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  1. P

    Bullet spin rise?

    Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. If the spin axis is below the direction of the ball, then the Magnus force will be sideways, not up/down. It really isn't a matter of opinion. It's a matter of physics.
  2. P

    Which one would go farther?

    Thanks...I haven't seen it yet. They were all done last fall at American University. The white lab coat was their idea, not mine!
  3. P

    Which one would go farther?

    They both travel the same distance. The pitch speed and bat speed are identical. Assuming both are "squared up" identically, the ball will come off the bat with the same speed, independent of who is swinging the bat. The main point is that the batter's hand, arms, body,... do not matter once...
  4. P

    Riseball spin clips

    I agree with everything Edy said.
  5. P

    News Flash: Rise Balls don't Rise!!!!!

    I like your explanation.
  6. P

    Two Seamers

    I am guessing that by "geometry" you mean the spin axis. A small tilt of the axis one way or the other will determine whether the ball breaks left or right.
  7. P

    Two Seamers

    Not for the laboratory experiments, which are done under climate-controlled conditions. The scatter of the data due to the difficulty of the experiment account for the 20%. Now, in a game situation, the wind speed and direction does affect the movement, so that introduces even more...
  8. P

    Two Seamers

    The spin calculation..that is, the rate of spin (RPM)..that PITCHf/x reports is just an estimate, based on the amount of movement that is measured. The estimate is based on laboratory experiments that relate movement to spin rate. Those experiments are hard to do with great precision (I know...
  9. P

    Two Seamers

    While I agree with what you are say--namely, the pitch type is determined after the fact entirely from an analysis of the trajectory, without knowing what the pitcher or catcher intended, it is actually the case that MLB pitchers have used PITCHf/x to analyze their own pitches. Ex-MLB pitcher...
  10. P

    Two Seamers

    Yes, at least that is the theory. Adair talks about this in his classic, The Physics of Baseball (3rd ed, page 61). Lots of wisdom in that book.
  11. P

    Two Seamers

    That's an interesting question. I think the movement of the two pitches would be the same, assuming pure backspin in both cases. It *might* be the case that there is a little less drag on the 4S. If it were indeed true, then the 4S would be a bit faster (assuming the same release speed)...
  12. P

    Two Seamers

    Just to be clear: I am not saying *all* split-finger fastballs move the way the Garcia's did. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It was the unusual nature of that particular pitch that led to the study that Cross and I did. In fact, I scoured the PITCHf/x database to find other examples of...
  13. P

    Two Seamers

    There is a *huge* body of pitch-tracking data from MLB (using the PITCHf/x system) showing that a 2S and 4S fastball move differently. The primary difference is that the 4S is throw with the spin axis very close to 6-12 (i.e., nearly pure backspin, with a little sidespin due to arm slot)...
  14. P

    Two Seamers

    No. Need <1 for knuckleball.
  15. P

    Two Seamers

    Sorry, I should have used "Reply With Quote", so you could figure out what I was responding to. I've now been through the entire thread. Let me sum up. I fully endorse what JJsqueeze has said. However, I will remark that for baseball, the kind of movement that we see on the Garcia pitch is...
  16. P

    Two Seamers

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

    Two Seamers

    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...
  18. P

    Two Seamers

    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...
  19. P

    Two Seamers

    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...
  20. P

    Two Seamers

    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.

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