Top two spin rates in MLB through the first weekend of baseball

[Chuck]

Highest average 4-seam spin rate through the first weekend of the season:
1. Luke Bard: 2,820 rpm
2. Garrett Richards: 2,667 rpm#Angels

— David Adler (@_dadler) April 2, 2018

[Dave Saltzer]

So, what you are saying is that Richards is a spinner? 

[Angel Oracle]

The Spinners say “We’re the only ones doing the spinning around here!”

[wopphil]

I don't quite understand the spin rate craze. Is it supposed to correlate to effectiveness, or is it just a shiny new sabermetric?

[Amazing Larry]

[Ohtaniland]

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

The Spinners say “We’re the only ones doing the spinning around here!”

Cy Stradling 

[tomsred]

3 hours ago, wopphil said:

I don't quite understand the spin rate craze. Is it supposed to correlate to effectiveness, or is it just a shiny new sabermetric?

In Bard's case, it will not do him any good if he doesn't throw strikes.  The walks cost him a run yesterday.

[Stradling]

3 hours ago, OHTANILAND said:

Cy Stradling 

No idea what you are talking about.  If you are talking about spinning a conversation or spinning facts, well I think we all know who that award goes to.  

[Ohtaniland]

3 minutes ago, SuperTroopers said:

No idea what you are talking about.  If you are talking about spinning a conversation or spinning facts, well I think we all know who that award goes to.  

sarcasm Strad. 

[Stradling]

I know Claude, I know

[Taylor]

[Blarg]

4 hours ago, wopphil said:

I don't quite understand the spin rate craze. Is it supposed to correlate to effectiveness, or is it just a shiny new sabermetric?

I think you nailed it.

[Jobu]

Spin Rate (SR)

Definition

A pitcher's Spin Rate represents the rate of spin on a baseball after it is released. It is measured in revolutions per minute.

The amount of spin on a pitch changes its trajectory. The same pitch thrown at the same Velocity will end up in a different place depending on how much it spins. (For instance, a fastball with a high Spin Rate appears to have a rising effect on the hitter, and it crosses the plate a few inches higher than a fastball of equal Velocity with a lower Spin Rate. Conversely, a lower Spin Rate on a changeup tends to create more movement.)

As more data have become available, most experts have agreed that fastballs and breaking balls are tougher to hit when they possess higher Spin Rates. In fact, some data suggest that Spin Rate correlates more closely than Velocity to swinging-strike percentage.

 

http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/spin-rate

[Amazing Larry]

36 minutes ago, Taylor said:

I bought one of these at spring training. Now I feel like a millenial while I'm at work.

[krAbs]

I think I put spin rate and velocity in the same category. They are both indicators of the balls movement, and both can help make a given pitch better. But, just like a high velocity ball can still be punished if its thrown badly (I'm looking at you, Middleton), a high spin ball doesn't mean its a well thrown ball. It just helps.

 

It seems to me like there are four factors that influence how easy/hard it is to hit a pitch: velocity, movement, location, and pitch sequencing (things like tunneling, perspective adjustments, etc). Spin rate acts as a good proxy for movement, as it is often the source of that movement (more so for fastballs, less so for knuckle balls - though...not a lot of those out there). In the past, most people have only really looked at velocity, because that's the easiest thing to measure and look at. But, I think the goal of the sabermetric approach to pitching is to start putting numbers on the other ones. I haven't heard to a good measurement for location (largely because it is pretty subjective - I guess you could measure average distance from the corner of the strike zone or something though), but I have seen some stuff on tunneling which is really interesting.

[Dick Enberg]

42 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Spin Rate (SR)

Definition

A pitcher's Spin Rate represents the rate of spin on a baseball after it is released. It is measured in revolutions per minute.

The amount of spin on a pitch changes its trajectory. The same pitch thrown at the same Velocity will end up in a different place depending on how much it spins. (For instance, a fastball with a high Spin Rate appears to have a rising effect on the hitter, and it crosses the plate a few inches higher than a fastball of equal Velocity with a lower Spin Rate. Conversely, a lower Spin Rate on a changeup tends to create more movement.)

As more data have become available, most experts have agreed that fastballs and breaking balls are tougher to hit when they possess higher Spin Rates. In fact, some data suggest that Spin Rate correlates more closely than Velocity to swinging-strike percentage.

 

http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/spin-rate

So, have they figured out a mean? Like a Blake Woods fastball, flat and straight. 

[Tank]

i pity the poor guy that has to sit there and count all those revolutions. he must have pretty insane eyesight to do that.

[Make Angels Great Again]

So Garrett Richards can both spin the heck out of the ball and pump it in there at 98MPH, that's a pretty nice combo.

[Taylor]

1 hour ago, LHalo said:

I bought one of these at spring training. Now I feel like a millenial while I'm at work.

It's not millennials who were crazy about fidget spinners. More like Gen Z.

[OregonLAA]

The people complaining about crazy sabermetric stats clearly hated the pitching gems Eppler has found. I mean this is the type of stuff he is looking at when he finds guys out of nowhere

[Blarg]

No one is complaining but the fact is spin rates tell only part of the story like any other isolated stat.