Starting with the 2020 season, Seam-Shifted Wake entered the baseball lexicon. It was mentioned on broadcasts by David Cone (who took time to let me explain it), Ron Darling, and Mike Petriello. Traffic on this site was quite robust, but we continued to struggle to find a way to pay for more work. John completed about 3000 more baseball shots that formed the basis of his thesis, graduated and took a job with Rapsodo. He was in Saint Louis for one good year for the Cardinals, but alas, Yadi finally retired.
On November 14, 2020, I was interviewed by Rob Friedman, the PitchingNinja. Every pitching enthusiast’s dream.
Jan 10, 2021, I met Professor Patrick Dufour. He is an astrophysicist at University of Montreal. I was a bit cold to him initially, but I quickly realized he had a serious interest in baseball aerodynamics and the talent to move it forward. We’ve become collaborators since. Check out his batted ball simulator here.
On February 4, 2021, Tyler Zombro of Tread sent me screenshots of Trackman and Rapsodo showing different movement and spin axis numbers as proof of a SSW pitch. I think it was the first time I saw this done– the poor-man’s HawkEye. The pitcher was a guy named Clay Holmes that no one had heard of yet. He made the Pirates roster on opening day and was traded to the Yankees at the deadline. He’s proceeded to show us how deadly a good sinker with a high release point can be and got the Yankees to coin an even less popular name for a SSW slider than “sweeper.”
In February 2021, Spenser Davis and I started a collaboration to measure break on pitches based on video shot from behind. Spenser was tireless at getting the camera placed correctly. The test subject was Brennan Hanifee who was with the Orioles organization at the time but just made it to MLB this year with the Tigers. I continue to believe this is a viable idea, but with access to much better equipment, I’ve stopped working on it.
May 2021, I received a call from the Rockies asking the difficult question: How do you take advantage of Denver’s thin air for pitching? I had no idea, but shortly after, I signed a consulting deal with different MLB team (with normal air) and stopped talking about SSW publicly.
In the last 18 months, I’ve been able to meet many people in person that I’d previously only knew online. These include Desi Druschel, Jared Hughes, Connor Hinchcliffe, and most recently, Matt Pilewski.
Epilogue
It has been frustrating to watch public understanding of SSW goes in reverse in 5th gear since then. I’d put the number of people who actually get how SSW works and what it does at less than 25. Many of those work for clubs and also aren’t talking publicly. Most of the valid public comments I see come from Driveline, Tread and a couple of really smart pitchers out there. I view this as a failure on my part. I put a lot of effort into trying to explain SSW. In retrospect, I may have emphasized the why to much rather than the what, which is all most people want to know.
I’m still here. We’ve learned way more than I’ve ever talked about publicly, and it is absolutely fascinating stuff.
I continue to be thankful for all the lucky breaks, starting with Mr. Spaulding’s choice to stitch the ball together the way he did.
When I started this, my hope was to meet a major league pitcher. Now I call a couple of them friends. So, to whoever allowed all of this to happen, thank you. And cheers to all of you.
