Pitch Tunneling: The Art of Deception

 Pitch Tunneling: The Art of Deception

"The idea is that two different pitches fly down the same trajectory long enough to look nearly identical through the point when a hitter must decide whether, or not, to swing"- Dan Blewett

Most hitters if you asked them what pitch they would want to hit if given a choice to have their decision, they would say the fastball. Why? The reason is for the most part, the fastball is the straightest pitch that a pitcher will throw. Now with that being said, not all fastballs move straight, but it is the easiest pitch for hitters to hit because ever since they started hitting they have been trained to hit the fastball, and hit it well. 

So what is the importance of pitch tunneling? Pitch tunneling is having a repeatable arm slot so that the hitter does not pick up what pitch has been thrown until too late. Pitch tunneling is deceptive because of three parts. The first part is having a repeatable delivery, the next part is having a focal point, and the last part is the movement of the pitch. 

Repeatable Delivery

Having a repeatable delivery is one of the most important parts of pitch tunneling. The reason is because hitters can pick up on a pitcher if their delivery is a little bit off. If you play baseball long enough, you will become accustomed to noticing habits of a pitcher. Hitting is like doing a tango with the pitcher, to get in rhythm, you must match movement with the pitcher. So if the delivery of the pitcher is off even for just a little bit, the arm slot with suffer, the pitch tunnel will not work as well, and the hitter will catch on to that and will exploit those mistakes. Thus the importance of this aspect of pitch tunneling. To be really good at pitch tunneling, a pitcher must strive to have a repeatable delivery for every pitch. 

Focal Point

The next aspect of pitch tunneling is having a focal point. For the focal point to happen, the first thing a student-athlete must find out is his arm slot. That arm slot is typically what comes natural to him. Rarely does a pitcher need to change his arm slot, unless a coach finds something that would work better for a player, or that player has had arm issues that forces him to change arm slots. After this we must assess what pitches would work well off of the fastball. But we must understand what his fastball does. Does it move? Or is it fairly straight? After the selection of pitches that a pitcher learns to execute well, he must understand how to use that movement effectively. Simply pitching to the mitt is flawed with a 12-6 curveball. There is a lot of movement there, so the pitcher must find a focal point to pitch to so that he gets the desired movement. 

Pitch Design

Now onto the design aspect of the pitches. Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer is all in on pitch tunneling. Matter of fact Bauer has gone on to say this, "pitch design is such an untapped resource." What Bauer means is that with pitch design it creates a chance for making the hitting experience uncomfortable for hitters, and Bauer has done just that with posting an ERA of 2.21 and most importantly a WAR of 5.7. As Bauer stated with pitch design being an untapped resource, it has shown up in professional baseball. More and more pitchers have been crafting an arsenal of pitches that play off the fastball that create deception and swings and misses. There have been arguments that the swings of the hitters have created higher strikeout rates along Major League Baseball, but that would be doing a disservice to the pitchers. Pitchers are throwing harder and getting more movement on pitches than ever before. Which is very difficult to square up on the barrel of the bat. With that being said the goal of pitch tunneling is to have the movement of the pitch to fool the batter at the last minute, because the pitch looks the same as a fastball out of the pitchers hand.

In conclusion, pitch tunneling is useful for the pitcher who can repeat his delivery well. It allows for the pitcher to use his arsenal in a way that is deceptive to hitters. Pitch tunneling is useful for pitch sequencing, and pitch sequencing is based off of the expected outcome of the pitcher. Pitch tunneling is here to stay, and is the real life art of pitch deception in baseball.

Here are some extra links to bring more understanding with Pitch Tunneling:

MLB Network and Fangraphs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32CUSD36PBc

Tunneling Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2tmDh-FKzM