What is a "Yankee Cutter"? And Other Pitching Development Thoughts

[@capraagricola]

I remember watching either a driveline or tread athletics overview of cutter pitch shapes and mentioned this very high whiff/good xwoba outcome cutter as a unicorn shape that not many people can create. Requires a high slot but also supination bias which is not a very common natural movement pattern, like Kenley Jansen at the beginning of the video.

[@LanceBroz]

Yeah, this I would say is somewhat of a hybrid, more common version of that offering if that makes sense? Not as unique, but still effective and indicative of broader trends in the game.

[@CrosbyBaseball]

Babe wake up, new Lance breakdown dropped!

[@christophersuto3263]

I could watch these all day. I'm glad you mentioned how it's possible pitchers can induce weak contact which can be a flaw in the stuff + metrics. Some people struggle to look at the practicality of advanced metrics.

[@LanceBroz]

Yeah. Pitchers have a lot of influence over launch angle, which is primarily due to location. Just because it’s not super stable doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant!

[@fatbeanzoop]

fun numbers. Cool video man thanks for making it ⚾🙏

[@SanFranFan30]

It's the AL East Cutter if we're gonna look at the Farm System usage rates of this type of pitch.

[@LanceBroz]

Yankee Cutter sounds 20x better

[@SanFranFan30]

@@LanceBroz haha it does. especially with the legacy of Mariano Rivera

[@BKF0]

I believe it was Eno Sarris who wrote an article last year about the “Dodgers Slider,” which basically seemed to be a baby sweeper that sacrifices some lift and sweep for velo - I think it was like 0-2” IVB and about 8 inches of sweep. I wonder if they arrived at that shape out of necessity, considering that the other skills they seek out don’t jive super well with throwing a really sweepy sweeper

[@LanceBroz]

Yeah! I made a video about this last year actually. I’ll link below. I think you’re spot on. I mention it at the end of this video, but they really like fastball shape and good fastball shape usually doesn’t line up biomechanically with sweeper. 👍 kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHzInZt4eJVmj7Msi=Us-l41D7zL3aPQlM

[@bombersbeat1470]

Great stuff (pun intended) Lance! I find the Yankees pitch development very interesting, especially since we see a somewhat drastic change between MLB and MiLB. I wonder if NYY is trying to look at long term development of pitchers instead of a "rushed" approach to force high velo and a speedway to MLB. I believe NYY uses MiLB as a testing ground for a variety of hypotheses. I wonder if we can look back on scouting reports and pre-draft data to see what types of pitchers the Yankees target and then what path they develop them on.

[@LanceBroz]

Yeah, NYY is a tough market because they’re never going to roll out a rotation of 3-5 homegrown pitchers, I think they’ll always be in on FAs. So perhaps they’re taking a more aggressive approach and hoping they just catch fire with a guy like Hampton and he becomes a stud, or they just churn out good relievers. It’s a different kind of pressure. I talked a bit about the guys they target back in this video. They’re very stuff driven, like the ability to create hard, lateral shapes. Bit of a contrast to other orgs who are FB dominant: Dodgers Fastball or Yankees Slider? kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHzInZt4eJVmj7M

[@SetupManCubs]

👏🏻 👏🏻

[@albaniayeet]

could this be something they use for ‘true minor leaguers’/org guys? pitchers who they just want innings from in those games, get some weak contact, don’t gotta blow us away. i dunno, random thought since this doesn’t reach the majors much? or at least hasn’t yet. would be interesting to see the minor leaguers who had this profile cutter the most

[@LanceBroz]

I think most MiLB trends take a bit to become MLB trends Yankees also have unique pressure in their market to spend, so it’ll be interesting to see if any of these guys actually get to the MLB team or are traded along the way. Or if they just become great RP developers. Opens up some interesting questions. Because NYY is also one of the best hitting dev orgs in baseball (I’ll die on that hill). And yet they generally have a wrap that they can’t develop hitting, at least publicly in the general media from my perception.

[@albaniayeet]

@@LanceBroz would love to see an update if they get some of these guys in the majors this year. especially with cole potentially going down, and they did trade a lot of pitching depth this offseason already, so we’ll see. i think the reputation that they can’t develop hitting may come from guys like greg bird and andujar getting so much hype, and the reports of their development ‘not teaching baseball’ last year. excited to see spencer jones and dominguez for sure though. volpe too. thanks lance, love your videos and learning from you 🤙

[@Eidenhoek]

4:10 4" Vetical

[@LanceBroz]

Need you to proofread my videos in the future haha

[@therandomuserman]

Is this Yankee Cutter similar to what Mariano Rivera threw?

[@LanceBroz]

We don’t have the specs on Rivera unfortunately I think it could’ve been in this area, but I don’t think they’re totally connected if that makes sense