Two Seamers

[JJsqueeze]

Sluuuuuuggers....come out to plaaaaayaaay.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NwwY9y6O3hw[/video]

 

[dmaeganx2]

Sluuuuuuggers....come out to plaaaaayaaay.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NwwY9y6O3hw[/video]

now thats just whack rofl...

 

[MK37]

Sluuuuuuggers....come out to plaaaaayaaay.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NwwY9y6O3hw[/video]

Classic! One of my favorite!

 

[JJsqueeze]

more on this effect that helps two seamers move and helps explain why so many describe it as unpredictable.

 

[pobguy]

Thanks RB...I am sure you have seen this from the bucket a bunch. Does she throw it like I described, as a fastball with 12/6 spin but with the axis slightly off like below where the right side has the smooth part of the ball in the wind and the left side has seams in the wind?


seams here View attachment 7608 smooth side here

for a pitch that breaks in?

Thanks for linking to my article. Whether the orientation of the seams (the cricket swing effect) dominates the Magnus force due to the spin is a quantitative question that is not so easy to answer. In the case of the Freddie Garcia splitter that was linked to, the movement was dominated by the seam orientation: It broke to the glove side whereas the spin would have it breaking in the opposite direction. That was entirely unexpected by me (and many others who looked at it). But there are many cases where the opposite occurs.

Anyway, I just started reading this thread, so I need to get back to reading it.

 

[pobguy]

You really should read my article: Dissecting a mystery pitch. For sure, the Garcia pitch moved in the "wrong" direction--it moved opposite to that expected based on the spin. The physics is exactly what jjsqueeze said.

 

[pobguy]

I am the aforementioned Nathan. Rod Cross is an Aussi and probably not following this thread. While "conventional" explanations would agree with what you say, the Garcia splitter moves in the opposite direction. The analysis the Cross and I did (more or less independently, although we talk with each other a lot) attributes the "wrong direction movement" to the seam orientation. The arm side of the ball is smoother than the glove side (i.e., the glove side is rougher, on average), and the pitch ended up breaking to the glove side. BTW, the direction of the movement is actually measured, using the PITCHf/x system. So it is not an issue of perception.

If you go to my web site, Baseball Aerodynamics, and scroll down, you will find additional stuff about this and similar pitches.

 

[pobguy]

The movement on the Garcia pitch is exactly the direction as for a cutter. But the physics is different. The cutter breaks glove-side due to the orientation of the spin axis, which is tilted in the opposite direction from the usual 2S fastball. For the Garcia pitch, it is the seams and not the spin that cause the movement. For fastpitch softball, you have to orient the seams exactly as JJSqueeze said in a previous post.

 

[pobguy]

The splitter thrown by Garcia was thrown in the 2S orientation, but with reduced spin. You can easily see that from the slow-motion video. The orientation of the spin axis, relative to the seams, was such that with the ball spinning, one side was rougher (on average) than the other. This is true even though the ball is spinning.

 

[pobguy]

Where is the documentation? Where did you read it?

I have written extensively about knuckleballs also. See Knuckleball Research.