The Two Fastballs of Ben Joyce

On September 3, 2024, Tommy Edman swung by an 0-2 fastball to finish the highest of the ninth inning of a sport towards the Angels. Witness, please.

Again after I was a child, all anybody talked about was fastball velocity. Mark Wohlers might hit 100, and that was an enormous deal. By no means thoughts that whereas velocity is vital, it’s arguably the third-most vital instrument in a pitcher’s deal with field, after location and motion. However even within the days of fuzzy over-the-air TV and print media, you may quantify velocity and share it merely. It was doable to explain the beautiful motion on Greg Maddux’s low-90s two-seamer, nevertheless it was arduous and took up numerous time. I believe that’s bought one thing to do with George Will being the best way he’s. However I digress.

Over the previous 25 years, video highlights have gotten progressively extra accessible, simpler to make and share. And if an image is price 1,000 phrases (as much as 3,000 phrases should you’re intransigently verbose, like George Will) a GIF is price much more.

Now, we are able to all see Paul Skenes’ sweeper arrive at house plate in Pittsburgh not through the PA Turnpike, however through the scenic route: west on I-68 by Cumberland, then altering to I-79 north in Morgantown. And what a thrill that’s.

Velocity, on the extremes, isn’t as GIFable. Right here’s a pitch from the very subsequent half-inning, 100.2 mph from Michael Kopech to Mickey Moniak, in the same location.

Kopech is meant to be one of many hardest-throwing pitchers west of the Rio Grande. I’m sufficiently old to recollect when he was a prospect, two trades in the past, and the Pink Sox have been pumping up his worth by telling anybody who’d hear about how he was hitting 105 in minor league video games.

Nevertheless it was Ben Joyce who threw that pitch to Edman, not Kopech. And it turned out to be historic. Joyce’s ninth-inning fastball registered 105.5 mph, making it the toughest pitch in any main league sport (preseason, common season, or postseason) in additional than eight years. It was the third-fastest in-game fastball measured within the pitch-tracking period.

That form of velo is just not solely unique (you’ll discover that till Joyce, the one two pitchers to achieve 105 mph have been Aroldis Chapman and Jordan Hicks), however ephemeral. Chapman has hit 105 9 occasions in his profession: as soon as as a rookie, the opposite eight occasions within the span of lower than a month in the summertime of 2016. Hicks’ two quickest pitches got here in the identical outing. It takes sure circumstances — barometric strain, bodily health, having eaten one’s Wheaties — to function at this stage.

It’s not particularly stunning that Joyce can do it. He’s the hardest-throwing faculty pitcher ever, and has made no secret of his ambition to throw this tough and even tougher in a sport. For that reason, I’ve lengthy been fascinated by him. Longtime readers would possibly keep in mind Joyce’s minor league profession, particularly the half he performed in surrendering seven runs in a single inning whereas managing to protect a mixed no-hitter.

However as a lot as you may train something as of late — together with stuff — vanishingly few folks can do what Joyce does. Really, precisely three folks, in response to that desk a pair paragraphs in the past. His proper arm has been kissed by the gods of pace. So how’s he doing?

Fairly properly. Joyce has had numerous the issues you’d anticipate from man who can throw 105 mph. He’s struggled to remain wholesome, and infrequently (most notably on that regrettable afternoon in Alabama) struggled to throw strikes. Such are the tradeoffs of 80-grade velocity, relationship again to Sudden Sam McDowell.

Over 34 1/3 innings in 2024, Joyce posted a 2.08 ERA with a 3.20 FIP, which is a bit worrying contemplating that Joyce allowed just one house run on a HR/FB price of 5.0%. However he did handle to generate numerous grounders and comfortable contact; his 58.9% groundball price would’ve been high 10 amongst relievers if he’d thrown sufficient innings to qualify.

However Edman’s whiff however, Joyce didn’t miss numerous bats. His strikeout price of 23.2% is downright pedestrian for a high-leverage reliever, particularly contemplating that Joyce additionally has a slider with absurd two-plane break. Out of 474 pitchers with not less than 30 innings pitched in 2024, Joyce was 211th in strikeout price and simply 380th in chase price. (The excellent news: He was twenty first in in-zone whiff price.)

In some respects, Joyce jogs my memory of a younger Hicks: reliever, however throwing 105 appears like a waste should you’re only a pitch-to-contact man. Is there one thing about this stage of velocity that flattens fastballs out? Makes them simpler to place in play?

Not essentially. Throughout the league, the tougher a four-seamer is, the extra whiffs and fewer harm it generates. However right here’s one other factor Joyce has in widespread with Hicks and Chapman: He throws not only a four-seamer however a sinker.

That wasn’t at all times the case for the opposite two members of the 105-mph membership. Chapman solely added his sinker after eight seasons within the majors; Hicks threw the sinker nearly solely till 2023. Joyce solely added his sinker in 2024 and was pretty profitable with it. These aren’t the one hard-throwing pitchers who’ve a number of fastballs; Skenes has made it such a key a part of his sport that they invented a brand new phrase for his sinker.

However I seen one thing bizarre about Joyce’s two fastballs. His four-seamer had a 29.8% whiff price and a 32.9% strikeout price. His sinker, however, had a 25.3% whiff price, with a strikeout price of simply 2.6%. Taking all of the pitcher/pitch sort mixtures that bought used final yr (with a minimal plate look threshold, that’s almost 1,900 in response to Baseball Savant), Joyce’s sinker bought a barely above-average whiff price. However his strikeout price on that pitch was within the first percentile.

Which is tremendous bizarre. Was he solely utilizing his sinker with lower than two strikes or one thing?

Apparently, yeah. A pitch that Joyce used nearly half the time with lower than two strikes went in a field labeled “DO NOT TOUCH” as soon as the chance arose for a strikeout.

There’s a sure logic to it: If Joyce’s four-seamer is his knockout pitch, and also you wish to lengthen the boxing metaphor, it stands to purpose that he’d have a jab in his arsenal to arrange his energy punch. What I wish to know is whether or not that is regular, and happily that’s an answerable query. In 2024, Joyce was one in all 23 pitchers who hit 100 mph on the radar gun 10 or extra occasions with four-seam fastballs. Of these 23 pitchers, eight — together with Joyce — additionally threw a sinker not less than 10% of the time. Right here’s how they use their fastballs primarily based on rely.

So not each triple-digit fastball-sinker man utterly adjustments the playbook with two strikes. And in numerous circumstances, when that change does occur, it’s to be able to load up on a secondary pitch. Martinez, as an illustration, is 4 occasions as probably to make use of his splitter with two strikes than in another rely.

However Joyce’s swapping out fastballs as soon as he will get an opportunity to strike a hitter out is just not distinctive. One other latest record-setting SEC fireballer, Skenes, does the identical. Chapman does the other, throwing a fastball mixture of roughly three elements four-seamers to 2 elements sinkers with zero and one strikes. However with two strikes, it’s 3-to-1 sinkers over four-seamers.

If you throw that arduous, you’ve choices, it seems. We’ll see if Joyce can work out a strategy to flip that velocity into extra strikeouts.