The Most Impressive Pitches of the Last Week, Objectively

Last week, the author introduced a nearly reasonable methodology for identifying the most impressive baseball pitches over any given interval of games. What follows is that same methodology applied to every relevant pitch since last Friday. Go here for more information on the definition of break.

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Fastball
Pitcher: Brandon League, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
Batter: Giancarlo Stanton   Date: Tuesday, May 13th
Velocity: 94.1 mph   Break: 8.1 in.

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League actually appeared within last week’s attempt at this same exercise — in that case for his very adept splitter, however. While it’s surprising, perhaps, that League’s fastball would induce a swinging third strike (he’s recorded only a 4-5% swinging-strike rate with the pitch over the last three season), it’s not unusual for the pitch to feature the sort of velocity and movement exhibited here.

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Breaking Ball
Pitcher: Dellin Betances, RHP, New York AL (Profile)
Batter: Daniel Murphy   Date: Thursday, May 15th
Velocity: 84.4 mph   Break: 13.4 in.

Footage:

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After recording four shutout innings on Thursday, Yankees debutant Chase Whitley found his way into some difficulty during the fifth inning, and was ultimately removed by manager Joe Girardi with two outs and runners at second and third. Betances, pitching in relief, retired the next better (Eric Young) by means of a ground ball to third baseman Kelly Johnson and then the next six batters, consecutively, all by strikeout.

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Offspeed Pitch
Pitcher: Felix Herandez, RHP, Seattle (Profile)
Batter: Desmond Jennings   Date: Monday, May 12th
Velocity: 90.0 mph   Break: 10.4 in.

Footage:

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One is compelled — owing to how six of the 10 pitchers listed among the weekly leaderboard below belong to the Seattle Mariners — one is compelled to suspect that perhaps there’s some manner of PITCHf/x miscalibration at work here. What one notes, however, is that four of those six pitchers are Felix Hernandez (whose changeup is conspicuously among the league’s best single offerings), another of them is Hisashi Iwakuma (whose splitter is also among baseball’s most effective pitches), and the third is Tom Wilhelmsen (whose curve, when he’s right, is also fantastic).

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Weekly Leaderboard
Here are the top-10 pitches since last Friday by the largely arbitrary criteria selected by the author.

#	Name	Date	Inn	T/B	Opp	Pitch	Vel	Brk	zVel	zBrk	Score
1	Dellin Betances	5/15	6	B	Daniel Murphy	KC	84.4	13.4	-0.3	1.8	0.7
2	Felix Hernandez	5/12	5	T	Desmond Jennings	CH	90.0	10.4	0.6	0.9	0.7
3	Brandon League	5/13	8	T	Giancarlo Stanton	SI	94.1	8.1	1.2	0.2	0.7
4	Felix Hernandez	5/12	6	T	Matt Joyce	CH	89.4	10.5	0.5	0.9	0.7
5	Kelvin Herrera	5/10	8	B	John Buck	CU	80.3	14.9	-1.0	2.3	0.6
6	Hisashi Iwakuma	5/13	3	T	Wil Myers	FS	84.7	12.5	-0.3	1.5	0.6
7	Felix Hernandez	5/12	1	T	Matt Joyce	CH	90.8	9.2	0.7	0.5	0.6
8	Tom Wilhelmsen	5/14	7	T	Ryan Hanigan	FT	95.5	6.7	1.4	-0.2	0.6
9	Felix Hernandez	5/12	7	T	Desmond Jennings	CH	90.0	9.6	0.6	0.6	0.6
10	Drew Pomeranz	5/13	5	T	Tyler Flowers	KC	81.3	14.1	-0.8	2.0	0.6