Game 41: Twins at Guardians

Unhittable by Rob Friedman.

Any baseball fan plugged into the National Pastime in the current age gets a sense that the pitchers are way ahead of the hitters. Batting average is down, contact is down, and strikeouts are up. In Unhittable, Friedman (of PitchingNinja fame) provides some great context for why/how this came to be and what exactly pitchers are doing to refine their movements and arsenals so perfectly.

There are basically two trains of thought that run through Unhittable:

First is Friedman’s in-depth explanation of the various technological and analytical tools that pitchers currently use to maximize velocity, perfect their delivery, sequence their pitches, and all the while try to keep their golden appendages healthy. Friedman cites programs like Driveline and technology like Edgertronic cameras, Rhapsodo, Trackman, & Trajekt (among many others) that are being used to dig into the fine details of why the ball moves like it does and how to repeat that over and over again. Though perhaps slightly over the head of even a dedicated baseball fan like me from a technical perspective, all these concepts are fascinating. Friedman even goes so far as to delve into physics concepts like seam-shifted wake and pitch tunneling. He makes a compelling case that pitchers in the modern era are as much scientists as artists.

A second thread running through Unhittable is the historical context. Friedman essentially starts by explaining how pitching used to be coached/taught on “feel” and abstract concepts. Building the body or strengthening the arm via weight training was even discouraged. But then hurlers like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan (using the then-unorthodox methods of pitching guru Tom House) broke the mold by showing how conditioning & deep analysis could extend both velocities and careers. The advent of full-capture stadium cameras in the 2010s spurred this on even further, with pitchers like Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes representing a new wave who are actively studying all aspects of their craft in ways previously unimaginable. The really strong writing here is a welcome break from the more technical aspects of the narrative.

Yes, there is a significant chapter devoted almost solely to Trevor Bauer. This will immediately turn some readers off, but I hope it doesn’t. For all of Bauer’s personality and off-field foibles, his story absolutely deserves (needs, really) to be recounted here. He truly was on the cutting edge of pitching analytics and in some senses paid a price for being first through the gate (a lot of criticism and scorn). Not that anyone is really feeling sorry for Bauer the individual at this point, but I’m glad he wasn’t excluded entirely from this story.

Overall, I found Unhittable to be a fascinating explanation of why pitchers continue to dominate batters in Major League Baseball. In one of the only major sports where the defense controls the ball, pitchers have the ability to always be a step ahead of their offensive counterparts–and that is exactly what is happening at the moment.

The Cleveland Guardians have established a pitching pipeline nearly second to none in MLB over the last decade or so. But let’s hope the Minnesota Twins can scratch out a few safeties and maybe dent the big Progressive Field wall a few times this early-afternoon.

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