Pirates pitchers spinning a lot of funk

This story was excerpted from Justice delos Santos’ Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

If the Pirates’ pitching staff had a motto, it would derive from Mr. Funke’s final verse on “Chief Rocka” by Lords of the Underground.

I walk with the funk, I talk with the funk,

I eat with the funk, I sleep with the funk

I live for the funk, I’ll die for the funk

Indeed, there’s no pitching staff in baseball that is throwing more funk this season than the Pirates.

Through 42 games, breaking balls have accounted for 43.0 percent of Pittsburgh's pitches. Not only does that lead the league this season, but that's the highest percentage of breaking balls that a team has thrown in the pitch tracking era (since 2008), period.

“It's a general trend,” said pitching coach Oscar Marin. “We're seeing power pitchers around the league whose usages are 50-50. That’s pretty dang normal now. These guys have really good fastballs, but they're using their offspeed stuff 50 percent of the time, anyway.”

“I don’t think we had it in our mind ... that we were going to add all these [breaking balls] or anything like that,” said senior advisor of pitching development Dewey Robinson.

A small part of the increase derives from adding Rich Hill, whose curveball and sweeper account for roughly half his pitches. As a staff, however, there’s been no shortage of pitchers who have increased their breaking ball usage, particularly their slider usage.

• Roansy Contreras’ slider usage jumped from 34.2% to 44.3%.
• Vince Velasquez’s slider usage jumped from 22.6% to 43.9%.
• Robert Stephenson’s slider usage jumped from 50.5% to 65%.
• Dauri Moreta’s slider usage jumped from 24% to 53%.
• Johan Oviedo has increased both his curveball (10.8% to 19.6%) and slider (40.3% to 41.6%) usage.

“The usage of breaking pitches has gone up over the last five years or so, and part of that is just because of how successful it’s been,” Stephenson said. “We have conversations before every team we face. ... If it works out to attack them with breaking pitches, then we’ll attack them with breaking pitches. It’s a mix of what plays into your strengths, plus what is their weakness.”

These pitchers aren’t just throwing more spin for the sake of throwing more spin. Some of the increase is based on matchups, yes, but this season, those aforementioned Pirates are throwing some of the best breaking balls in baseball.

By Run Value, Contreras’ slider is tied with Anthony DeSclafani for the second-best in the National League at -9. Velasquez isn’t too far behind at -8. Moreta is at -6, Jose Hernandez is at -4 and Stephenson is at -3.

“We’re trying to throw our best stuff in-zone,” Marin said. “We’re trying to pitch to those strengths, and for some of those guys, we’re trying to accentuate those strengths. Is it always going to stay that way? This is Major League Baseball. We’re probably going to have to adjust as we keep going along. Simply enough, that [if] a pitch is really good and has really good run values, you might want to throw it a little bit more.”

“I know that if I want to put myself in a winning situation, I have to do whatever it takes to fill up the strike zone,” Velasquez said. “If that means I have to increase the percentage of one pitch, that’s going to happen.”

The increase in data has played no small role in this equation.

Last season, Robinson’s first year with the organization, the Pirates purchased a portable TrackMan for every one of the organization’s affiliates. TrackMan presents an abundance of data, including velocity, spin, release angles, vertical movement and horizontal movement.

There are also Edgertronic cameras, which provide slow motion footage of how a ball comes out of a pitcher’s hand. Which finger is the last one on the baseball before it’s thrown? What does the grip look like? What spin or tilt is a pitcher creating? How is it breaking? An Edgertronic provides these answers.

Along with TrackMan and Edgertronic, every Major League stadium is also equipped with Hawk-Eye cameras that track hits, pitches and players, as well as a player’s pose and orientation in each play.

“Everybody gets caught up with spin,” Robinson said. “Spin is nice, but you really want the result: movement -- horizontal and vertical. So, you’re looking at [TrackMan] data, and the Edgertronic is telling you what kind of grip he’s got. So, you can flip a grip, have him throw it and instantly get feedback -- is that better or is it worse? You can constantly tinker with things.”

For all the gadgets and gizmos the Pirates currently use, Marin and Robinson are hoping to incorporate another piece of technology: force plates.

Force plates, as their name suggests, measure the amount of force a pitcher generates when pitching (there are force plates for hitters, too). Imagine a souped-up bathroom scale. These plates, planted under a mound, measure how much force is being applied; what direction that force is being applied; and when that force is being applied. All this information allows a pitcher to determine what’s necessary to generate maximum force.

Robinson’s former organization, the Rays, already has force plates set up in the bowels of Tropicana Field, and he’s currently pushing for the Pirates to purchase one of their own.

“That’s one of my missions,” Robinson said, smiling.