{"id":5884,"date":"2013-01-31T09:50:59","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T14:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2013-01-31T09:50:59","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T14:50:59","slug":"trevor-bauer-video-of-pitch-grips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5884","title":{"rendered":"Trevor Bauer video of pitch grips"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5497\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/BauerTrevor-kevin-c-cox-getty-images-via-bleacherreport.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5497\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-5497\" title=\"BauerTrevor kevin c cox getty images via bleacherreport.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/BauerTrevor-kevin-c-cox-getty-images-via-bleacherreport.com_-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5497\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pitching phenom Trevor Bauer demonstrates his pitching grips.  Photo Kevin C. Cox\/Getty Images via bleacherreport.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hardballtalk.nbcsports.com\/2013\/01\/30\/trevor-bauer-would-like-to-show-you-how-he-grips-his-pitches\/\">Fascinating stuff here<\/a> (link on youtube but referenced via the HardBallTalk blog).<\/p>\n<p>I know I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5493\">criticized<\/a> <strong>Trevor Bauer<\/strong> in the wake of Arizona trading him away for what seemed to be personality issues. \u00a0But in hindsight, with the knowledge now that the team also traded\u00a0<strong>Chris Young<\/strong> and now <strong>Justin Upton<\/strong> for apparently all the same reasons (manager <strong>Kirk Gibson<\/strong> didn&#8217;t like them, or didn&#8217;t like the way they played), at some point you have to start looking at the manager who can&#8217;t get along with star players versus the reverse.<\/p>\n<p>But stuff like this video really makes me like the kid. \u00a0He posted this video showing how he grips and throws all his pitches in response to questions he got from regular fans. \u00a0He also freely gives out his facebook and twitter contact information and promises to try to get back to fans who ask questions. \u00a0I love social media sometimes.<\/p>\n<p>Bauer&#8217;s pitch grips and thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Four Seam Fastball<\/span>: conventional grip, nothing special. \u00a0He doesn&#8217;t mention throwing a 2-seam fastball other than mentioning the pitch in passing later on, but with his velocity and his throwing motion (straight over the top) you&#8217;d have to think a 2-seamer would be effective.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Regular Changeup<\/span>: not a palm-ball, but a de-acceleration technique by throwing the ball off his middle fingers.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&#8220;Cut&#8221; Changeup<\/span>; moves his index finger up and provides a bit of pressure; this apparently causes the ball to &#8220;cut&#8221; 2-3 inches.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Cutter<\/span>; he calls it his &#8220;regular slider,&#8221; but its an odd grip for a slider; it looks more like a 2-seam fastball grip. \u00a0He admits it moves more like a cutter, so that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve called it. \u00a0He seems to fix his wrist slightly askew, then go through a fastball motion and the ball cuts.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Slider<\/span>: This is a much more conventional slider grip and throwing motion. \u00a0He calls it a &#8220;dot&#8221; slider (likely because the seams form a dot on the spinning baseball) and says that its rather &#8220;slurvy,&#8221; probably because (unlike his curve) it moves across his body.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Reverse Slider<\/span>: He uses the same cutter grip but fixes his wrist in and then comes through the ball with a screw-ball motion. \u00a0He says he gets 4-6 inches of reverse movement. \u00a0Man that&#8217;s a lot of movement if its true. \u00a0<strong>Mariano Rivera<\/strong> only gets about 7-8&#8243; of movement on what is generally the best cutter in the game.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Curve<\/span>: he throws 2 variations depending on whether he&#8217;s looking to control it for strikes or to really break it off as an out pitch. \u00a0He varies the pressure of his middle finger; less on the tip for lesser movement\/more control and then more on the tip for more movement\/sharper break. \u00a0He doesn&#8217;t seem to snap his wrist in the same way that a 3\/4 pitcher would (basically where the wrist snaps towards the opposite side of the body); he snaps his wrist straight down towards the ground. \u00a0 This should result in close to a 12-to-6 curve that is relatively rare in the majors. \u00a0I would have thought this meant less spin, but I&#8217;d also guess that with enough wrist strength and repeitition, \u00a0you&#8217;d get the spin you need.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Split Fingered fastball<\/span>: he definitely throws this like <strong>Roger Clemens<\/strong> or <strong>Mike Scott<\/strong>, where the ball isn&#8217;t jammed back into the hand like a forkball, but instead is more like a fastball brip with spread fingers. \u00a0 He doesn&#8217;t throw this much, but it makes sense for an over-the-top guy to throw this. \u00a0(I often said that <strong>Brad Peacock<\/strong> needed to learn this same pitch).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He also talks a lot about the way he fixes his wrist on pitches (changeups and sliders) and brings his arm through. \u00a0I wonder; is that conventional? \u00a0I&#8217;ve never given thought to the position of my own wrist when I have pitched in the past.<\/p>\n<p>So, that&#8217;s 8 specific pitches, perhaps 9 if you count a 2 seam fastball in there. \u00a0And there&#8217;s no circle change or knuckle curve. \u00a0 How do you call a game with this guy?<\/p>\n<p>His <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=12703&amp;position=P\">pitch f\/x data is limited from 2012<\/a>; they only have 169 pitches classified. \u00a0They have him throwing 4 differerent pitches (FB, CU, CH, SL) at speeds that generally are lower than his scouting reports have him throwing (FB average velocity 92.2 with a 95.1 max). \u00a0I&#8217;m hoping he gets a shot in 2013 to really show his repetoire. \u00a0I&#8217;d like to see what he can do in the majors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fascinating stuff here (link on youtube but referenced via the HardBallTalk blog). I know I criticized Trevor Bauer in the wake of Arizona trading him away for what seemed to be personality issues. \u00a0But in hindsight, with the knowledge now that the team also traded\u00a0Chris Young and now Justin Upton for apparently all the same [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,349,425,431,171,1436,637,1056],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-brad-peacock","tag-chris-young","tag-justin-upton","tag-kirk-gibson","tag-mariano-rivera","tag-mike-scott","tag-roger-clemens","tag-trevor-bauer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5891,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions\/5891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}