Our high school owns a Hack Attack pitching machine. These machines have 3 solid wheels. We own the huge one that can do nearly anything. BUT, when you are operating it, any adjustment to the knobs alters RPM and velo at the same time, and often in the opposite way Continue Reading
Effect of Velocity or Altitude on Seam Shifted Wake. Part 3 of 4: Post 74
This is the third post based on John Garrett’s MS Thesis. Like 73, this won’t stand on its own. I recommend starting back at 72. Since the start of this work, all of our measurements have been made at 90 mph. We chose that number using what a friend of Continue Reading
NEW SSW RESULTS: Effect of Seams Upstream (PART 2 OF 4). POST 73
Part 1 was focused on non-spinning balls in a 4S configuration at 90 mph. This post will turn the ball 90º to focus on 2S orientations. In the next post, we’ll talk about results from lower and higher speeds followed by spinning baseballs. For each of these cases, there are Continue Reading
Post 72b: Separation upstream of a seam.
In post 72, I presented the map below (this post won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t read that). This post will be about the blue region. A seam in this region (roughly from -10º to -28º) can sometimes cause laminar separation farther forward. The average location is Continue Reading
New SSW Results: Baseballs these days don’t know who they want to be (Part 1 of 4). Post 72
My (now former) student, John Garrett (@jwillyg20) has been working on new measurements of Seam Shifted Wake (SSW) for a couple of years. He just wrapped them up around Christmas and will soon finalize his MS thesis. This and the next few posts will be based on that work. You Continue Reading
Training Kids with Smart Baseballs: Post 71
Say you are the parent of a 14 year old pitcher and you want to explore the world of pitch design. You have seen the “smart baseball” ads and are curious about them, but what could you do with that information if you had it? I’m glad you asked. First Continue Reading
The Cubs and Seam Shifted Wake: Post 70
I identify strongly with the Cubs and Seam-Shifted Wakes, so it’s a good day. Sahadev Sharma published an article in The Athletic on April 11, 2021 about how SSW affects the Cubs pitchers. He had noticed something I had also noted: that compared to a lot of teams, the Cubs Continue Reading
PitchTracker: Post 69
Nice. One of the first challenges we encountered was a means to detect Seam Shifted Wake in pitches. Doing so requires a measurement of vertical and horizontal movement as well as spin metrics. Right now, if you are anyone other than a major league team (meaning you have a HawkEye Continue Reading
2020 Seam Shifted Wake Leaderboards: Post 68
This made me realize it was high time that I made one. First, the best SSW T-shirt is this one: There are other boards out there. BaseballSavant.com has one I use often. Click leaderboards and then pitching and spin. For any given pitch type, you can sort on the “Deviation” Continue Reading
Baseball’s Tower of Babel: Post 67
My dad is a preacher and I’m prone to religious references. Baseball has a lot of technical terms. Unfortunately, many quantities are know by 2-3 names and the problem grows every time we obtain a new metric. I’ve been at this for about 2 years and I am amazed how Continue Reading