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What is Pitch Info? Definition and meaning of Pitch Info as part of our sabermetrics glossary for fantasy baseball.
Welcome RotoBallers to our overview of Pitch Info. This article is a deeper dive into Pitch Info and is part of our ongoing series "Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball."
In this article, we'll look at where to find information on individual pitches in a hurler's repertoire. Potential applications include evaluating velocity spikes and pitch mix changes to determine whether a pitcher's current performance is sustainable.
You can find our entire sabermetrics glossary, which includes links to many other sabermetric stats as part of this series. Each stat deep dive will be released over the next few days. Stay tuned!
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What Is Pitch Info? Sabermetrics Glossary
One of the most fundamental questions in fantasy sports is whether a player's current performance is sustainable. More than any other sport, baseball has many statistical measures that can be dissected to analyze player performance.
Pitch Info is a public pitch-tracking system providing lots of data to help fantasy managers evaluate mound breakouts and busts. Unlike many other metrics we've looked at in this series, Pitch Info data stabilizes (or becomes predictive) quickly, so you can use it early in the season.
The first step is finding it. Basic Pitch Info information, such as pitch selection and velocity, can be found toward the bottom of a pitcher's page on FanGraphs, but you'll have to use the Pitch Type Splits tab for more detailed information. Find it on the left-hand side of the page to bring up four tables loaded with information.
What Data Does Pitch Info Provide?
A laundry list of everything Pitch Info offers would be way too overwhelming, so let's go table by table using NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes as our example. Here's the first table:
We see every pitch Skenes threw last year, the batting average they allowed, and a velocity range. Honestly, this chart is amongst the least useful. Let's move on.
The highlight here is triple slash lines for each pitch type, giving us more useful information than just batting average alone. Next!
The movement stuff is too abstract for most fantasy analysis, but the FB% and IFFB% numbers can measure a pitcher's ability to induce weak pop-ups, while GB% is good in homer-happy parks. The fourth chart is the most important:
Fantasy managers love strikeouts; this table tells us what pitches generate Ks. If an arm has a great SwStr% pitch, throwing it more could offer strikeout upside. O-Swing% (or chase rate) also tells us what pitches excel at getting hitters to fish out of the zone.
Interpreting Pitch Info Data: Velocity
Generally, a pitcher who loses fastball velocity is dealing either with an undisclosed injury or the aging process. Pitchers that gain velocity usually improve. For example, Garrett Crochet posted an insane K% of 35.1 percent in 2024, crushing the 28.3 percent mark from his last healthy season in 2021.
One reason is that his fastball velocity spiked from 96.6 mph in 2021 to 97.2 mph last year. The pitch generated more whiffs (15.2 percent SwStr% vs. 7.7 percent in 2021) as a result. Crochet's heater went from mediocre to an elite offering, so it's only natural the new weapon helped pile up the Ks.
When evaluating a pitcher's velocity, you should always look at his baseline velocity. Crochet always threw hard, but his velocity spike allowed him to take his game to a new level. Other variables matter, but velocity is a good introduction to using Pitch Info data.
Interpreting Pitch Info Data: Pitch Mix
A pitcher may improve his production by abandoning a poor pitch or developing a new one. This is a good statistic to consult if a pitcher sees sharp changes, as a change in pitch mix could represent a change in approach. If the change doesn't have a corresponding pitch mix shift, it may prove less sustainable.
It wasn't just a velocity spike that propelled Crochet's stellar season. He also made a substantial pitch mix change, throwing a brand-new cutter 28.4 percent of the time at the expense of his fastball and slider.
Crochet's cutter was fantastic, with a 17.5 percent SwStr% and 56 percent Zone%. His fastball remained effective, as noted above, and his slider worked as a great put-away pitch with a 20.9 percent SwStr% and 36.6 percent chase rate. He throws the occasional changeup, but the fastball-cutter-slider combo is what you're drafting in fantasy.
Interpreting Pitch Info Data: Pitch Results
What is the baseline for this type of analysis? As strikeouts have increased throughout the league, the benchmark for what constitutes a good SwStr% for each pitch type has shifted. The following data from PitcherList provides the 2023 average for select pitch types:
- Fastball: 9.8 percent SwStr%
- Cutter: 11.7 percent SwStr%
- Slider: 15.2 percent SwStr%
- Change: 14.6 percent SwStr%
The fastball will generally be inferior to pitches that don't need to live in the strike zone. However, getting ahead in the count is necessary to make those put-away pitches work as intended, making (sometimes) mediocre fastball results a necessity.
Similarly, relievers can air it out over short stints and generally post higher average SwStr% rates than starters.
Two-seamers and sinkers generally stink for fantasy purposes. They're usually hit harder than fastballs. They may post strong GB% rates but also have high BABIPs and scary triple-slash lines. Any sinker hit in the air was probably a mistake, so the HR/FB rate is usually high for the limited number of fly balls hit against them. Their SwStr% rates also tend to be poor.
Overall, fantasy managers usually prefer a straight four-seamer or a cutter to be the "zone pitch" in a pitcher's repertoire. There are exceptions, though.
Conclusion
To conclude, Pitch Info tracks a lot of data of interest to fantasy managers, including average velocity, pitch mix, and individual pitch results. This data may be used to predict who will break out or which breakouts can sustain their current performance.
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