Trackman Stories: Total Movement and Movement Separation
March 2, 2021
PBR Colorado held its Underclass Invitational 2-20 which featured over 75 athletes total. Lets take a look back at some of the data we collected at the event. First off, we will take a look at some of data Trackman helped us gather on the mound where 65 pitchers in total toed the rubber.
Total Movement
The first metric to we will look at is Total Movement. Although not a true Trackman metric itself. Total Movement can be inferred using Induced Vertical Break and Horizontal Break from the Trackman data collected at the games. Below is an edited depiction of a pitch's movement given by Trackman.
The orange dot on the grid there is the pitch itself. It registered 7.6 inches of horizontal movement and -1.4 inches of vertical movement. The black line that goes from the orange dot back to the 0,0 point is what Total Movement represents. How far did this pitch move compared to a pitch with 0 vertical inches and 0 horizontal inches of movement. Do a little bit of math and this pitch turns out to have 7.7 inches of Total Movement. With that being said, lets look at the Top-5 in Total Movement by pitch-type!
Total Induced Fastball Movement |
Total Induced ChangeUp Movement |
||
Pitcher |
Total Induced Movement |
Pitcher |
|
Sanchez, Ethan |
18.88 |
Jimenez, Parker |
15.33 |
Dial, Jackson |
16.99 |
Phillips, Jackson |
14.80 |
Whitfield, Dylan |
16.97 |
Dial, Jackson |
14.54 |
Eddy, Brok |
16.01 |
Phillips, Nolan |
14.46 |
Balser, Nathan |
15.79 |
Davidson, Landon |
14.11 |
Jimenez, Parker |
15.69 |
Eddy, Brok |
13.64 |
Volz, Dillon |
14.77 |
Stanley, Max |
13.06 |
Snow, Brady |
14.57 |
Whitfield, Dylan |
12.36 |
Shank, JT |
14.54 |
Jacobs, Gabriel |
12.00 |
Leikam, Ben |
14.28 |
Balser, Nathan |
11.91 |
Total Induced Curveball Movement |
Total Induced Slider Movement |
||
Pitcher |
Total Induced Movement |
Pitcher |
|
Phillips, Nolan |
16.00 |
Jimenez, Parker |
7.38 |
Syverson, Jacob |
11.76 |
Thompson, Ty |
7.11 |
Leikam, Ben |
11.58 |
McGill, Tyler |
5.25 |
Eddy, Brok |
11.55 |
Stanley, Max |
4.66 |
Kersten, Ian |
10.84 |
Miller, Easton |
3.95 |
Miller, Easton |
10.76 |
||
Phillips, Jackson |
10.69 |
||
Gargasz, Tate |
10.05 |
||
Whitfield, Dylan |
9.97 |
||
Davis, Caden |
9.77 |
||
Movement Separation
The next metric to look over is Movement Separation. Another non-Trackman data point that can be created using the Trackman data. Similar to Total Movement, Movement Separation is the movement of a pitch off of the pitcher's fastball. Another diagram below:
The black dot in the upper left is an example fastball with 18.1 inches of Vertical Movement and -12.5 inches of Horizontal Movement. The orange dot is that same pitch we used above in the first example. Now instead of taking the distance to pitch with no movement, we use the fastball as the reference point. Therefore, this set would have a Movement Separation of 28.0 inches. Below are the Top-5 in Movement Separation for Sliders and Curveballs.
Curveball Movement Off Fastball |
Slider Movement Off Fastball |
||
Pitcher |
Movement Off FB |
Pitcher |
Movement Off FB |
Phillips, Nolan |
28.48 |
Stanley, Max |
14.30 |
Eddy, Brok |
26.86 |
Miller, Easton |
13.89 |
Whitfield, Dylan |
26.60 |
McGill, Tyler |
13.55 |
Leikam, Ben |
25.08 |
Thompson, Ty |
13.34 |
Miller, Easton |
22.87 |
Jimenez, Parker |
12.78 |
Davis, Caden |
22.70 |
||
Phillips, Jackson |
21.89 |
||
Sheets, Cody |
21.53 |
||
Syverson, Jacob |
19.53 |
||
Shank, JT |
18.95 |
||
For full charts click here!