The Objectively Most Glorious Pitches of the Week

Recently, the author introduced a nearly reasonable methodology for identifying the most glorious baseball pitches over any given interval of games. What follows is that same methodology applied to every relevant pitch since last Friday. Click here for more information on the definition of break. Click here for previous editions of the same exercise.

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Fastball
Pitcher: Hector Rondon, RHP, Chicago NL (Profile)
Batter: Jonathan Lucroy   Date: Sunday, May 18th
Velocity: 96.8 mph   Break: 6.0 in.

Footage:

More Different Footage:

Other, More Different Footage:

Rondon appears to throw both a four- and two-seam fastball — a fact which undoubtedly creates some difficulty so far as PITCHf/x classification is concerned. According both to the present site and Brooks Baseball, however, Rondon is throwing all of his fastballs harder, regardless of the specific type. It’s perhaps for that reason that he’s improved his defense-independent numbers considerably; or perhaps it’s for another one. In either case, what one finds here is the objectively most impressive fastball of the week.

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Breaking Ball
Pitcher: Craig Kimbrel, RHP, Atlanta (Profile)
Batter: Matt Holliday   Date: Saturday, May 17th
Velocity: 83.2 mph   Break: 12.8 in.

Footage:

More Different Footage:

Having watched both the St. Louis and Atlanta feeds of the pitch depicted here, the author can state with some authority that neither broadcast team was particularly impressed by it (i.e. that same pitch). In neither case did anyone suggest that what he’d just seen was in some way special, nor did either feed feature a replay — which latter fact has compelled the author to make just the dumb, manual slow-motion GIF found above. Were one so compelled, one could make a reasonable argument to the effect that Craig Kimbrel, like any other sort of luxury item, is eventually something to whose charms one becomes immune — a sentiment expressed with considerably more pith by Epicurus in either his Principal Doctrines or Vatican Sayings, one or the other.

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Offspeed Pitch
Pitcher: Felix Hernandez, RHP, Seattle (Profile)
Batter: Brian Dozier   Date: Sunday, May 18th
Velocity: 89.1 mph   Break: 8.6 in.

Footage:

More Different Footage:

In the most recent edition of this same exercise, the pitcher recognized for having thrown the most impressive offspeed pitch of that previous week was Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez. In the present edition of it, the pitcher being recognized for that same thing is Hernandez again. Of note regarding this particular changeup: the members of the Twins broadcast team (from whose feed the footage here is taken) referred to it more than once as a fastball — in the second or third case as a “fastball with some sink.” On the one hand, it suggests that perhaps those broadcasters aren’t particularly well acquainted with Hernandez’s repertoire; on the other, though, it reminds one that Hernandez throws his version of the changeup at a velocity typically associated with fastballs.

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Weekly Leaderboard
Here are the top-15 pitches since last Friday by the largely arbitrary criteria selected by the author. Note that pitches marked with an asterisk (*) have been omitted from consideration due to reasonable suspicions concerning the accuracy of the relevant stadium’s PITCHf/x calibration.

#	Name	Date	Inn	T/B	Opp	Pitch	Vel	Brk	zVel	zBrk	Score
1	Yoervis Medina*	5/22	8	T	Jason Castro	CU	85.0	14.8	-0.2	2.2	1.0
2	Jarred Cosart*	5/22	7	B	Mike Zunino	FC	93.8	8.9	1.3	0.4	0.8
3	Yoervis Medina*	5/22	8	T	Matt Dominguez	FF	93.8	8.5	1.3	0.3	0.8
4	Hector Rondon	5/18	9	T	Jonathan Lucroy	FT	96.8	6.0	1.8	-0.5	0.6
5	Ronald Belisario	5/22	9	T	Brett Gardner	SI	94.2	7.3	1.3	-0.1	0.6
6	Alfredo Simon	5/16	1	B	Jimmy Rollins	FT	93.7	7.5	1.2	-0.1	0.6
7	Ronald Belisario	5/16	8	B	Marc Krauss	SI	94.6	7.0	1.4	-0.2	0.6
8	Aaron Loup	5/20	8	B	David Ross	FT	94.0	7.3	1.3	-0.1	0.6
9	Jarred Cosart*	5/22	2	B	Nick Franklin	FC	94.1	7.2	1.3	-0.1	0.6
10	Alfredo Simon	5/21	7	B	Danny Espinosa	FT	95.3	6.5	1.5	-0.4	0.6
11	Ronald Belisario	5/20	9	B	Lorenzo Cain	SI	93.0	7.7	1.1	0.0	0.6
12	Jarred Cosart*	5/22	6	B	Justin Smoak	SI	94.1	7.1	1.3	-0.2	0.6
13	Gerrit Cole	5/18	2	B	Zoilo Almonte	FF	98.1	4.9	2.0	-0.8	0.6
14	Craig Kimbrel	5/17	8	B	Matt Holliday	KC	83.2	12.8	-0.5	1.6	0.5
15	Alex Cobb	5/22	5	T	Yoenis Cespedes	CU	81.0	13.9	-0.9	1.9	0.5