How the splitter became the star release of October
It looks like a fastball, until you miss the swing. Here’s why the splitter is taking baseball by storm.
TORONTO – In Game 6 of the World Series this Friday, two of the greatest exponents of the pitching that has defined October will face off at the Rogers Centre. The right pitcher of Los Angeles Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamotoseeks to save his team’s season, while the right pitcher of the Toronto Blue Jays, Kevin Gausmanaspires to win his franchise’s first championship in more than 30 years. Both will rely heavily on the split-fingered fastball, a pitch that for nearly 20 years was on the verge of extinction in the Major Leagues.
The rise of the split-fingered fastball in the last half decade – driven by the emergence of elite pitchers in Japan, where this pitch is a fundamental part of the repertoire of almost all pitchers, and the flexibility of its use by teams in the MLB – which was once banned for fear that it would cause elbow injuries – has transformed baseball even more than the cutter and the sweeper. Because it is a release superior to all of them.
“If you can throw it close to the strike zone,” he said Clayton Kershaw“it’s the best pitch in the game.”
In recent years, Kershaw began throwing a split-change, finally finding a comfortable variant of his changeup after spending his 18-year career, which would lead him to the Hall of Famelooking for it. And he is not the only one. This postseason, 32 pitchers, representing nearly a quarter of the playoff field, have thrown splitters. Since pitch tracking was implemented in 2008, the highest percentage of splitters among total pitches in October was 3.2% last year. Most seasons, this percentage ranged between 0.2% and 2%.
This October, 6.8% of all pitches have been splitters, a staggering number that reflects the wide acceptance of this pitch in baseball. It’s not just Gausman (who has thrown it 41.4% of the time in the playoffs) and Yamamoto (24.7%). The rookie from Toronto, Trey Yesavagedominated the Dodgers with his splitter in Game 5. Shohei Ohtaniwho will pitch in Game 7 if the Dodgers win Friday’s splitter duel, throws a devastating one. The Blue Jays closer, Jeff Hoffmanyou could spark a celebration with one. The same goes for the Dodgers closer, Roki Sasakiwhose splitter moves in all directions with dangerously low spin, like a powered-up knuckleball.
“It’s one of the few pitches that I firmly believe a hitter can anticipate and still strike out,” Gausman said. “I’ve always thought the changeup is the best pitch in baseball because it looks like a fastball, and any pitch that looks like a fastball but isn’t a fastball is a really good pitch. That’s why I think you’re seeing a lot more pitchers using it. I’m glad to see a lot of starters using it because it was always more of a relief pitch. So, for me, it’s exciting to see pitchers like Yamamoto use it a lot.”
The splitter is the evolutionary descendant of the fork, dating back to the 1910s. While the fork was placed as deep as possible between the index and middle fingers, the splitter offers more wiggle room for pitchers to find their rhythm. It’s not as precise a pitch as the changeup, which requires pronation (the internal rotation of the forearm that leaves the thumb down and pinky up after the pitch), something Kershaw and others struggle with. It’s actually quite simple: place the ball between two fingers, rest it with your thumb, throw it with the speed of a fast pitch, and let your grip do the work.
Closer Bruce Sutter learned the splitter in 1973 and took it to the Hall of Fame, inspiring the next generation to throw that pitch that looks like a fastball, but loses power as it approaches the plate. Mike Scott won a Cy Young Award with the. Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and John Smoltz They launched until they were over 40 thanks to this launch. However, by the time their careers ended in the 2000s, the splitter had become the scapegoat for elbow ligament injuries throughout baseball. Some had the audacity to continue launching it. Most were discouraged, turning splitter into a taboo word.
The scarcity of splitter pitches led to a lack of knowledge, according to Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior: “And I think a lot of people didn’t know how to teach it. If you were around someone who threw it, maybe you could experiment. If not, I don’t even remember anyone I’ve been around who threw splitters. So it was something you didn’t even dare experiment with.”
The arrival of Masahiro Tanaka to the New York Yankees In 2014 it marked the beginning of a new generation of the splitter. And technology contributed to its resurgence. High-speed Edgertronic cameras allowed pitchers to see the ball leaving their hands. TrackMan, the radar-based system that measures the spin and movement of pitches, provided immediate feedback and detailed analysis of the effectiveness of each pitch.
“Five, 10, 15 years ago, a pitcher would work on a pitch all year and then figure out what happened,” he said. Pete Walker, Blue Jays pitching coach. “In retrospect, it was useless. It wasn’t going to work. So we wasted a year of someone’s career working on a curveball, a slider or a split-fingered fastball. I think the process is faster now. We can make that decision with more information and greater validity.”
Add to that ability and desire to learn new pitches the widespread understanding in the sport that speed is the primary indicator of arm injuries, and teams’ stance on splitters softened. Pitchers took the opportunity to test the splitter, and rightly so.
This postseason, hitters are hitting .154/.206/.250 against the splitter, the lowest numbers in each hitting category for any pitch. In the World Series, the Dodgers have a .100 average (1 for 22) with 14 strikeouts against the splitter. Toronto has thrown the splitter 13.7% of the time during the playoffs, a percentage that is sure to increase with Gausman on the mound in Game 6.
The splitter has saved runs – “I would have retired a long time ago without it,” the Dodgers reliever said. Kirby Yates– and increasingly it is saving them. This winter, it will be the talk of pitching labs across baseball, with hundreds of professional pitchers at all levels testing its effectiveness. Several team officials have already stated that they are analyzing the movement patterns of their pitchers to see if the splitter would complement their current repertoire. And thanks to what they’ve learned designing other new releases, they’ll have a clear idea of their effectiveness sooner rather than later.
“It could be one session,” Walker said. “To be honest with you, it could even be before the session.”
The versatility of the splitter only increases its appeal. Pitchers can throw it with incredible speed, like the splinker of Paul Skenes and Jhoan Durana hybrid between splitter and sinker. They can look for a low-spin variation like Sasaki’s, a devastating late breaking pitch like Yamamoto’s, or one like Gausman’s that he can control in and out of the strike zone. They can even use him as a test pitch, like Kershaw.
Whatever its form, the splitter is here to stay. As it becomes more popular, its usefulness may decrease. After all, part of their effectiveness lies in their relative rarity. For now, however, it remains a release full of mystery: appearing one second and disappearing the next.
“You can’t hit,” Kershaw said. “You can’t hit a good splitter.”
