Scuffing a baseball is effective as heck at getting some additional break on your pitch. As shown in our Post 44, and as every experienced pitcher seems to know, the ball moves away from the scuffed side. It breaks quite a lot, as it turns out. But, that is not Continue Reading
Seam-Shifted Wakes
aka laminar express
Disco Ball Changeup Experiment: Post 42
Background I like to talk about “seam-shifted wake” pitches and I know of two examples, the “laminar express” 2-seamer and the “disco ball changeup.” The best example of the latter that I have seen is Strasburg’s, shown below. As I have noted before, about 10% of his changeups have a Continue Reading
Seam Shifted Wake Axis: Post 41
The Seam Shifted Wake requires a special axis, and it is not through a symmetry point like a conventional 2-Seamer. Note that this explanation holds whether the pitch is a “laminar express” 2-seamer or a “disco ball changeup.
2019 in Review: Post 40
With 2020 around the corner, I thought I’d step back and look at what we have learned. Just about a year ago, I wrote the questions shown below in italics. Below each question, I will describe my current understanding of that topic. What effects baseball drag? Seam height Center of Continue Reading
How Does Pitching Work?: Post 39
I’d like to have a discussion between various the stakeholders of pitching. The three groups I am thinking of are pitchers, analytics folks, and physicists. I hope no one will complain if I put myself (a Mechanical Engineer) in the last category. This will be mostly (or maybe completely) about Continue Reading
My APS DFD presentation on the Fluid Dynamics of Seam Shifted Wakes: Post 37
On Sunday, November 24, 2019 I will present to the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics on “The Baseball Seam: Clever and Capable Passive Flow Control” in Seattle. This is basically a spoken, 10 minute version of our video from Post 34. There is a lot more detail here. Continue Reading
The Seam Shifted Wake: Post 34
This is our video entry for the American Physical Society Gallery of Fluid Motion for 2019. As always, If you are new to our measurements, you may take a minute to read here about vorticity (the colors in our plots), boundary layer separation.
Live! (recorded) 3D Explanation of Laminar Express: Post 33
[If you are new to our measurements, you may take a minute to read here about boundary layer separation and wakes] A reader asked some very good questions about my claims, and I’ve attempted to answer these using a ball with a rod shoved through it. Comments, criticisms are welcome. Continue Reading
Prediction of Flow Pattern of Laminar Express Over a Full Rotation: Post 30
[If you are new to our measurements, you may take a minute to read here about vorticity (the colors in our plots), boundary layer separation and wakes] We have recently tested some non-spinning MLB balls in orientations that are important to the “Laminar Express” pitch, which is a 2-seam fastball Continue Reading
My Latest Thoughts on Laminar Express: Post 29
I’ve written several times about this pitch, and each of those posts reflected an evolution of my thinking on it based on recent results. Our results continue to get better, and my thinking gets more definitive. So I thought I’d write an update. [If you are new to our measurements, Continue Reading