By: Tim Britton
CINCINNATI — After he finishes pitching, one of the first things Burke Badenhop does is fire up BrooksBaseball.net — a website dedicated to tracking pitcher performance.
Badenhop first learned of the site, originally conceived by Tufts University experimental psychologist Dan Brooks, two years ago while a member of the Tampa Bay Rays. Since then, the right-hander has used its measurements of velocity, movement, release point and spin to break down his individual performances and make the necessary adjustments as a pitcher.
What can Badenhop glean from the site after an outing? He recently pulled up the data from an outing last week against the Cardinals — a one-batter appearance in which he struck out Matt Holliday on four pitches.
The first thing he looks at is velocity. Although Badenhop generally finds velocity overrated, there’s obviously value to knowing how hard he threw in a particular outing. Often, the radar-gun readings say more about his effort level and his aggressiveness on the mound than, say, his level of fatigue. He pointed to a game earlier this season when he walked Jose Bautista on a full-count sinker at 88 mph.
“The two [pitches] before that were 91-92,” he said. “So I guided that one there. I wasn’t pitching to contact. I was trying to stay away from anything.”
(For what it’s worth, BrooksBaseball measures velocity from 55 feet and not 50 the way MLB.com’s Pitch F/X does, meaning its readings are generally a tick or two above the norm.)
Next, he examines the site’s measure of his vertical movement. Brooks’ readings on vertical movement measure the amount that spin causes the ball to move up or down, compared to how it would move without spin. These readings don’t factor in gravity’s influence, which explains why sinkers actually have positive (read: upward) values. For a sinkerballer, the smaller the positive number, the better. Badenhop feels good when his sinker has a vertical break under three.
Badenhop appreciates the precision of the measurements — something he can’t deduce from watching video of himself. One confounding factor in video analysis, he said, is the different camera angles used at different parks. For instance, Fenway Park uses a camera positioned almost directly behind the pitcher at a higher angle, rather than the old-fashioned camera positioned out of left-center field.
“A lot of places now have those vertical cameras like we have at home, which I hate. It takes away the up-and-down component of things,” he explained. “My sinker just looks like it doesn’t move whatsoever. The angle they give on the camera, that’s not a true representation at all of how a pitch is. It’s tough to tell up and down.”
That’s why Badenhop also likes to review the strike-zone data after each outing, to again gain a precise understanding of where he was locating.
For Badenhop, maybe the most important thing he looks at is his vertical release point. Badenhop usually employs about a three-quarter arm slot from the right side, though there are times when that drops on him. Often, though, a dip in his release point is less a result of dropping his arm down than of him collapsing on his back leg during his delivery.
Furthermore, Badenhop has a tendency, like many pitchers, to release different pitches from different angles. If the gap between the release points of his sinker and his slider grows too large, he’ll start tipping pitches to an observant hitter.
Visualizing that data in chart form helps Badenhop go about making the minor adjustments he has to from outing to outing.
“It’s kind of helped me make adjustments,” he said. “You get in trouble when you try to make the ball move. For me, it’s maybe I’m not finishing my pitches, maybe I need to be on the ball a little longer, maybe I need to get on top just a little better. That’s kind of what it means to me.”
BrooksBaseball tracks that data going back to the 2008 season, so Badenhop also takes a look at how he’s measuring up over a longer span of time. (That’s particularly important to him when it comes to his release point.)
BrooksBaseball is a prime example of the way more refined data is being incorporated into the game. Badenhop may be an early adopter among players in the clubhouse — “I don’t think it’s commonplace,” he said — but it’s certainly been employed in front offices across the game. A few of Badenhop’s conversations about the site have been with general manager Ben Cherington.
“It’s just awesome because of how much stuff can be tabulated in a baseball game,” said Badenhop. “I wonder how things are going to morph over for hitters, maybe mapping guys’ bat paths and who knows. It can help explain a lot of things.”