Every morning, the We Love Baseball crew reviews the Nastiest Pitches from the previous day’s games. If you see something you think should be included here be sure to tweet @PitcherList to let us know. Or, if you’re a PL+ Member and part of our Discord, shout it out in the Nastiest Pitches channel. If your suggestion is included the next day, you’ll be entered into a weekly drawing for a free t-shirt. If you’re not already a PL+ member, you’re missing out!
https://gfycat.com/frankcourteousapatosaur
Nola has been excellent in 2022 and his knuckle-curve is a big reason why. It boasts a 49.4% O-Swing%, 21.9% Swinging Strike%, and .250 wOBA, all well above league average. The knuckle-curve may be my favorite pitch.
https://gfycat.com/warlikemeatyibisbill
Hill’s windup to this nasty slider was very nonchalant. He’s been doing this type of thing for so long. He only throws his slider 10% of the time and it gets pretty average results, but this one was really tough for Odor.
https://gfycat.com/poshzigzagkrill
The results on Bradish’s changeup have just been OK. He gets good vertical movement on it, but based on his strike zone plot he doesn’t command it well yet. If he can keep throwing them like this one here he should certainly see better results.
https://gfycat.com/unrulyperfumedfish
Woodruff has a deep arsenal, including sliders. It’s his least used pitch at just 10% but, it has just a .216 AVG, .201 wOBA, and .157 xWOBA. He’s good.
https://gfycat.com/gloriousdistantadamsstaghornedbeetle
This slider from Dunn ends up way out of the strike zone, but Mitchell cannot hold up. Dunn doesn’t have many MLB innings under his belt, but he has a good slider. A .207 AVG is the highest he’s allowed against it in any of his four partial seasons.
https://gfycat.com/glisteningjovialiraniangroundjay
Quintana has surprised many with a pretty good 2022. His curveball has generated a 37.9% O-Swing% and 14.9% Swinging Strike%. I believe he officially qualifies as a Crafty Lefty.
https://gfycat.com/vaingoodnaturedbinturong
A 100.4 MPH sinker with that movement placed there?!. Greg Allen is a light hitter, but there aren’t many in the league who could’ve done much with that. Hicks has 99th percentile sinker velocity, but he has a surprisingly low Swinging Strike% of 5.7% on it. Go figure.
https://gfycat.com/cleverquarrelsomehyena
Garcia gets Andrew Velazquez to wave feebly at this cutter. Garcia has one of the best ones in MLB. A 19.3% Swinging Strike%, .149 AVG, and .218 wOBA are all excellent. He also throws it about 3 MPH slower than the average MLB cutter.
https://gfycat.com/unlawfulpoliticalkingsnake
Singer is still inconsistent, but he has certainly taken a step forward in 2022. He throws his slider 38% of the time and it has a 40.4% O-Swing%. This one certainly has Tucker Barnhart badly fooled.
https://gfycat.com/unkemptweightyimpala
103.2 MPH is one of the many reasons Duran makes frequent appearances on Nastiest Pitches. I think about half his pitches in this appearance were good candidates, but I thought this was the best. He is a joy to watch, as long as you’re not in the batter’s box.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)