The Making of a Reliever - Mechanics

Whether a pitcher throws overhand, submarine, or somewhere in between, his mechanics make all the difference in getting a hitter out.

In the last article in this reliever series, I discussed the roles of middle relievers and closers. I looked at their velocities, accuracy, arsenals, and usage. Today we’re going to dig a little deeper into their arsenals and discuss how their mechanics affect each pitch they throw.

There are three major components of a pitcher’s mechanics. These include his grip on the ball, the arm slot at which he throws the pitch, and the release point where the ball leaves his hand. There are four distinct arm slots that we will discuss – overhand, ¾, sidearm, and submarine. The Guardians have had at least one of each of these pitchers in recent years, so we’ll take a deeper look into their numbers.

First, we’ll take a look at how a pitcher’s grip affects the location and spin rate of his pitches. The grip the pitcher has on the ball when he throws it is what dictates what type of pitch is thrown. In this case, we’re going to look at Pedro Avila’s arsenal as he throws six different pitches – the most of the Guardians’ relievers.

I was unable to find a reliable, close-up view of each of Avila’s pitch grips, but we can assume that his grip is different for each type of pitch he throws. The table below illustrates the spin rate and location accuracy (Zone%) of each pitch in his arsenal.

We can see here that, generally, the more spin his pitches have, the less accurate they are. While this is not true for every single pitcher, it is for Avila this year. His most accurate pitch is his fastball which has the second-lowest spin rate behind only his changeup. Meanwhile, his least accurate pitch is his sweeper which – while only the third-highest spin rate – is only 18 and 13 rpm slower than his two highest, respectively.

Additionally, the two highest spin rates for his slider and curveball both have accuracies below 50%. This means he’s hitting the strike zone less than half of the time with these high spin rate pitches. That’s not always a bad thing, for example, he may be getting guys to swing on pitches outside of the zone. It just shows that the more spin he puts on a pitch, the less he can rely on it to hit the strike zone.

The next component of a pitcher’s mechanics is the arm slot at which he throws the ball. As mentioned above, the four main arm slots are overhand, ¾, sidearm, and submarine. Each slot has found different success in recent years for Guardians relievers.

The first overhand pitcher that came to mind for me was Oliver Drake. Drake appeared in just 4.1 innings for the Guardians in 2018, but he has had longer tenures with other teams. For these numbers, we’re going to look at his 2017 season with the Milwaukee Brewers in which he threw 52.2 innings.

Across these 52.2 innings, Drake had a 4.44 ERA. He was able to strike out 62 hitters with a 35.5% Whiff rate. This was mainly due to the excessive drop that each of his pitches had that fooled the hitter into thinking the ball would reach the strike zone higher than it did. His four-seam fastball saw 12.8 inches of drop and 5.2 inches of break while his split-finger fastball saw a whopping 31 inches of drop and 6.3 inches of break.

This video from Pitching Ninja illustrates just how intense this drop was and how it consistently fooled hitters.

A prime example of the ¾ slot is friend of the site Nick Wittgren. His arm was almost perfectly at the 45° position with each pitch. He threw 62.1 innings for the Guardians in 2021 for an ERA of 5.05. He was able to strike out 61 hitters at a 31.8% Whiff rate.

His four-seam fastball saw more drop than Drake’s, reaching 16.9 inches and 8.4 inches of break. His changeup was even more intense with an average 35.2 inches of drop and 12.5 inches of break. This pitch would start out in the hitter’s sweet spot but end up low and away, forcing the hitter to swing through.

The ¾ slot is what most pitchers throw with, it’s the natural position for the arm to throw. This video shows Wittgren’s arm slot in action.

One of the most notable sidearm pitchers in Cleveland’s recent history is Joe Smith. He played for Cleveland from 2009 to 2013, and again in 2017. He saw the most usage in 2012 when he threw 67 innings for a 2.96 ERA.

He piled up 53 strikeouts and got hitters to Whiff 23.7% of the time. His two most widely used pitches were his sinker and slider. Unfortunately, pitch tracking was not as advanced in 2012 as it is today so I do not have drop/break info for those pitches. However, his 2017 season was the most similar to 2012 by WAR, so we’ll take a closer look at those pitches.

His sinker had 36.3 inches of drop in 2017 and 18.9 inches of break while his slider had 33.4 inches of drop and 12.8 inches of break. You’ll notice that both pitches have more break than both Wittgren and Drake. This video illustrates his arm slot and the intense break that his pitches experienced.

Finally, we’ve reached the submarine pitcher. The one that just looks wrong. Like physics shouldn’t allow it to happen. No matter how weird it looks, Adam Cimber made it happen. In 2019, he threw 56.2 innings for Cleveland for an ERA of 4.45. He got 41 strikeouts that year and got hitters to Whiff at a rate of 22.0%.

He had the most intense drop of each of these pitchers with his sinker registering 46.6 inches and his slider with 46.2 inches. These pitches saw 13.7 and 5.2 inches of break, respectively. These pitches threw hitters for a loop simply because they were coming from a much different part of the mound than everyone else.

The below video illustrates Cimber’s funky delivery.

While we can’t make any solid assumptions about arm slots here since I’ve only gone into detail about one pitcher with each slot, we can see that Smith saw the most success with his delivery in terms of ERA. However, Drake was the more successful pitcher when it came to getting hitters to strike out. We can’t make any assumptions about arm slot success with this data, but we can say that Smith perfected his delivery to prevent runs, and Drake perfected his to get strikeouts.

The final component of a pitcher’s mechanics is his release point. This is the point where the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. It ties grip and arm angle together to dictate the position of the ball once it reaches the batter’s box. We’ll take a look at each pitcher’s release point on his most frequently used pitch.

For Drake, the four-seam fastball is used most frequently. He releases this pitch at 0.37 feet from the centerline of the mound and 6.54 feet above the ground. The results of this release point can be found in the picture below.

In Wittgren’s case, his four-seamers are released 2.34 feet away from the centerline and a smaller 5.91 feet above the ground. His results are a bit more spread out as shown below.

For Smith, we begin to see the results of a lower arm slot. The horizontal release point on his sinker stretches out to 3.84 feet while the vertical goes down to 3.30. You can visualize how much closer to the ground his hand is when he releases the pitch. His results are shown below.

In Cimber’s case, the horizontal release point on his sinker doesn’t differ much from Smith’s at 3.42 feet. However, his vertical release is an almost unimaginable 1.73 feet off the ground. How he releases the pitch without throwing it straight into the dirt, I’ll never know. But it seems to have some success as shown in this graph.

While these four guys played for Cleveland mostly at different times, it would be interesting to see how a bullpen would perform with all four arm slots. Seeing four different arm slots throughout a game would cause a hitter to have to adjust his approach at the plate. The ball was coming from six feet above the mound when the overhand pitcher was in the game, but now it’s coming from just one foot above with the submarine pitcher in. How would a hitter prepare himself for such a stark difference in release point?

With such a big difference in release point, the hitter would have to study the pitcher beforehand to learn which pitch he’s throwing. While both pitchers look to be doing extremely different things, they could be throwing the same type of pitch. It’s on the hitter to pick up on the pitcher’s cues and decide if he’s going to swing or not. Personally, I think it must be extremely difficult for hitters to adapt in cases like this.

As an example, let’s take a look at Cleveland’s game versus the Los Angeles Angels on September 11, 2019. This game was started by Adam Plutko, a ³⁄₄ slot righty. He faced Albert Pujols twice before being taken out of the game. In the first inning, he gave up a walk to Pujols and then got him to lineout to left in the third. Pujols then faced Carlos Carrasco and Tyler Clippard who are also ³⁄₄ righties. In the ninth inning, however, he faced Adam Cimber. Cimber got him to strike out and earned his only save on the year.

While we can’t definitively say arm slot was the reason Cimber was able to strike out Pujols, it is interesting to note that he did it on three pitches. The intense change in release point could be the reason Pujols was less successful in the ninth inning.

All in all, a pitcher’s mechanics have almost everything to do with his success. There are millions of different ways to throw a pitch, and none of them are the only correct way. This article shows that a pitcher who throws over his head can have just as much success as one whose hand nearly brushes the ground. While a pitcher’s delivery isn’t the only factor that makes him successful, the way that he utilizes and perfects that delivery is a major part of his success.

It’s always interesting to me to see how different pitchers throw the ball, and I will always be partial to the funky sidearm throwers. I don’t get to see them often since they stick to the relief role and are not usually starters, but maybe that will change in the future as more is discovered about how arm slot affects a player’s shoulder and elbow lifespan.