The 'sword' master for every pitch type

Here's one new way to see who throws the nastiest pitches in baseball: Look at the pitchers who generated the most "swords" on each pitch type.

Statcast recently introduced its new swords metric, which uses Hawk-Eye bat tracking to classify the awkward half-swings that a pitcher induces with a particularly nasty pitch (as popularized by Pitching Ninja, who coined the name). Dylan Cease was the overall Sword King of MLB last season -- but there were swords specialists for every pitch a big league ace can throw.

Here's the swords leader for each pitch type in 2023.

4-seam fastball: Michael Kopech -- 15 swords

Kopech might have struggled last season, but the overpowering stuff is still there. The White Sox right-hander still has his explosive fastball -- his four-seamer averaged 95.2 mph with a very high 2,501 rpm spin rate, which helped it generate both above-average rise and run. So when he throws that fastball just above the zone, hitters will think it's a strike until it carries past them. Add in Kopech's high velocity, and they just don't have time to stop their swing, and Kopech gets his swords.

Sinker: Jordan Montgomery -- 9 swords

The sinker isn't really a swing-and-miss pitch -- it's designed to get ground balls and weak contact, not strikeouts. So you won't see a ton of swords by any sinkerballer. But if you watched Montgomery dominate during the Rangers' World Series run, it shouldn't surprise you that the left-hander topped the sinker swords leaderboard. Montgomery had a top-five most valuable sinker in the Majors last season, and the swords are a sign of how effective the pitch is for him.

Cutter: Framber Valdez -- 14 swords

Valdez's cutter generated his highest swing-and-miss rate (44%) and strikeout rate (49%) of any pitch he threw last season -- an honor that usually belongs to his curveball. The Astros ace got some very good hitters to take some very bad half-swings against his cutter, including sword strikeouts of Matt Olson (twice), Mike Trout, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil.

Slider: Spencer Strider -- 45 swords

Strider's slider is maybe the most dominant pitch in the Majors. The Braves ace generated 306 whiffs and 139 K's with his slider in 2023, both the most by any pitcher on any pitch type. And the slider is the pitch most likely to generate a sword, especially when a hitter mistakes it for a fastball. So of course Strider led the Major Leagues in slider swords. His slider got the most swords of any individual pitch in baseball, and Strider even had one more slider sword than Cease. No hitter was safe. Stars like Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Corey Seager and Gunnar Henderson all had swords against Strider's slider.

Sweeper: Sonny Gray -- 23 swords

The sweeper is MLB's hottest new pitch, and Gray's sweeper was better than anyone's in 2023 (yes, even better than Shohei Ohtani's). The AL Cy Young runner-up held hitters to an .097 batting average against his sweeper over 203 plate appearances, recording 108 strikeouts on sweepers without a single hitter taking it deep -- making Gray one of only 15 pitchers with 100-plus K's on a single pitch type, and the only one with no home runs allowed on that pitch. As far as swords, disciplined stars like Adley Rutschman and José Ramírez were among those who were cut down by Gray's sweeper.

Slurve: José Berríos -- 23 swords

Berríos' slurve, a big bending pitch with above-average vertical and horizontal break, spearheaded his bounceback season for the Blue Jays in 2023. The slurve moves so much that it can start in the middle of the zone and end up nowhere close to a strike, which is how Berríos ends up with all those swords. He even got multiple swords on his slurve during his playoff start against the Twins, including a strikeout of Ryan Jeffers.

Curveball: Blake Snell -- 28 swords

Snell has some of the nastiest breaking stuff around, and his wipeout curveball was weapon No. 1 in his second Cy Young-winning season. The lefty racked up 109 strikeouts on curveballs, as hitters struck out in 62% of their plate appearances and whiffed on 56% of their swings against it -- both among the highest marks generated by any pitcher on any pitch type in 2023. When Snell snaps a curveball down below the zone, it's almost impossible to lay off -- 19 of his 28 curveball swords came on curveballs in the dirt.

Knuckle-curve: Zac Gallen -- 29 swords

Gallen's elite command means he's one of the best pitchers at forcing awkward swings from hitters, especially when the D-backs ace is working them up and down in the strike zone with his fastball-curveball combo. Gallen's 12-6 knuckle-curve, which induced a 41% swing-and-miss rate in 2023, is the hammer that gets the swords. You saw that against hitters like Christian Yelich, Austin Riley, Fernando Tatis Jr., Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Betts -- who Gallen sworded three times, including for a strikeout on Opening Day.

Changeup: Trevor Richards -- 22 swords

You might not realize how good Richards' changeup is, since he's not as big of a name as some of the other pitchers on this list … but it's very good. The veteran reliever actually ranked in the 97th percentile of MLB pitchers in whiff rate (37%), 97th percentile in strikeout rate (33%) and 100th percentile in chase rate (38%) in 2023 -- and that was all thanks to his changeup, which Richards threw 57% of the time and used to collect 78 of his 105 strikeouts. Richards' changeup gets tons of movement, with five more inches of drop and two more inches of run than an average changeup. That's how he got swords against hitters like Harper, Yelich, José Abreu and Marcus Semien.

Splitter: Kevin Gausman -- 14 swords

Gausman's splitter is the pitch that's turned him into a Cy Young contender over the past few seasons. He's gotten over 100 strikeouts on splitters three years in a row, and his 127 splitter K's in 2023 were nearly 50 more than any other pitcher. Gausman's splitter has terrific running action -- it gets over 16 inches of horizontal movement, four inches more than an average splitter -- and when he throws it off his four-seamer, he gets tons of whiffs … and swords. Superstar hitters like Aaron Judge, Julio Rodríguez and Kyle Tucker were all victims in 2023.

Forkball: Kodai Senga -- 17 swords

The Ghost Fork took the Major Leagues by storm and made Senga an instant Cy Young contender in his debut season for the Mets. The ace from Japan struck out 202 batters as an MLB rookie, and 110 of those K's were on his signature forkball.

Plenty of great big league hitters had their souls stolen by Senga's ghost fork, including J-Rod, Harper and more.