Article: A Word About (Pitching) Nerds

[Davy Andrews]

Red Sox fans have an unusually good opportunity to hear how pitchers approach the game.

Red Sox fans should feel lucky for many, many reasons. They root for a team with a long and illustrious history. They get to take in games at Fenway Park. They’ve seen more championships in the last 20 years than any other team, and the team is gearing up to compete again this season. I could go on, but today I’d like to focus on one particular aspect that makes Red Sox fandom more enjoyable: excellent media coverage. A great beat writer can deepen your connection to a team, whether it’s because they get answers to the questions you most want to know or because they simply write well. The Red Sox boast several excellent beats, but today I wanted to discuss one writer who does things a bit differently. David Laurila is my colleague at FanGraphs, and he’s renowned for getting thoughtful answers from players and coaches, especially when it comes to the mechanics and processes behind pitching and hitting. Laurila is based in Cambridge and many of his interviews take place at Fenway Park. For that reason, a good many of his interview subjects are Red Sox. Especially if you’re a Red Sox fan, he’s a must-read.

Today, I’d like to go over two interviews that Laurila published recently, because I think they say a bit about the state of the team. First, Laurila ran an interview with Nick Pivetta that took place during the last week of the season. Pivetta is not exactly an easy interview. Here’s what Peter Abraham wrote about him on Monday:

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Pivetta is an interesting character. He was a good teammate in the clubhouse and a fierce competitor on the field. But for reasons that were never quite clear, he answered every question from reporters with determinedly bland answers. He also would leave as quickly as he could, even if somebody wanted to ask him another question.

And that was when he pitched well.

Like many teams, the Red Sox have a sponsorship with a drink company that includes product placement for televised news conferences. Pivetta always took the bottle of water and hid it under the table before taking questions. He hated that bottle of water.

However, if you read Laurila’s interview, you’ll learn a few important things. First, Pivetta revealed that he’s not big on scouting reports. He might act on them if a batter has a particularly notable strength or weakness, but generally, he attacks righties a certain way and lefties a certain way, and that’s it.

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“I really just go against guys with my strengths,” reiterated the righty. “That’s why I’m here. I think that’s what pitching is. It’s what you have, and you attack the same way every time, making the adjustments when you need to make the adjustments. You might use your arsenal in a different way, mix it up, but it’s basically the same at the end of the day.

“I’m going to throw a fastball up, or down-and-away, to a righty. I’m going to throw a sweeper to a righty. I might mix in a curveball or a gyro here or there, but it is going to be mostly fastball-sweeper. To a lefty, I’m going to mix in my curveball and go fastball up a little bit more, with maybe a couple of hard downers. I mean, I do look at swings and pay attention to body language during at-bats, and I have an idea from playing against guys in the past, but at the end of the day it is my strengths against their strengths.”

I’m not showing you these quotes because I want you to think that Pivetta is stubborn or disinterested. I don’t think that’s what’s going on at all. In fact, in a certain light, his attitude is cutting edge. In recent years, as stuff has gotten better and better league-wide – pitchers throw harder, their pitches generate sharper breaks, and pitch modeling helps them optimize each pitch to maximize the effectiveness of their entire repertoire – more and more teams have advised their pitchers that it’s better to pitch with confidence, attacking with their best stuff, rather than worrying about the strengths of the hitters. All the same, compare Pivetta’s answers to the answers of Richard Fitts. Fitts spoke to Laurila back in January, and then again on the last day of the regular season, remarking that he was “definitely not” the same pitcher he’d been during the first conversation.

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“I’ve grown a lot, learning how my pitches work in zone, out of zone, and to different kinds of hitters. I worked a lot on my usages throughout the year. I’m throwing fewer fastballs than I was at the beginning of the season. I’m feeling good about where my steps have taken me, and I have a lot more to accomplish in the offseason.”

Fitts explained that the big-league ball is different from the minor-league ball, so different, in fact, that his fastball went from six or seven inches of arm-side run to one inch of glove-side cut. “I’m cutting it a little bit more with the big league ball than I was with the minor league ball,” said Fitts. “I’m not losing any vert — I still have 18-20 [inches] — but I’m also facing hitters who are a lot better. That’s why I’ve needed to mix in my other pitches more often.”

Fitts, with the casual mention of his vert, or induced vertical break, sounds like most young pitchers coming up these days. It’s not just that they’re open to the revolution in pitch design or that they see it as their path to big-league success. They’re also fascinated by it. They’re pitching nerds and they like to talk about it. Pivetta, blessed with great stuff, trusts his approach possibly even to a fault, while Fitts is still learning what will work for him against big-league hitters. He’s going into the offseason with a plan to improve and he’s open to talking about it with reporters. It will be fascinating to see what his stuff looks like when he returns in 2025.

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