Mysteries of the Single-Finger Screwball
bruce sutter running out of time to reach the hall of fame; unsuccessful again yesterday in what by now must be his 10th or 11th attempt, which would leave him only four or five more shots.
he does not merit inclusion, imho, even though he made a revolutionary contribution to the game. sutter was the first guy to perfect the now-ubiquitous split-finger fastball. there was no such thing before he came along; there was the forkball, a similar pitch, but hardly anybody threw it (diego segui for one, i recall). the split-finger was a great mystery at the time — nobody could figure out the physics of the thing, or explain why it dropped so sharply just as it reached the plate. it was as if sutter were practicing a form of sorcery, employing a power no one else understood, much less possessed. i remember watching a segment on nbc’s "game of the week" pregame show in which ex-dodger relief pitcher mike marshall stood next to sutter during a bullpen session and tried to figure out how he cast such a spell on the baseball. marshall (whose career stats are comparable to sutter’s, by the way) scrutinized his subject the way old-time anthropologists used to study contortionists or tribal medicine men; nbc shot some super-slow-motion video of the session, and marshall pored over that too. he concluded that sutter was throwing not a split-finger fastball but rather (as he called it) a single-finger screwball. the super-slo-mo revealed all: as the ball left sutter’s hand his index finger fell completely away, and the ball rolled off his middle finger in a tight clockwise twirl, so that it broke toward right-handed hitters and away from lefties — the opposite of the typical break from a right-handed pitcher.
hence the mystery — batters had never seen anything like it from an rhp before. (a similar sense of awe and disbelief apparently attended carl hubbell’s invention of the classic screwball in the 1930s.) sutter had stumbled upon a gimmick pitch — and once hitters figured it out, the jig was up. in his first three seasons as closer (1977-79), he struck out 1.12 men per inning — hitters could barely lay bat on ball. but in his next six seasons (1980-85), until injury basically ended his career, sutter whiffed guys at about half the rate — 0.66 per inning. his eras, hits-per-innings, and save-conversion rates weakened accordingly. though sutter remained a very effective pitcher, he was no longer a dominant one after those 1st three years — ergo no hall-of-famer.
sutter and marshall's career lines, side by side:
sutt: 68-71, 2.84 era, 300 sv, 661 g, 1040 ip, 861 so
marsh: 97-112, 3.14 era, 188 sv, 723 g, 1386 ip, 880 so
sutter led the lg in saves 5 times, marshall 3.
both pitched in one world series.
both won 1 cy young award (marsh 74, sutt 79).
marshall finished 5th in mvp race 1973, 3d in 1974.
sutter finished 5tth in 1982 mvp race.
he does not merit inclusion, imho, even though he made a revolutionary contribution to the game. sutter was the first guy to perfect the now-ubiquitous split-finger fastball. there was no such thing before he came along; there was the forkball, a similar pitch, but hardly anybody threw it (diego segui for one, i recall). the split-finger was a great mystery at the time — nobody could figure out the physics of the thing, or explain why it dropped so sharply just as it reached the plate. it was as if sutter were practicing a form of sorcery, employing a power no one else understood, much less possessed. i remember watching a segment on nbc’s "game of the week" pregame show in which ex-dodger relief pitcher mike marshall stood next to sutter during a bullpen session and tried to figure out how he cast such a spell on the baseball. marshall (whose career stats are comparable to sutter’s, by the way) scrutinized his subject the way old-time anthropologists used to study contortionists or tribal medicine men; nbc shot some super-slow-motion video of the session, and marshall pored over that too. he concluded that sutter was throwing not a split-finger fastball but rather (as he called it) a single-finger screwball. the super-slo-mo revealed all: as the ball left sutter’s hand his index finger fell completely away, and the ball rolled off his middle finger in a tight clockwise twirl, so that it broke toward right-handed hitters and away from lefties — the opposite of the typical break from a right-handed pitcher.
hence the mystery — batters had never seen anything like it from an rhp before. (a similar sense of awe and disbelief apparently attended carl hubbell’s invention of the classic screwball in the 1930s.) sutter had stumbled upon a gimmick pitch — and once hitters figured it out, the jig was up. in his first three seasons as closer (1977-79), he struck out 1.12 men per inning — hitters could barely lay bat on ball. but in his next six seasons (1980-85), until injury basically ended his career, sutter whiffed guys at about half the rate — 0.66 per inning. his eras, hits-per-innings, and save-conversion rates weakened accordingly. though sutter remained a very effective pitcher, he was no longer a dominant one after those 1st three years — ergo no hall-of-famer.
sutter and marshall's career lines, side by side:
sutt: 68-71, 2.84 era, 300 sv, 661 g, 1040 ip, 861 so
marsh: 97-112, 3.14 era, 188 sv, 723 g, 1386 ip, 880 so
sutter led the lg in saves 5 times, marshall 3.
both pitched in one world series.
both won 1 cy young award (marsh 74, sutt 79).
marshall finished 5th in mvp race 1973, 3d in 1974.
sutter finished 5tth in 1982 mvp race.
posted by L Boros at 9:26 AM
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