Bulletspin finally recognized

[RADcatchers]

I noticed the black circle on the back of number of bullet spin pitches. Since the horseshoes on a ball are not symmetrically opposed if you look at a bullet spin pitch and don't see the dot on the back that doesn't mean that it is showing to the hitter. It could be presenting to the hitter though,

As I commented earlier I have not seen whatever that mystery dot is while hitting or catching. For that matter while playing catch overhand I've not seen it either.

you would think that catchers would notice this and bring it to someone's attention, right Rad?

What I noticed and have commented on with pitchers is when they give away their grip/pitch exposing it outside their glove before starting their pitch.

Like when they are adjusting the ball to the side of their body trying to find the seam they want.

Btw imo the backhand flip change-up is the worst giveaway Change-Up of all.

 

[CaledoniaDad]

little fun here...
YES ?GIANT YELLOW BALL INCOMMING??


Not saying this to be snarky but..... ?Oklahoma is on point with hitting everything ?

Slow motion and at speed are very different.
Will bring this question up~
How many times have you/anybody
stood in front of a pitch coming in and saw that dot? I will say I've caught tremendously thousands of pitches and it is not something that I've encountered.
Not saying others don't encounter seeing it, just commenting think it is a rarity like a UFO. Or possibly some superhero special advantage .005% have ?‍.

* I do utilize seeing spin!

Hundreds at this point. I go to D1 games (I live between 3 SEC schools) and sit behind the catcher frequently, then move to the stands to the side to see and take video both at speed and slow motion. As a pitching coach I use them to analyze what I could and shouldn't be teaching.

I haven't faced many softball 65+ mph pitches myself (80+ baseball yes), this is true. But black on yellow is VERY easy to see if you are looking for it. A 4-seam blur looks completely different.

The limit isn't your eyes my friend in hitting, it is pattern recognition and the speed of the data bus between the eyes and the brain to recognize that pattern. Find a pattern and you'll see it all the time.

 

[RADcatchers]

Find a pattern and you'll see it all the time.

SPIN IS A PATTERN watching the release is a huge indicator!

 

[RADcatchers]

Perhaps somebody else can find and post reference to this-

Beyond this conversation about the lettering on the ball. There is another topic about seeing a DOT or SPOT that is supposed to appear on a ball rotating and traveling as it comes in (cannot find the other video or post on it) never have seen that happen myself.

Edit Add - specifically I'm talking about seeing a different colored spot on the ball!

 

[Rolling Hard]

I think in baseball, a poorly thrown slider is supposed to create a red dot.
I think the subconscious mind can pick up the pitchers release and send message to brain. This is what elite hitters can do.
This is why Steve Springer preaches "watch the pitcher." Your brain can take in information both consciously and subconsciously that will benefit you during your AB.
Yeah, the flip change should never work BUT it does. Watch the pitcher.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I think in baseball, a poorly thrown slider is supposed to create a red dot.
I think the subconscious mind can pick up the pitchers release and send message to brain. This is what elite hitters can do.
This is why Steve Springer preaches "watch the pitcher." Your brain can take in information both consciously and subconsciously that will benefit you during your AB.
Yeah, the flip change should never work BUT it does. Watch the pitcher.

In baseball, they call that the cement mixer slider, and it usually goes a long way.

Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters ever because he had phenomenal hand-eye coordination and eyesight. Don't forget, he was a Marine Corps pilot in WWII and Korea, and it's speculated he had 20-10 or 20-15 vision. That gives a hug advantage to a batter when they can see the spin and seams of the ball better than the next guy. I suspect your elite softball hitters have the same kind of vision.

So, that pitch from Garcia was basically a high fastball, right? The slow motion shows virtually no backspin. She still used it very effectively.

 

[jfitch12]

So, that pitch from Garcia was basically a high fastball, right? The slow motion shows virtually no backspin. She still used it very effectively.

The point about pattern recognition is interesting because I see this as a backspin pitch. Most (or at least many) right-handed riseballs spin backwards but with the axis turned between about 0-20 degrees. Think about a bicycle wheel spinning, but the wheel is pointed from the shortstop to a spot about 15 feet up the first-base line. Lots or right-handed riseballs spin with that type of orientation viewed from the catcher's perspective. As I've said before, the TV camera angels often skew that view. But I still see a basic right-handed riseball spin on the Garcia pitch, particularly if you watch the logo from the catcher view. That said, it also may just be that I see what I expect to see.

 

[jfitch12]

You have to take a deeper look to understand these things. Bullet spin by definition is always oriented in the direction the bullet is traveling, and will keep it on track as long as this remains true. Rather than a bullet use a football. The ball will travel straight as long as the nose remains pointed in the direction of travel. So when the ball passes the top of it's arc and begins to travel downward the axis of spin has to change and point downward into the changing direction of travel, or the bullet spin effect is lost. If the axis of spin remains pointed in the direction that it had when the ball was launched (slightly upward) then as the ball crests and begins to fall more air will hit the bottom of the spinning ball and the Magnus force will begin to have an effect, the ball will curve in the direction of the spin. This is how a 'bullet spin' slider breaks horizontally, with more of the break happening at the end of it's flight as the trajectory turns downward, but the axis of spin remains constant.

Your point about the gravity effect is a good one, but I am not sure that effect is the primary contributor to the movement of a slider in baseball. Sliders don't typically have pure bullet spin, just as curves in baseball usually don't spin straight down, and rises in softball don't spin straight back. Pure bullet spin is 0% spin efficiency, whereas most sliders are around 35%. Sliders vary widely, some have more downspin and others have more side spin, but a classic right-handed slider has the axis pointed up and to the right (from the catcher's perspective)--it's not dead center.

I say this because I think the premise of this and the other "bullet spin" threads related to the WCWS is to think of spin as a dichotomy. A pitch has "proper spin" or it does not--with "proper spin" defined as pure spin either up, back, or on the side. In reality, spin is on a three-dimensional continuum with a whole range of spin profiles, and the key question is whether a given profile is effective regardless of whether the spin is pure.

I am fascinated that in this year's WCWS, there was so much talk about the percentage of different pitch types thrown by each pitcher. I wonder where that data comes from. My hope is that the next step is to transition away from talking about spin orientation and axis to look at the amount of movement that a pitcher has on each individual offering. Measuring speed and amount of break--rather than spin rate, axis, or efficiency seem more meaningful to assessing whether a pitch will be effective.

 

[RADcatchers]

My hope is that the next step is to transition away from talking about spin orientation and axis to look at the amount of movement that a pitcher has on each individual offering.

????? YES make this happen!
( however I do think it's important to figure out how to get that movement happening so we still need to look at spin axis speed Etc)

Measuring speed and amount of break--

Yes let's see some screen editing to display this! The strike zone box with a line indicating pitch or something.

 

[daywalkerdad]

I caught that too.
It got me thinking, we always talk about bullet spin here as a stabilizing force that will keep a bullet on a straighter trajectory, then we apply it to a softball. But a bullet doesn't have seams. Could the bullet spinning ball with its seams rotating in one direction combined with the drop from gravity actually provide an air imbalance causing it to veer toward one side?

Bingo! “Bullet spin” or “gyro spin” is just a variance of spin efficiency.
In baseball as gravity pulls the ball down the spin direction and ball direction will deviate.

Spin Efficiency - More Than Just a Number (Part 1)

Last week I was thinking what to write about and I was struggling to come up with ideas. I started combining through datasets, when I stumbled upon something interesting looking through pitch tracking data occasionally mentioned (including by myself in my previous blog on sliders), but not often...

simplesabermetrics.com

Softball is even more complex since each pitch starts off going up.