Saturday Study Hall, Vol. 6

Spin it to win it; analyzing Royals pitchers' spin rates

Photo courtesy of AP/Chris O’Meara

Saturday Study Hall is a biweekly series defining advanced stats, data and analytics to investigate how they impact the Royals.

“Kid can really spin it.”

You’ve heard the common baseball refrain before, referring to pitchers who can rip breaking balls down or across the strike zone. The difference now, in today’s amazingly analytical game, is we can actually quantify spin as a data point rather than leaning purely on the eye test.

A pitcher’s ability to impart spin on the baseball (or take it away… but we’ll get to that in a minute) is a critical element to his ability to generate movement. Paired with velocity, movement is the kingmaker for electric “stuff.”

Let’s get technical for a moment with the definition of spin rate directly from MLB.com:

A pitcher's Spin Rate represents the rate of spin on a baseball after it is released. It is measured in revolutions per minute.

The amount of spin on a pitch changes its trajectory. The same pitch thrown at the same Velocity will end up in a different place depending on how much it spins. (For instance, a fastball with a high Spin Rate appears to have a rising effect on the hitter, and it crosses the plate a few inches higher than a fastball of equal Velocity with a lower Spin Rate. Conversely, a lower Spin Rate on a changeup tends to create more movement.)

"The pitch was spinning at a rate of X rpms"

In short: Spin rate is important, whether it’s generating ride on a fastball, sweep on a slider, downward break on a curveball or killing spin on changeups to create diving action.

If you were absent for our lesson on Induced Vertical Break, or iVB, you’ll want to check that out for a deeper understanding of how exactly spin impacts movement.

Since this is a pretty straightforward statistic as far as definitions go, let’s get into the examples and analysis for better frame of reference.

Royal Spin Rates

Which Royals impart the best spin rates on their pitches? I’ll give you one guess at the Sultan of Spin in Kansas City… His name starts with an “S” and ends with “eth Lugo.”

Curveballs and sliders that approach that 3,000 RPM threshold are bound to dive and dart across the dish with lethal efficiency. Lugo’s versions are prime examples, as his 3,046 average RPM curveball ranks seventh in MLB in average spin rate.

That high spin helps him achieve 15.1 inches of gloveside movement, 15th-most in the game and 5.6 inches more than the average right-handed pitcher. It also reaches -11.6 inches iVB, making it a true two-plane breaker. In fact, Lugo is one of only a handful of arms in baseball reaching 15+ inches of horizontal movement and double-digit inches of induced vertical drop on his curve.

As a reminder from the iVB crash course, gravity impacts a pitch’s total movement as slower offerings give gravity more time to pull the baseball toward Earth as it travels toward the plate. Our beloved iVB removes gravity from the equation, allowing us to evaluate a pitch’s merits based on a pitcher’s skill and technique to manipulate the baseball through spin.

But how do the other Royals stack up? Let’s limit this to the regular starting rotation (Cole Ragans, Lugo, Michael Wacha, Kris Bubic, Michael Lorenzen) and the bullpen aces (Carlos Estevez and Lucas Erceg) to see where they rank in MLB.

We’re also leaving changeups (and splitters) off our lists here as it’s a bit of a unique pitch type when it comes to spin. As alluded to earlier, pitchers seeking vertical drop on the changeup are going to look to kill the spin — like Andrew Hoffman’s kick-change, a relatively new pitch type in MLB — to reduce the effects of ride, while others like Devin Williams or Cole Ragans want high spin rates so they can increase horizontal run on the pitch.

Long story short, ranking changeups based on spin rate is kind of an exercise in futility as it depends on the type of changeup you’re throwing… but I digress.

Cole Ragans

Four-seam: 2,559 RPM (11th/333)

Cutter: 2,540 RPM (30th/155)

Slider: 2,620 RPM (52nd/259)

Knuckle-curve: 2,440 RPM (134th/182)

Seth Lugo

Four-seam: 2,351 RPM (115th/333)

Sinker: 2,403 RPM (26th/265)

Cutter: 2,454 RPM (57th/155)

Slider: 2,592 RPM (56th/259)

Curveball: 3,046 RPM (7th/182)

Sweeper: 2,680 RPM (43rd/152)

Slurve: 2,951 RPM (2nd/14)

Michael Wacha

Four-seam: 2,166 RPM (271st/333)

Sinker: 2,069 RPM (212th/265)

Cutter: 2,122 RPM (147th/155)

Slider: 1,988 RPM (252nd/259)

Curveball: 2,364 RPM (149th/182)

Kris Bubic

Four-seam: 2,408 RPM (68th/333)

Sinker: 2,194 RPM (133rd/265)

Slider: 2,444 RPM (120th/259)

Sweeper: 2,653 RPM (54th/152)

Michael Lorenzen

Four-seam: 2,331 RPM (131st/333)

Sinker: 2,181 RPM (143rd/265)

Cutter: 2,511 RPM (41st/155)

Slider: 2,569 RPM (69th/259)

Curveball: 2,524 RPM (102nd/182)

Sweeper: 2,494 RPM (95th/152)

Carlos Estevez

Four-seam: 2,163 RPM (275th/333)

Slider: 2,163 RPM (229th/259)

Lucas Erceg

Four-seam: 2,154 RPM (283rd/333)

Sinker: 1,919 RPM (256th/265)

Slider: 2,059 RPM (244th/259)

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ICYMI: A Royals Data Dugout Update

If you missed this week’s Royal Scrolls, I shared an important announcement about the future of Royals Data Dugout that you can find below. Hit the link to Royal Scrolls for my full thoughts.

After careful (borderline fearful) consideration, Royals Data Dugout will convert to a paid Substack on Monday, June 2, with two options: $5/month (the minimum Substack will allow) or $40/year. Early subscribers will receive an “early bird” discount — for anyone who commits to a paid annual subscription by Monday, June 16, the cost will be $25/year — forever.

As a paid subscriber, here’s what you can expect, including a minimum of two newsletters per week:

• Royal Scrolls, the main weekly newsletter, delivered every Thursday/Friday.

• One weekly data-driven newsletter, delivered every Tuesday/Wednesday.

• Saturday Study Hall, delivered biweekly.

• All Q&A/mailbags, with priority treatment for questions from paid subscribers.

• Access to short-form posts under the Backdoor Changeups banner.

• Access to Subscriber Chat through the Substack app — direct message me (and other Royals fans) any time with questions or comments! (One of my goals for the second half of the season is to increase activity here. It’ll be a safe place for Royals fans to discuss games, transactions, statistics and more without the noise and clutter of social media.)

• Access to the comment sections.

• Offseason deep dives and analysis of Royals transactions.