What makes a great pitch?

[Sprowl]

When is an individual pitch a GREAT pitch?
 
Baseball observers have an intuitive sense of the critical confrontations between a pitcher and a batter where the pitcher emerges victorious. Some of those confrontations are capitalizable:
 
- the pitcher blows the batter away with high heat (The Papelbon)
- the pitcher breaks the batter's bat with a double play grounder (The Rivera)
- the pitcher dodges the bat with a splitter (The Koji)
 
When is a pitch identifiably great?

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

When is an individual pitch a GREAT pitch?
 
Baseball observers have an intuitive sense of the critical confrontations between a pitcher and a batter where the pitcher emerges victorious. Some of those confrontations are capitalizable:
 
- the pitcher blows the batter away with high heat (The Papelbon)
- the pitcher breaks the batter's bat with a double play grounder (The Rivera)
- the pitcher dodges the bat with a splitter (The Koji)
 
When is a pitch identifiably great?

 
- the pitcher completely deceives the batter with a changeup (The Pedro)
 
For me, like most things in baseball, there are two cues: What I see, and what can be measured. With the new technologies we can calculate pitch movement, release point, etc. (and Sprowl does a great job breaking that stuff down for us). So we can measure how a Papelbon or a Koji or a Rivera would get more late movement than others and determine efficacy. But then there is a case like the Pedro changeup, where the pitch itself is made effective due to the pitcher's mechanics which don't tip what is coming, so the pitch's effectiveness is particularly a product of the pitcher's overall arsenal and delivery rather than the pitch's movement, unlike Rivera. (of course this doesn't speak to Pedro's fastball and curve, which are also exceptional, but it was that changeup that made him immortal).

 

[Monbo Jumbo]

Unpredictability

 

[Granite Sox]

I'll also add pitcher mechanics and arm angle making the outcome a foregone conclusion based on the hitter's visible discomfort: Randy Johnson's two-strike slider, aka Mr. Snappy.
 
The examples above describe victory for the pitcher as identified by a swing-and-miss.  I'm also a little partial to GREAT pitches that catch the hitter guessing, and completely freeze him in place as a heater is delivered to the exact spot that is completely unhittable.  40,000 fans, plus the hitter stop for an ignisecond and absorb the greatness/humiliation.  Pedro is the recent Sox pitcher that evokes this image most frequently.

 

[fuzzy_one]

Unpredictability

 
I guess I'd argue that there are two classes of "great" pitch. One is unpredictable either in selection or movement (or both). The Pedro change is the gold standard here. Not only was it indistinguishable from the FB during delivery, not only was the motion filthy in its own right, but his accuracy with all of his pitches left hitters perpetually uncertain about what might come next. And Petey cultivated that uncertainty. I remember watching him destroy a hitter with four changeups in a row; you'd think the hitter would lock onto the pitch, but he clearly kept thinking, "Surely he won't throw it again now." ("I will. And don't call me Shirley.")
 
The other class of great pitch is utterly predictable in many respects, relying on great execution and location to defeat a hitter who more or less knows what's coming. Rivera's cutter. The Papelbon / Kimbrel high four-seamer. DLowe v. Terrence Long.

 

[TeddysBonefish]

The situation as well. The pitcher sets up a great pitch, with a combination of pitches at other speeds and locations before it. He knows the batter and his tendencies. He executes perfectly.

 

[Reggie's Racquet]

I would define a "great" pitch as one that induces the batter (his bat) to make no or less than optimal contact with the ball.
 
In order...
That could be a swing and miss.
A pitch that totally fools the batter or the umpire for a called strike.
 
It could be a pitch that induces a foul back into the crowd for a strike.
 
A pitch that induces a weak pop up or easily playable infield dribbler.
 
Pitches are "greater" IMO if they that don't require fielding other than by the catcher. 

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

When I find myself marveling at a pitch, it's almost always due to location. 
 
Obviously, just because you deal at 98 and you manage to blow one by Grady Sizemore doesn't mean you've made a great pitch. A great pitch is one you've placed in the just the spot so that it's tantalizing to swing at, but really in a place where it's nearly impossible to make solid contact and do much with it. 
 
Sometimes, that's because of the way you've set up the hitter (sliders down and in and then fastball high and away), sometimes that's because of the way you've used the strike zone (paint, low and away). 
 
I found this quote from Maddox, which I love: 
 

 
 
"I could probably throw harder if I wanted, but why? When they're in a jam, a lot of pitchers...try to throw harder. Me, I try to locate better."

 

[Buck Showalter]

When I find myself marveling at a pitch, it's almost always due to location. 
 
Obviously, just because you deal at 98 and you manage to blow one by Grady Sizemore doesn't mean you've made a great pitch. A great pitch is one you've placed in the just the spot so that it's tantalizing to swing at, but really in a place where it's nearly impossible to make solid contact and do much with it. 
 
Sometimes, that's because of the way you've set up the hitter (sliders down and in and then fastball high and away), sometimes that's because of the way you've used the strike zone (paint, low and away). 
 
I found this quote from Maddox, which I love:

I totally agree.

Location followed by movement.

 

[tims4wins]

 
Edit: damn I wish Bard was still good

 

[joe dokes]

The perfect pitch is a strike that cannot be hit.
 
 
I think that definition covers both the substantively unhittable pitches in the zone -- jelly-legging curves, 100 MPH heat -- and the two-strike meatball down Broadway that freezes the batter because the pitcher has totally messed with his mind.  (Okajima vs. Matt Holliday in the '07 WS is one that comes to mind; down 3-0; curve, Oki-doki, fastball down the middle, strike 3 looking)

 

[ivanvamp]

A great pitch is a pitch, of whatever type, that is thrown exactly where the pitcher wants it to, and that leaves the hitter with very little chance to do anything productive with it.
 
Or a pitch that makes the hitter look absolutely ridiculous.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

Or a pitch that makes the hitter look absolutely ridiculous.

 
That would include the last pitch (swinging strike 3 on a Keith Foulke "fastball") of game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. 
 
Don't you have to factor in the hitter?

 

[ivanvamp]

 

 
That would include the last pitch (swinging strike 3 on a Keith Foulke "fastball") of game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. 
 
Don't you have to factor in the hitter?

 

 
Well of course.  I mean, a great pitch to a crappy hitter probably isn't a great pitch to a great hitter.  There are degrees of greatness, I would think.  
 
And I didn't think that Clark's swing-and-miss to end that game made him look ridiculous.  In fact, I thought he was going to hit a home run in that at-bat.  

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

In fact, I thought he was going to hit a home run in that at-bat.  

 
I didn't think that. I knew it.