Shortly after his college career came to a close, Mark coached several high school baseball teams. Next, place your thumb directly beneath the baseball, resting on the smooth leather two seam vs four seam . We added that to our grip tracking system more recently, so are still the process of gathering a sufficient sample to be able to effectively evaluate their efficacy.
If the other conditions are the same, a lower release height is best for the four-seam and a higher zone is best for the strike zone. If the pitch is in the same zone, a lower release height is more valuable to the pitcher. There’s always a lot of discussions about which one is better and produce the desired results. The true answer is that it depends on the pitcher and batter. Some pitchers have better pitches as well as some batters have specific weaknesses pitchers like to target.
Pitchers have many choices to make when it comes to what type of pitch they want to throw. In this post, we’re going to take a look at the 4 seam fastball vs. the 2 seam fastball. We’ll discuss how each pitch is thrown and how it affects hitters. Lastly, we’ll give you our take on which type of fastball is best.
Either way, there does not appear to be much research into the possibility of an optimal fastball grip other than a few Driveline studies such as the one included earlier in this article. This simple concept of different fastball grips could unlock extra spin potential for pitchers who are currently using a suboptimal grip. However, we will not know until more tests are done with conclusive evidence to back it up. These images are not of Gerrit Cole’s actual grip but represent what it would look like from this angle based on the previous images of his grip. Notice how the stitches are on the left side of the index finger when he was with Pittsburgh but are on the right side of his middle finger in Houston. You might also notice that the second image is the 4-Seam fastball grip of Justin Verlander – Cole’s teammate – who helped him with his transformation to the Astros system.
This is the most common pitch in softball and is thrown the straightest. The pitch has forward rotation and is thrown for velocity. The slider is pitch thrown with velocity that has a similar path as the curveball but does not move up out of the hand at first.
This pitch can be delivered with the most accuracy since it has very little sideways or up/down movement. Whiff% is generally higher in the faster group ( km/h) than the average ( km/h). Before one understands what pitches look like it is best to understand the Seam Readers Process. This is the correct approach to be a Seam Reader and never be fooled at the plate again. Mark Hertz has played baseball most of his life and ended up getting a scholarship to Louisiana State.
To generate swinging strikes from that movement, a pitcher needs to have the arm angle and spin axis to produce vertical movement. It is subject to a guess of their finger positioning, and that those freeze-frames are an accurate representation of Hader and Sale’s entire season’s worth of pitches. Nevertheless, it does make sense intuitively that Hader’s 3-quarter arm angle and finger positioning would give him more vertical movement and less horizontal movement than Sale. It should also be noted that Hader’s active spin percentage is 96.7% whereas Sale’s is 87.9%.
Pitchers with a three-quarter delivery will tend to get a mixture of both vertical, and horizontal movement on their fastballs. A deeper understanding of pitch movement is available here. The deception on these pitches is mesmerizing – it is generally not surprising that hitters have struggled so much in recent years.
For this pitch to be effective, you should note that the length of a person’s fingers can actually play a role in how much movement a 2 seam fastball can achieve. To grip a 4 seam baseball, place your index finger and middle finger on the seam of the baseball as the picture demonstrates. This is typically regarded to as the horseshoe seam because when viewed from above, it resembles the horseshoe U-shape. The 4 Seam Fastball is probably one of the easiest pitches that you can throw. The 4 seam fastball is typically the first pitch that a young player will learn how to throw.
The arm movement of the four-seam fastball is a simple, normal pitch. It does not require the snapping of the wrist or a twist of the arm. Hold the ball so that the seams form what looks like a backward C – or a sideways horseshoe. Using your index and middle fingers grip the top of the “C”. The looser you hold the ball the faster you can throw it. Conversely, because the four-seamer doesn’t break, it is quite hittable by the quick, “good-eye” batter who can “see” where the pitch will arrive.
