What Makes a Great Pitcher?

"Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting timing"
-Warren Spahn

Raise your hand if you enjoy watching a great pitching performance (you can't see but I'm raising my hand).  Pitching is a physical task, it's an art that encompasses many traits. To be very successful, a pitcher must possess many or all of these skills.  I've been a fan of pitching for a long time and always studied it.  Let's take a look at what I feel comprises the skills it takes to make a great pitcher.  In a nutshell, they are - Velocity, deception, location, change of speed, movement, repertoire and fearlessness. 

Nolan Ryan

First but not foremost let's begin with velocity.  You may think velocity is king.  It's really not.  If a guy throws a 100 mph fastball for 5 or 6 innings, the hitters will catch up to him.  Besides, the elbow and shoulder cannot be subjected to that kind of abuse.  In today's game there are a number of pitchers who possess great velocity - Noah Syndergaard, Yordano Ventura and Stephen Strasburg to name a few.  Some of the great flame-throwers in history were Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax.  Velocity is important, but not a lot.  Consider the success of R.A. Dickey and his 80 MPH fastball.

Madison Bumgarner

If velocity isn't king then what is?  It may very well be deception.  The ability to deceive is what Warren Spahn was speaking of in this post's quote. Deception can be broken down into two categories - hiding the ball and sameness of delivery.   A pitcher needs to keep the ball out of the batters view for as long as possible.  This confuses the batter.  One of the pitchers who can do this well is Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants.  Even though his windup is very "rounded"  the ball is hidden.  This hiding of the ball can be done within the parameters of solid fundamentals.  No matter how many types of pitches a pitcher throws he needs to deliver the ball the exact same way for each pitch.  This is not easy and even in the major leagues a good scout can pick up a pitcher "tipping" his pitches.  The batter should not be able to distinguish what the pitcher is throwing.  This skill is pretty awesome.  I'm going to throw Madison Bumgarner's name out there again since he is so good at doing this. 

Greg Maddux

Let's talk about location, location, location (I hate myself for using that cliche).  None of the traits listed here will be any good if a pitcher can't place the ball where he wants it.  The reason for this is pretty obvious.  Most all hitters have hot zones and cold zones.  The pitcher wants to hit those cold zones.  Also some hitters are a sucker for a certain pitch if it's thrown to a particular spot.  One of the most accurate pitchers (and one of my favorites) was Greg Maddux

Jim Palmer

We all know about the change-up.  This pitch is very effective. What makes it effective is when it is 1. Thrown with the sameness of delivery (above) and 2. with a significant change of speed. This is an important skill for a pitcher to have.  A crafty pitcher can use various pitches in his collection at different speeds to "set-up" another pitch.  When I think of pitchers who had great change of speed (and deception) I can't help but recall the pitchers of the Baltimore Orioles of the late 1970's.  Dennis Martinez, Jim Palmer, Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan and Steve Stone.  All five of them could pitch!!  In today's game Marco Estrada of the Blue Jays throws a healthy amount of change-ups and he uses nice deception to throw it.  Also he has about a 10 MPH difference between his fastball and his change.

There was a book I read when I was ... younger, called - "The Umpire Strikes Back" buy Ron Luciano.  In his book he wrote that in the major leagues he very rarely saw a pitch which did not have some movement to it.

  I believe that almost anyone can cause a ball to have some movement to it.  Sheez, even I got a tennis ball to have some crackle to it back in my stickball days.  There is much more to it than that.  A great pitch needs to have a ball move "late"  There are 60 feet from the mound to the plate.  The ball must be traveling rather straight from the pitchers hand up until about three or so feet away from the plate.  This way, depending on the amount of break, the hitter will hit a weak ground ball or miss it all together. 

It's rare when you see a starting pitcher have only one or two pitches.  I'm not saying in can't happen but it's rare.  In the cases of the aforementioned Ryan and Koufax, yes they had two pitches - fastball and curveball, but they  were probably the best heater and curve in the history of the game.  For a pitcher to be a winner they must have a repertoire.  There are many types of pitches out there but the basic six are - fastball, curveball, slider, change-up, cutter and sinker.  Sure there are a few other novelty pitches (eg. knuckle, forkball, slurve) and pitchers do add them to their repertoire.  The fastball can come in two varieties - four-seam and two-seam.  The four-seam which is gripped in a way when it's pitched spins against four seams can rise on its way to the plate.  The two-seam travels to the plate across two seams has a sinking characteristic.  Pitchers these days have a large variety of pitches.  Trevor Bauer of the Indians has been known to have up to six different pitches and experiments with more.

Bob Gibson

Lastly and maybe the most important is guts.  A successful pitcher can't be mousy and diffident.  To quote Lumiere from "Beauty and The Beast" - " You don't have time to be timid.  You must be bold and daring".  That Lumiere, he knew a thing or two about pitching!  Some pitchers that had a bulldog mentality were Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Jack Morris and Jake Peavy.



I hope you enjoyed reading this.  If I can provide a small nugget of newfound knowledge, even to the most knowledgeable of fans - It'll make my day.

Thanks for reading
-Tom