I was right, velocity is overrated, but spin is not.
The four-seam fastball, amid a decades-long decline in usage, remains the majors’ most popular weapon. According to Statcast, four-seamers account for almost a third of all pitches thrown this season. The next-closest pitch is the slider, at 22.3 percent.
This helps explain Kalk’s belief that a pitcher’s fastball shape is akin to a fingerprint. It’s ingrained and, for many, almost impossible to change.
“What led me to believe that,” Kalk said, “was a lot of attempts to try to change that and few successes. Not zero but few.”
It’s easier, Kalk said, for a pitcher to learn a new changeup, or a slider or sweeper. Fixing a poor fastball without making drastic adjustments tends to present a far greater challenge, even for the most talented pitchers on the planet.
This suggests that scouting is more important than coaching when it comes to FBs.
And that the focus should be on whether a pitcher has a "live" FB, not his velocity.
A 92-93 FB with above average rise is harder to hit than a 97-98 FB with average rise.
What was interesting was that the amount of "rise" needed depends on arm slot, the more vertical, the more rise needed to make a pitch hard to hit - b/c hitters have a mental construct of how a FB should move depending on arm slot, based on the thousands of pitches they've seen, and the key to "rise" is simply having a FB that moves a couple inches more than expected.
