Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images
These are hard times to be a hitter in Major League Baseball. The ball is dead, defensive shifts spare nobody and, oh yeah, pitchers are still throwing absolute filth.
To illustrate, we’ve rounded up some @PitchingNinja GIFs and numbers for what we think are baseball’s nastiest pitches so far in 2022.
More accurately, these are the nastiest pitches that haven’t quite gained mainstream recognition yet. To be frank, there’s nothing left to write about Aroldis Chapman’s four-seam fastball, Corbin Burnes’ cutter, Kevin Gausman’s or Shohei Ohtani’s splitters, Edwin Diaz’s slider, Devin Williams’ changeup or Kenley Jansen’s cutter.
In addition to being lesser known, pitches had to be both aesthetically pleasing and actually effective to make the cut for this list. If a pitch rates very well in one of those categories but not so much in the other, we opted to leave it out.
For example, Jhoan Duran’s “splinker” may be something of a sensation on social media, but hitters actually have a .318 average against it. On the flip-side, Nick Martinez’s changeup isn’t quite Pedro-esque in its looks despite hitters’ 2-for-28 performance against it.
Now that everyone knows the ground rules, here are the pitches that have our attention early in the 2022 season. We’ve separated them into three divisions (fastballs, breaking balls and off-speed pitches) and broken them down one at a time.
Fastball Division
Scott Kane/Getty Images
Ryan Helsley’s Four-Seam Fastball
Lest anyone miss anything, we’ll advise everyone not to blink while watching St. Louis Cardinals right-hander chuck this one at 103 mph:
Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja
Ryan Helsley. 103mph ? pic.twitter.com/22Eatp0NzC
Even Helsley was surprised that he hit 103 mph on that pitch to Ketel Marte, as he told Katie Woo of The Athletic: “I did look up when I struck him out. It just felt harder. Like that one came out a little better, and I looked up and was like, ‘Wow.’ It kind of caught me by surprise.”
This kind of gas has been typical of Helsley in his eight outings this season. He’s averaging 99.2 mph, which is in the 100th percentile for fastball velocity. He’s also in the 98th percentile for spin rate, with more vertical movement on his four-seamer than most pitchers.
No wonder hitters can’t hit his fastball. As in, literally can’t hit it. The 72 fastballs he’s thrown have yielded zero hits in 16 at-bats, with 11 strikeouts to boot.
Brusdar Graterol’s Sinker
If you’ve watched much of the Los Angeles Dodgers over the last three seasons, this won’t be the first time you’ve seen Brusdar Graterol throw a sinker like this one:
Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja
Brusdar Graterol, 101mph Sinker with 16″ of run. pic.twitter.com/jZL8Dv05F3
In fact, we’re arguably breaking our “No Establishment Types” rule by including Graterol and his sinker on this list. But in our defense, this is the first time since he joined the Dodgers that his signature pitch is living up to its lofty potential as a silencer of bats:
- 2020: .263 AVG
- 2021: .289 AVG
- 2022: .111 AVG
Opposing batters are just 2-for-18 against Graterol’s sinker, and neither hit is much to brag about. One was a jam-shot blooper into the outfield. The other was a shattered-bat infield single.
Of note is that Graterol has been putting more arm-side run on his sinker in 2022, meaning that batters now have so much more to contend with than just his triple-digit velocity.
Jose Alvarado’s Cutter
Psst. If you want to catch a glimpse of what’s arguably the single best pitch in baseball right now, keep a close eye on the second pitch in this sequence:
Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja
José Alvarado Filth ? pic.twitter.com/FMlb4MU2FJ
That is Jose Alvarado’s cutter. Its run value per 100 pitches is currently minus-9.8. That’s second best behind Sean Doolittle’s four-seam fastball, though that pitch is responsible for a fraction of as many whiffs and strikeouts.
The cutter had always been in Alvarado’s back pocket, but it’s…
Read More: The Filthiest Pitches of the 2022 MLB Season So Far | Bleacher Report