Which Pitching Staff Has the Most Diverse Set of Release Points?
Photo Credit: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
A pitching staff featuring a varied range of release points provides an additional way to unsettle an opposing lineup. In this analysis, I will measure the release point diversity of both right-handed and left-handed pitchers on each team from 2023, to pinpoint the teams that lead the way in this strategy and those that trail behind.
I calculated the distance between each pitcher’s average release point and the center of the mound and split the dataset into two groups: one for right-handed pitchers (RHPs) and one for left-handed pitchers (LHPs). I then calculated the standard deviation of release point distance from the rubber for each team, and used that as my Variation Score.
The results for RHPs and LHPs are shown in Tables 1 and 2 below.
Table 1: Right-handed pitcher variation scores from 2023
Table 2: Left-handed pitcher variation scores from 2023
The San Francisco Giants and Tampa Bay Rays had the greatest variation in RHP release points, more than double the variation of the least variate Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals.
The Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres had the greatest variation in LHP release points, more than double the variation of the least variate Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins.
I then combined the results from RHPs and LHPs and determined each team’s Overall Variation Score, stated in Table 3 below, weighting the RHP Variation Score by a factor of 0.72 and a the LHP Variation Score by a factor of 0.28, in proportion with the number of pitches thrown from each side.
Table 3: Overall variation scores from 2023
As we can see from Table 3, the Giants, Padres, and Rays rank highest in overall variation, and the Royals rank last. Let’s visualize the release points of three of teams.
From Figure 1 below, we see that the Royals have zero pitchers on the staff with a release point lower than four feet, zero pitchers with a release point above seven feet, one pitcher with a release point wider than four feet, and three pitchers with a release point narrower than one foot. In total, they have four unique release points.
Figure 1: Royals pitchers’ average release points in 2023.
The Giants actually only have two unique release points, as evident from Figure 2 below. The reason why their variation score is so high, however, is because submariner Tyler Rogers has one of the most unique release points in the game - a major outlier.
Figure 2: Giants pitchers’ average release points in 2023.
The Rays, however, are the champions of release point diversity: They have 12 unique release points! One low and wide, two low, one high, one wide, and seven narrow, as evident from Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Rays pitchers’ average release points in 2023.
How long will it take for the rest of the MLB to catch on to this strategy? I’d give it two years max.
