Know Your Averages 2024, Slider Edition

Towards the top of the 2024 season, I aggregated fastball efficiency metrics with “Know Your Averages 2024” and wrote in regards to the pitchers close to the minimal, the utmost, and the common. For instance, Aroldis Chapman’s sinker nonetheless guidelines the SwStr% class (most, 17.8%), whereas Jake Woodford couldn’t purchase a swinging strike (minimal, 0.9%) and George Kirby was completely common (6.0%). Beneath, you will discover hyperlinks to these posts. You could discover them helpful when contextualizing the statistical vomit coming from any baseball podcaster’s repertoire. I wanted to do it for myself:

Fastballs: 4-seamers | Sinkers | Cutters

However now we transfer past the fastballs and try to digest all these different pitches. There are super variations within the fastball swinging strike charges round and under 10% and the 15%’ers of sliders and splitters. We’ll start with sliders.

Breaking and Offspeed Pitches: Sliders | Changeups | Curveballs | Splitters | Sweepers

My course of depends on Alex Chamberlain’s Pitch Leaderboard which makes use of Statcast information that you would be able to additionally discover at Baseball Savant and our (New!) Pitch Kind Splits on participant pages. Here’s a fast take a look at how the slider stacks up towards different non-fastball pitches in a number of measurements:

Ben Clemens wrote about sliders in two components again in 2021. If my evaluation of slider efficiency makes you confused and in want of aspirin, go learn these articles and also you’ll really feel higher. It is because an excellent slider will be tough to outline. As you’ll see, pitchers make the most of their sliders in several methods and discover diversified paths to success. Go determine! Let’s take a look at the pitchers under, at, and above common with their sliders in every measurement. A number of what follows within the “Questions or feedback?” part is much less evaluation and extra factors for additional analysis or dialogue.

NOTE: The chart and desk above don’t embody a minimal pitch qualifier. The gamers within the evaluation under will fall below a 40-pitch minimal qualifier with some arbitrary writer finagling.

—Zone%—

Questions or feedback?: You have to carry down the qualifier threshold on the Statcast Pitch Arsenal leaderboard for Darvish’s slider to seem. It seems all proper, within the heart of the zone. Typically. It returned a Run-Worth of solely two and was slugged at a .478 clip, leading to 5 residence runs. It’s powerful to say if Darvish’s 81.2 IP allowed him to get the texture for his slider or not, however its motion profile has modified through the years, and the zone might not be the perfect place for a pitch with a motion profile very near common. Within the Ben Clemens article I referenced earlier, one among his largest takeaways was that “[b]ig, sweeping sliders excel over the center of the plate” and Darvish’s is now not large or sweeping. In its heyday Darvish’s slider had almost 4 inches of vertical drop in comparison with related pitches in accordance with Statcast. In 2024, it dropped lower than one inch greater than related pitches.

Max Fried’s present slider will get over 5 inches of vertical drop versus the common and was utilized solely 5.6% of the time in 2024. What about Flexen? It could not have been within the zone a lot in 2024, however hitters chased after it at accelerated charges. The pitch’s 31.3% O-Swing was above common and Flexen’s model enticed hitters to chase because it had extra drop and break than common. That might not be the best way to go transferring ahead, for Flexen’s slider carried out significantly better when it was thrown within the zone:

Granted, Flexen solely threw 35 sliders in 2021, however there exists a large enough pattern in 2022 to counsel Flexen ought to think about transferring his slider again into the zone.

—Swing%—

Questions or feedback?: The 25-year-old Mitchell Parker threw his slider 236 instances within the 151 innings he pitched for the Nationals in 2024. That was quite a lot of innings! By Stuff+, his slider was his finest pitch by SwStr%, Contact%, and O-Swing%. However he used it solely 10% of the time. 49% of the time he threw a “not-so-good” fastball. He had one of many highest swing charges on his slider however completed with one of many Fiftieth-best xwOBAs (.238) on the pitch amongst pitchers who threw a slider in a minimum of 50 plate appearances. Graham Ashcraft’s common Swing% slider did barely worse within the xwOBA division at .249 and Alex Wooden’s demonic, 9.8-inch dropping (vs. AVG) slider garnered the “worst of all” .252 xwOBA. These three pitchers demonstrated related xwOBAs on their sliders whereas using them in very alternative ways.

—SwStr%—

Questions or feedback?: Although he solely threw 43.1 innings in 2024, the 148 sliders Max Scherzer threw had been ok to complete within the prime 50 (forty second) in Whiff%. Keep in mind that Statcast calculates Whiff% as “Swings and Misses / Complete Swings” and SwStr% as “Swings and Misses / Complete Pitches”. Each measure strikes and Scherzer’s slider acquired them. However, like Darvish, Scherzer’s slider has misplaced a few of its motion with time and grades out from Stuff+ as a below-average providing. In 2023, Scherzer gave up 10 residence runs off sliders, however in 2024 it gave up just one. It’s potential that a wonderful July twenty fifth outing towards the White Sox gave Scherzer’s slider a lift that seems exaggerated in a small pattern.

Skubal used his slider, his worst pitch in accordance with Stuff+, the least period of time (15%). Nonetheless, it produced common outcomes. I’ll write that out extra clearly; even his worst pitch was on par with the main league common! What does that let you know? Lastly, Trevor Williams threw his finest pitch (115 Stuff+), the slider, 35% of the time. Properly, he threw his four-seamer a bit of extra typically at 36% of the time, however in some way he produced one of many lowest slider-swinging strike charges in 2024. That is largely a complication of Williams’ slider and sweeper outcomes being clumped collectively on his participant web page. Williams’ sweeper outcomes carried his slider outcomes on this case:

Slider: 5.9% Whiff%, .353 wOBA, .356 xwOBA, 52.0% HardHit%

Sweeper: 45.9% Whiff%, .179 wOBA, .210 xwOBA, 13.6% HardHit%

The sweeper was the higher pitch and Williams might have discovered one thing in it late in his profession, however with a poor-performing fastball and certain some good luck behind his batted ball ends in 2024, don’t anticipate a repeat in 2025.

—CallStr%—

Questions or feedback?: Hey! There’s Trevor Williams once more! It’s most probably that his added sweeper utilization had one thing to do together with his elevated referred to as strike fee. Maybe hitters had been sitting on his fastball and giving up the zone to the slider/sweeper combo. Cole Irvin’s 62 sliders had been thrown within the zone typically (~+5% vs. AVG), and swung on typically (~+14% vs. AVG) with a zone contact fee of 97.1%. He didn’t get referred to as strikes as a result of hitters swung and related virtually each time. He’s pitching in Korea in 2025.

—CSW%—

Questions or feedback?: Strider solely threw 57 sliders, however wow they had been good. When it was within the zone, hitters solely made contact 55.6% of the time. That’s unbelievable, and it was within the zone typically at 50.9%. Oddly sufficient his 2024 slider (extra rise, much less break) gave the impression to be a lot totally different from his 2023 slider (extra drop, extra break). 2024’s model was extra of a “come and get some” kind of strategy and it is going to be fascinating to see how the pitch comes out in 2025.

What’s not listed within the desk above is Contact%. In line with Alex Chamberlain’s leaderboard, the common was 34.2% and Dane Dunning’s sliders got here into contact with bats 71.6% of the time. What share of the time did that end in good contact? PitcherList’s Superb Contact Charge (ICR%) “is a metric that primarily tells us how typically a batter made ‘good’ contact on the ball” and hitters acquired to Dunning’s slider for a forty five.5% ICR in comparison with the common 38.6%. Chris Bassit’s 2024 slider had an honest quantity of vertical drop, however he might have put it within the zone too typically. It produced a -6 Statcast Run-Worth in 2024.

—Chase%—

Questions or feedback?: Right here’s a take a look at every slider and its Statcast motion profile courtesy of Baseball Savant:

Chirinos’ slider inspired much less chase, but had extra break than common. Blanco’s slider was chased at a median fee, and it had much less break and much less drop than the common. Out of those three, thank god for Pivetta as a result of a minimum of his slider is smart. The large drop in his slider motion inspired hitters to chase. Within the case of Yonny Chirinos, issues are a bit of extra explainable as he threw his slider within the zone 62.2% of the time. That’s over 15% greater than common. It’s not possible to have hitters chase your pitches if you throw them within the zone.

—

Sliders are difficult to judge. Some are sharp and exhausting like Spencer Strider’s model. Some are crazy, lofty, and cartoon-like as Nick Pivetta’s. Simply wanting on the Statcast pitch motion leaderboard’s most drop-heavy sliders will present you an actual mixture of pitchers. The story goes additional than merely asking, “How a lot does your slider transfer?” As a lot as we might try to create one, there actually isn’t any recipe for being an amazing pitcher. A great slider will assist, however good luck defining “good”.