Bold readers: Untamed pitches

At the request of several readers and subscribers, I hope to write a series of columns on Cuban baseball, now that we are in the off-season. I want to delve into some topics that would really be worth reflecting on.

I don't know if you remember that I announced a column on the Best Hitters of this century. I thought of choosing that time frame because it seemed more feasible for fans who were not able to see baseball in the nineties. The idea is still standing, of course—in fact, I wrote the first two pieces on the impact of the best hitters. Only with the pace of the season, then the playoffs and other personal projects, I had to make adjustments. But I think some of the ideas that occurred to me will be interesting.

I will talk about this very soon.

Another key point here is that there are many subscribers around the world who are increasingly getting closer to Cuban baseball. So I will have a lot to tell. A couple of days ago, in a baseball chat among friends, a question came up that seemed interesting to me. We were talking about the pitchers who have probably thrown the hardest pitches to catch in Cuban baseball.

I thought of many names and some stories I have experienced came to mind, and others I have heard. But in the middle of the conversation, I was thinking about how I could create a formula to determine which pitchers threw the hardest pitches to catch. It seems difficult to solve, but if we analyze deeply, there may be a way to find some interesting trends. Usually, a pitch that is difficult for a catcher to catch is usually either very low, or very far, or very high. So, that type of pitch almost always has all the characteristics of a wild pitch.

Of course, there has not been in Cuban baseball a deep statistical system to determine or record how many times a catcher has blocked a wild pitch. But wild pitches are recorded. Other pitches that could be marked as wild are those that end up hitting the batters.

Obviously, many of those pitches are often difficult to control, but the most important point for a catcher is to try to fool the plate umpire using his framing ability. So, in the end, this is what we could mix together to find a path to the pitchers who threw wild pitches more often. We have the wild pitches, the ones hit by pitches, and the walks.

The qualified pitchers were the 118 who have faced at least 5,000 batters in the history of the Cuban National Series. Ready to see the list? Do you have some names that you are sure to see here? Well, there were actually some that didn't surprise me:

Untamed pitches percentage (we could call it "UNP")

1. Garcia Sanchez, Jose Angel, 18%

2. Entenza Gonzalez, Noelvis, 17%

3. Perez Rodriguez, Wilber, 16%

4. Rodriguez Matos, Alexander, 15%

5. Borroto Jimenez, Luis, 14%

6. Corrales Denis, Faustino, 14%

7. Betancourt Chacon, Danny, 14%

8. Mesa Herrera, Carlos, 14%

9. Fonseca Saborit, Alfredo, 14%

10. Garcia Escalante, Vladimir, 13%

José Ángel García's slider has undoubtedly been one of the most difficult pitches to control among pitchers of his generation. Photo: Radio Bayamo.

Yes, it's hard to get to the list without some key calculations. But it definitely seemed difficult for Jose Angel Garcia's slider to not be there as well. For years, Garcia's slider, the leader in saved games in Cuban National Series, has been a very difficult pitch to catch. Something similar happened with the knuckleball that Pirates lefty Wilber Perez used to throw.

And what about the lurking curveball of Pinar del Rio lefty Faustino Corrales? The numbers prove it. I remember right-hander Alexander Rodriguez and his sliders with a tremendous spin, which often buried themselves in front of the plate.

I didn't see Henequeneros lefty Carlos Mesa pitch enough, but his former teammate Alberto Diaz always told me about his effective curveball. Vladimir Garcia's case doesn't surprise me. He always had a fast slider with a voracious spin. Later, he perfected it and managed to throw sliders with different rotations to attack the strike zone. Each pitcher had a different process.

The reverse side of the list also brought back some memories:

1. Campillo Hernández, Luis, 5%

2. Pérez Valdés, Gregorio, 6%

3. Torres Gómez, Yosvani, 7%

4. Macías Rodríguez, Rolando, 7%

5. Carrero Moreno, Omar, 7%

6. Tejeda González, Fernando, 7%

7. Riscart Caballero, Jose Ramon, 7%

8. Collazo Boffill, Rafael, 7%

9. Martínez Figueredo, Leandro, 7%

10. Roque Cruz, Alfredo, 7%

I would love to talk to Liván O’Farril, Pável Bernal or Alaín Pérez, several of the catchers who received pitches from Luis Campillo for some time. I saw Campillo pitch from the late nineties. And, in fact, I have recalled here his impressive control to keep himself from throwing strikes. The numbers tell us that Campillo was the perfect pitcher when it comes to keeping his pitches in order.

Could anyone else be a catcher's best friend? And it makes sense. Catchers are always going to feel more secure when they're catching pitches from a pitcher who dominates the strike zone. Campillo is followed by another strike-throwing machine, Gregorio Perez, and then my friend Yosvany Torres, the man with the fork ball.

I'm not surprised that Torres' strike-throwing acumen landed him on this list, but I'm struck by how effectively the Pinar del Rio catchers framed his arsenal of off-speed pitches. The rest of the pitchers on the list need no introduction in our UNP (Untamed pitches) ranking. This could essentially sum up the keen control of all those pitchers: as you already know, each of them faced more than 5,000 opponents, and none of them finished with a walk rate higher than 2.5.

We can probably refine our (now somewhat rustic) version of “Untamed pitches” later, but what started as a bold question definitely ended with this revealing little quest. Isn’t that what every one of our baseball conversations is about? We almost always have a doubt. And, in my case, I’m one of those who can’t stop searching to find some answer that convinces me.

Untamed pitches did it in some way. I hope it does for you too.

Have a great weekend!