Single Most Dominating Pitch By 1 Pitcher

[CTaka]

I went with Big Train's fastball.

For much of his career, he used that single pitch to become the general consensus as greatest pitcher of all time.

[Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan]

Originally Posted by Surf-Bat

Wasn't it Three-Finger Brown's CURVEBALL(not moving fastball) that Ty Cobb called "The most devastating pitch I have ever faced"?

Either way, that's high praise coming from the man who may have been the greatest baseball player of them all.

Just something to consider....

According to a publication in 'How Stuff Works':

...The unnatural grip he had to employ on the ball caused many of his straight pitches to behave like knuckleballs and imparted an extra dip to his curves. The irony is that Brown lacked a major-league fastball and might never have risen above semipro competition were it not for his uncle’s corn chopper. Although I also found this little tidbit:

Ty Cobb once said the most devastating pitch he ever faced was Three-Finger Brown's curveball. Ironically, that pitch - a cross between a split-finger fastball and a knuckler - was the residue of a disfiguring childhood accident that also provided Brown's unique nickname.

Perhaps his curveball was his most devastating pitch after all.

[Calif_Eagle]

How about Sal Maglie's curveball? Sal had quite a good W-L record in his MLB career, although I know that modern sabermetric thought puts little weight on that. In "Ball Four" Jim Bouton gets told by Seattle Pilots pitching coach Maglie that he can never succeed as a 1 pitch pitcher. Then later, in just social conversation with Maglie, Bouton asks how did he get the Dodgers out in his glory days with the New York Giants? Maglie's answer... "97 snappers!"

Always got a kick out of that story.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

If we're talking about who could dominate the way Rivera has with only one pitch, I think it's silly to bring up fastballs. Hitters often look for the fastball even when there are other pitches to worry about. They drool over them. If a pitcher throws a fastball on a 2-1 count, he's "giving in" to the hitter. Doesn't matter how fast the fastball is, any hitter worth anything can square it up, especially if it's a straight flyin' 4-seamer.

What made Nolan's fastball so devastating was that the hitter had something else to think about. Successful pitching is about disrupting the timing of the hitter. Throwing heater after heater accomplishes nothing of the sort.

Hoffman's change was lethal when he threw in the 90's. Could we say if he only threw that one pitch, he would dominate? Nah. No threat of the hard one renders the change meaningless.

A great splitty isn't designed to be a strike, as it plays off the fastball, so having that as your only pitch wouldn't be good. Johnson's slider would be pretty as effective on it's own, given that it's thrown hard and breaks on two plaines, but the lack of control with it might be an issue.

How is Rivera so effective? Essentially he throws a late-breaking 90mph true slider and can spot like a madman. Pretty incredible what he's done.

[hwmongoose]

Bruce Sutter split-fingered fastball should be on the list.

[Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan]

Originally Posted by Sultan_1895-1948

How is Rivera so effective? Essentially he throws a late-breaking 90mph true slider and can spot like a madman. Pretty incredible what he's done.

I thought a true slider was suppose to have some downward break to it? Rivera's cutter only has sideways break, and in fact appears to rise or 'hop' late in the zone.

I think the key to Rivera's incredibly effective cutter is that it cuts so late, batters can't adjust in time to make good contact. In order to make solid contact, a batter must swing where he thinks the cutter will cross the zone and hope for the best. If he reacts to the break, it already over. I thinks it's fair to say Rivera's cutter has the latest sharp break of any pitcher ever - at least that I've seen. This could explain why he has been just as effective throwing 92 MPH as he was throwing 97 a few years back; it's not the velocity so much as the late movement that beating hitters. Of course, if he chooses to keep pitching in his 40's, the velocity will eventually drop below a threshold where the hitters can adjust to the break and hit him harder more consistently. But as we've seen this year, the low 90's in NOT that threshold.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Originally Posted by Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan

I thought a true slider was suppose to have some downward break to it? Rivera's cutter only has sideways break, and in fact appears to rise or 'hop' late in the zone.

I think the key to Rivera's incredibly effective cutter is that it cuts so late, batters can't adjust in time to make good contact. In order to make solid contact, a batter must swing where he thinks the cutter will cross the zone and hope for the best. If he reacts to the break, it already over. I thinks it's fair to say Rivera's cutter has the latest sharp break of any pitcher ever - at least that I've seen. This could explain why he has been just as effective throwing 92 MPH as he was throwing 97 a few years back; it's not the velocity so much as the late movement that beating hitters. Of course, if he chooses to keep pitching in his 40's, the velocity will eventually drop below a threshold where the hitters can adjust to the break and hit him harder more consistently. But as we've seen this year, the low 90's in NOT that threshold.

Thats something I touched on in my post #22. It's that late break, I would bet it has batters talking to themselves...................how did that ball get in on my fists.
When you watch Mo facing some teriffic hitters you can see so many times they swing at pitches on the fists. They know what he throws and they still swing often. It must be in many at bats, they still don't believe that the pitch that looks so good is going to saw them off at the handle.

[Paul Wendt]

If sideways break only, why do the batters frequently fan? With sideways break only --differing from a fastball only by moving toward or away from the batter-- a level swing should frequently hit the ball six inches inside the sweet spot or six inches outside the sweet spot but not frequently fan. Right?

[Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan]

Originally Posted by Paul Wendt

If sideways break only, why do the batters frequently fan? With sideways break only --differing from a fastball only by moving toward or away from the batter-- a level swing should frequently hit the ball six inches inside the sweet spot or six inches outside the sweet spot but not frequently fan. Right?

Paul, you would think he would pitch more to contact with just sideways break, however 2 points to consider:

A) While his career SO rate is good at 8.3 per 9 IP, this is not in the same league as other great firemen like Wagner, Henke, Hoffman or Lee Smith (8.7/9). He pitches more to contact than many, but not all, of his closest peers.

B) Many of his strikeout come caught lookings through backdoor cutter to LHB and front door to RHB. I have empirical evidence but I would bet my house his rate of caught looking SO's relative to most pitchers is significantly higher.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Originally Posted by Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan

I thought a true slider was suppose to have some downward break to it?

Technically a true slider breaks on only one plain, similar to what Eckersley threw back in the day. Rivera doesn't throw a slider, hence the word "essentially", but at the last minute it moves like a slider. A true slurve, such as Lidge's or Smoltz's breaks on two plains and would be even nastier than Rivera's cutter if it was physically possible to throw that pitch 90+mph.

I think the key to Rivera's incredibly effective cutter is that it cuts so late, batters can't adjust in time to make good contact. In order to make solid contact, a batter must swing where he thinks the cutter will cross the zone and hope for the best. If he reacts to the break, it already over. I thinks it's fair to say Rivera's cutter has the latest sharp break of any pitcher ever - at least that I've seen. This could explain why he has been just as effective throwing 92 MPH as he was throwing 97 a few years back; it's not the velocity so much as the late movement that beating hitters. Of course, if he chooses to keep pitching in his 40's, the velocity will eventually drop below a threshold where the hitters can adjust to the break and hit him harder more consistently. But as we've seen this year, the low 90's in NOT that threshold.

I agree. Hitters are programmed to see the ball in a spot and react to that spot. It's incredibly difficult, given the small amount of time to read and react, to then adjust based on where you think it will break. Inside or out, this makes it a very tough pitch. To a lefty, the backdoor is read as a ball in tenths of a second. The inside pitch is read as a strike until it's too late. As a lefty, if you could program yourself to let anything middle-in go, then perhaps you could get ahead in the count and have a shot. I'm surprised some lefties don't go up there with a much shorter bat off him, or choke up a lot.