There were rumors throughout the 2009 season that Cecil's delivery; specifically how far he brought his arm back, was tipping his pitches, and it became enough of a story for the MLB network to run a segment about it.

 

via i180.photobucket.com

 
Here are images of his delivery at the exact same moment, from 2009 and 2010.

To me, there are two differences that are immediately evident.  First, and most notably, his arm flies behind his back a significantly smaller amount.  If my idea of perspective is correct, it's now near impossible for left handers to get a clear view of the ball at this point, and right handers would have a little more difficulty doing so.  Second; it may be difficult to notice, but the amount of pronation in his arm in the 2010 snapshot almost completely hides his grip to the batter.  Looking at the 2009 view, his arm is pronated, and his fingers, and consequentially his grips are visible to the batter.  In the 2010 image, there is less pronation present, and the ball itself is blocking the view of his fingers, which are facing second base. 

 

Something else to make note of, in 2009 Cecil is clearly leaning back when delivering the ball, whereas in 2010 he appears to be leaning forward slightly.  I think this would give Cecil a little more control as he would be able to repeat his release point easier, but i'm no professional.

Discuss.

In 2008, Cole Hamels was hailed as one of the best young pitchers in baseball, carrying his team through the postseason along the way.  All eyes were focused on his 2009 season, as everyone was waiting in anticipation of what he would do for an encore.  Needless to say, he ended up disappointing most, posting a 4.32 ERA and losing the faith of Phillies fans around the globe...

Or Did he?

Any sabermetric follower will tell you that Hamels was effectively the same pitcher in 2009 as he was in the year previous, posting near carbon copies of his K/9, BB/9, and HR/9, good enough for a 3.72 FIP, the exact same FIP he made in 2008.  They were quick to point out that Hamels was a receiver of bad luck on balls in play, as a .325 BABiP was well below his previous marks of .270 and .289; the latter numbers being somewhat sustainable for a flyball pitcher who generates a good amount of popups.  He also stranded less runners, posting a 72% strand rate as opposed to 76% and 78.7% in the previous years.  Not only that, but he actually saw improvement in his plate discipline metrics, as hitters made less contact with his pitches overall and in the zone.  In all aspects, Hamel's was a prime bounce-back candidate in 2010, as sabermetricians found nothing different in how he performed between the two years.

But what if there was?

From watching some of his games, if there was one thing that appeared to be common with many of his starts in 2009, it was that Hamels would have little trouble the first time through the order, and he would subsequently fall apart in later innings.  This would suggest that Hamels' was becoming predictable to hitters, as opposed to being unlucky or suffering from nagging injuries, but do the stats back this up?

According to Baseball reference, something is definitely up.

In 2008, his Split-OPS+, BABiP, and K/BB ratios each time through the batting order are excellent and consistent throughout, in fact he would end up becoming better as the game went on.

First time through the order: 76, .259, 2.95

Second time: 71, .289, 3.89

Third+ time: 67, .240, 4.57

But in 2009...

First time: 80, .270, 4.67

Second time: 100, .329, 4.00

Third time: 124, .413(!), 3.42

The fact that his BABiP increases in an ordered fashion is very intriguing, as a pitcher suffering from bad luck would likely expect their BABiP splits to be random or uniform.  There isn't much else to extract from this set of data, Cole Hamels definitely got worse as the game went on, even though his peripherals remained excellent.  If Hamels' LD% could be split in a similar fashion and it followed a similar trend, then this theory would suddenly become much more probable, as line drives went for a .700+ BABiP last year, and they can easily cause a discrepancy between a pitcher's ERA and FIP.

2010 is a new year, and there is no doubt that Hamels is working hard to return to baseball and prove the doubters wrong, and return to his position as one of the best young pitchers in baseball.  Is he still an excellent bounce-back candidate?  Yes, that never changed, but perhaps it will take more than just the return of lady luck to do so, because 2009 might not have been as big of a fluke as it is commonly made out to be.

 

"The pitch is marked by its velocity being in the low 90s along with tight late break; hitters often believe they were thrown a fastball until the ball breaks just before it crosses home plate. Right-handed hitters have swung through and missed sliders that nearly hit their back feet."

 

                                                                                                                      -Randy Johnson's slider

 

Even though the mullet-maned 6'10" giant will now be scaring the pants off of hall of fame hitters in Cooperstown, his impact on the game will surely never be forgotten.  Even into his mid-forties, Johnson would continue to make hitters flail wildly at the aforementioned slider, as Mr. Snappy simply refused to slow down. There is little doubt his slider will go down into baseball history as one of the filthiest pitches ever thrown, and it's retirement leaves a big gaping hole that may not be filled for a long time...

 

Enter Brandon League.

...

via blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com

...

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Brandon League.  You might be asking yourself "What could this guy possibly be on, mentioning a relief pitcher in the same breath as the all-time K/9 leader?" and for good reason too.  The other half of the kinda-disappointing-fireballers-named-Brandon trade with a mid 90's sinker and not much else has spent the last 5 years bouncing around every level of baseball, never really putting up a good streak of dominance and becoming the postor boy for inconsistency in the process...

But in 2009 something clicked.  His K/9 shot up, his BB/9 plummeted, and just about the only thing that didn't reflect his new-found performance was his merely-average 4.58 ERA.  Matthew goes into detail as to how this transformation occurred over here, and it appears that a lot of it has to do with the increased usage or invention of (depending on how you look at it) a mid-80's offspeed pitch, which gave hitters fits all year long to the tune of a 2.65 runs/100 value. 

Now, a pitch's success is usually a result of 4 different things:

-Movement
-Location (also includes when it is thrown)
-Velocity
-Deceptiveness

Knowing League, location was clearly not a major factor; he has always had problems with location and he often left this changeup up in the zone, and lets face it, he isn't the brightest pitcher to step on a mound.  He also throws from a side-arm slot and pitches from the left-side of the rubber, which helps to reduce a platoon split, but is not deceptive at all.  That leaves velocity and movement, the two factors that make up a pitcher's "stuff" to blame for the success of League's new pitch.  The pitches with a large amount of both are commonly referred to as "filthy," so, exactly how filthy is this pitch?

 

via www.mopupduty.com

Apparently, it's so filthy that Pitch F/X has trouble deciding what it actually is.  The pitch system identifies League as a pitcher who throws a changeup, slider, and curveball, all at 85 MPH  But we know that he only throws the changeup  (He did throw a slider, but only 2% of the time, and he stopped using it midway through the season), so what's the deal here?

Lets look at the individual movement of each "pitch."  For those who are not educated on pitch f/x, movement is measured based on where the pitch ended up versus a knuckleball of equal velocity in a vacuum, in other words a pitch unaffected by the vorticies created by the seams of a baseball.  Measurements are in inches and cover both the horizontal and vertical planes. 

For horizontal movement, a negative measurement means that the pitch moved inside to a right handed hitter, and a positive measurement means the pitch moved inside to a left hander.  This is the same for both left and right handed pitchers.  For example, a tailing fastball would have positive horizontal movement if it was thrown by a southpaw, and negative movement if it was thrown by a right hander.

For vertical movement, a positive measurement means that the spin of the pitch caused it to sink slower than if gravity were acting on it alone, and a negative movement means the spin assisted gravity in causing the pitch to sink.

For reference, here are the approximate movement styles for each type of major league pitch.

Rising Fastball: little horizontal tail, lots of rise (10+).
Tailing fastball: >5 inches horizontal tail, rise (8+).
Sinking fastball: >5 inches horizontal tail, little rise (8-).
Cutter: 'Sliding' horizontal movement (opp. of tail), rise.
Slider: Horizontal and Vertical movement around zero, tends to rise and slide.
Curveball: Varying levels of slide and lots of negative rise.
Changeup: Tailing movement, little rise (but almost always positive)

 

Enough chit-chat, here are the numbers:

Changeup:

-Horizontal: -6.8
-Vertical: -1.3

Curveball:

Horizontal: -5.6
Vertical: -4.8

Slider:

Horizontal: -2.5
Vertical: -3.2

Judging by the horizontal movement, the pitches are definitely changeups.  6 inches of horizontal movement is impossible to achieve with a supinated (slider/curveball/cutter) pitch, and the "slider's" numbers appear to be influenced by the few he actually did throw, and would look more similar to the other two categories if they were omitted. 

What really jumps out at me, however, is the vertical movement on these pitches; I have never seen a changeup with negative vertical movement before, and the closest any other has come that I know of is Max Scherzer's, which rises 1.4 inches!  This hold's especially true for the pitches labeled under "Curveball," which sink almost 5 inches more than a spinless pitch ON AVERAGE!  That's the type of movement you would expect from an actual curveball; it's movement is only slightly less than that of AJ Burnett's.  Given his arm slot and location on the rubber, such a pitch would also appear to drop straight down to a hitter, so a platoon split would not be likely.

via assets.sbnation.com

(Thanks Jeff)

And here's the movement plot for the same outing this GIF was taken from. (August 10)

via www.fangraphs.com

 

Imagine yourself as a hitter versus Brandon League.  As if a 98 MPH sinker that's hard enough to hit in its own right wasn't enough, you now have to deal with a pitch that looks just like a fastball, starts at your belt and ends up in the dirt by the time the catcher grabs it.  Oh yeah, it's also sits in the mid-80's and he's liable to throw it at any time. Now, suppose you could somehow manage to hit this whiff machine, let alone be able to pick it up and avoid swinging at it (which hitters failed to do 35% of the time last year), tough luck.  League can throw an equally filthy version with less sinking action, freezing you for a called strike or inducing a whiff/weak contact.  All I have to say is, good luck with that.

League had a 6.23 ERA on artificial surfaces last year, most of it in his own building; no doubt as a result of numerous ground balls speeding right out of the infield, and a 2.3 ERA on grass in similar inning samples.  Hitter's OPS'd .834 on turf and .578 on grass as well, ridiculous.  Both splits are bound to regress, but if he pitches anywhere near his 2009 level he is going to absolutely dominate major league hitters, and he can thank most of that on his changeup, which shall now be referred to as THE SOILER OF PANTS, heir to the title of 'filthiest pitch in baseball.'