospect it's the worst trade since i moved my butterfinger for some fig newtons at third grade lunch that was a terrible deal so while glasnow's development was underway in pittsburgh they failed to value his potential as a pirate in 2018 he had been relegated strictly to bullpen duty perhaps a bit pigeonholed there given his wild reputation swinging miss stuff and two pitch mix tampa encouraged the adjustments fastball go up curveball go down and gave him the vote of confidence to start again by 2019 they had created a monster if you support a specific baseball team you've probably had the experience many times a pitcher with seemingly unbeatable stuff who just needs to get it together man and become an ace usually what's needed is fewer walks or fewer home runs robbie ray matthew boyd now dylan sees these guys exist all around the league what if they just came into one year with all those glaring flaws cast away that's what happened to tyler glass now in 2019 on a rate basis he was the best starting pitcher in baseball yeah he missed 4 months but among pitchers with at least 10 starts he had the best era and fit fielding independent pitching a stat driven by his elite ratios and strikeouts walks and home runs in a season absolutely defined by the long ball he put up the league's lowest home run rate for starters that speaks volumes especially considering his newfound willingness to challenge hitters up in the zone no more nibbling around the edges question what does tyler glasnow's curveball have in common with an avengers movie it's all riding on that late snap the bottom completely falls out of this pitch again and again and again given its velocity spin rate and tyler's extension towards the plate this pitch challenges the limits of what the human race itself is capable of tracking and reacting to let's take it back to the intro 59 curveball strikeouts and zero home runs since that yawn gomes blast his hook obviously generates swings and misses but equally impressive is what happens when the batter makes contact with that sort of movement it's no surprise that glasnost's curve has generated by far the lowest ground ball rate of all curveball since the 2019 season started yeah you don't need a sinker if you can do that since the gomes homer gomer for short the glass now curveball has produced 44 batted balls but basically zero air time seriously in an era where guys are trying to hit the ball hard and in the air that beautiful curveball is responsible for just two fly balls and one pop-up again he's thrown this pitch 398 times since the gomer there are many great pitches that produce poor results when they're finally struck when josh hader gets hit he gets crushed tyler glass knows curveball not so much it's either strikeout or ground out it is dare i say in conjunction with his fastball a perfect pitch we know how it works we know how he got there and we know how effective it is but nasty is the operative word in this video's title i think we should quantify the nastiness [Music] what makes a pitch nasty i think movement has to top the list if we're talking curve balls people like vertical movement the old 12 to 6 drop thanks to pitch tracking we know glass now is just one of a handful of pitchers whose curveballs drop more than 10 inches this elite crew also includes clayton kershaw trevor bauer and the spinny curveball man himself seth lugo did you enjoy watching that i know i did here's an actual photo of my face watching those pitches for a fastball you'd look for movement the other way aka positive vertical movement versus a ball thrown without spin glass now's teammate colin poche tops the list but honorable mentions include justin verlander lucas giolito and clayton kirch wow clayton kershaw again for a slider you might look for horizontal movement and it's yet another ray chas road this time who produces the most extreme results i mean that's just gross when looking for pitching nastiness we also love to see a batter look silly i want to see someone whiff way out of the zone don't get fooled a little get fooled a lot in baseball there exists chase pitches and waist pitches a chase pitch is outside of the strike zone but still close enough to be appealing a waste pitch is so far out that it's unlikely to fool anyone in 2019 the average wasted curve ball generated a 9.5 swing and miss rate but glasnow's victims still swung at it and missed over 20 percent of the time and these are pitches nowhere near the strike zone just watch this tim anderson at bat first pitch is way i mean way in front of the plate yet he still swings next pitch bounces in front of the plate again and it's strike two and then the fastball brings them up it goes on with other accomplished hitters devers did it to him dj le mayheu really did it to him and lamehu is a guy who does not strike out easily we can also quickly conduct the pitching ninja twitter search test how many results can i get of tyler glassnow's nasty curveball we're still going still going wow okay i think we get the point here's the thing with glass now's curve it looks good and it produces results just like me in all seriousness the progression of this pitch has been thrilling it's just a joy to see someone reach their potential tyler glass now has tools that epitomize what pitching will look like in the 2020s this is what happens when data meets talent if he can stay healthy it's cy young award or bust and that nasty curveball is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting [Music] this episode of baseball bits was brought to you by the athletic the athletic provides its readers with the best baseball coverage and storytelling available they employ a world-class team of writers that cover all your favorite organizations at the local level as well as at the league level the website and app are completely ad free and you can even read a profile about this very channel that was written by the athletics steven nesbitt you can use my link at the athletic.com footage baseball for 40 off your yearly subscription once again thank you to the athletic for sponsoring this episode of baseball bits [Music] you

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 463,248

Rating: 4.9620099 out of 5

Keywords: tyler glasnow, tyler glasnow curveball, tyler glasnow nasty, best pitch in baseball, mlb best pitches, tyler glasnow pirates, tyler glasnow trade, pirates rays trade, chris archer trade, shane baz, austin meadows rays, shane baz rays, tampa bay rays, pitchingninja, tyler glasnow 2019 highlights, tyler glasnow 2020 highlights, glasnow strikeouts, curveball, best curveball mlb, Tyler Glasnow Throws the NASTIEST Pitch in Baseball, baseball, baseball bits, foolish baseball, mlb

Id: ogXKk98UxGk

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Jam5467]

Still salty that the pirates gave the rays their 2 best players for free.

[u/Quople]

Genius move posting this today knowing that he’s facing off against Gerrit Cole in a little over an hour today

[u/BeefCurtain96]

I needed a foolish baseball video today. Thank you Bailey!

[u/NowIOnlyWantATriumph]

obligatory fuck Neal Huntington

[u/BillyBatts99]

I was watching his start against the O's and when he threw a 97 mph cutter I just whispered "god damn it Pirates" under my breath

[u/Unbestable]

So nasty I'm gonna puke.

[u/king_zacarias]

It’s pretty clear he’s never seen Matt Davidson’s 71mph breaking ball

[u/Grade-AMasterpiece]

ohyes

[u/Monk_Philosophy]

Good video. Glasnow is one of the guys who when he’s locked in he’s just absolutely unhittable.