Over the past week, we’ve gone over Whiff% rates for both hitters and pitchers. If you’ve missed any of those, be sure to check out our ‘Analytics’ page, which can be found with this link. Today, we’ll shift to exit velocities, as we look at which pitchers yielded the softest and hardest contact off the curveball.
Exit Velocity Criteria
In order to qualify for this list, a pitcher must have thrown at least 100 curves throughout the second half of 2019. Based off of pitch data collected by Baseball Savant, 109 pitchers met this criteria. Just keep in mind this, this is not how hard a pitcher throws his curveball. Rather, this has to do with how hard opposing batters are hitting the curve.
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Lowest Exit Velocity Off Curveball
Here are the pitchers who yielded the softest contact off the curve:
# | Team | Player | # of Curve Thrown | Opp. Mean Exit Velocity (MPH) |
1 | Rays | Ryan Yarbrough | 146 | 71.2 |
2 | Cardinals | Dakota Hudson | 126 | 72.2 |
3 | Nationals | Erick Fedde | 115 | 73.9 |
4 | Braves | Jerry Blevins | 149 | 75.0 |
5 | Rangers/Phillies | Drew Smyly | 337 | 76.1 |
6 | Red Sox | Nathan Eovaldi | 185 | 76.2 |
7 | Twins | Randy Dobnak | 119 | 76.2 |
8 | Marlins/Rays | Nick Anderson | 141 | 77.0 |
9 | Diamondbacks | Stefan Crichton | 106 | 77.3 |
10 | Mets | Steven Matz | 188 | 77.5 |
Not surprisingly, nine of the ten pitchers, with the exception of Drew Smyly, on this list threw less than 200 pitches. Interestingly enough, one pitcher who just missed this list was Rays pitcher Charlie Morton. Morton, who threw the second most curveballs out of any pitcher during this time frame (526), was twelfth on this list with a mean exit velocity of 78.2 MPH.
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Highest Exit Velocity off Curveballs
Here are the ten pitchers who yielded the hardest contact off the curveball:
# | Team | Player | # of Curve Thrown | Opp. Mean Exit Velocity (MPH) |
1 | Mariners | Matt Magill | 134 | 90.8 |
2 | Twins | Kyle Gibson | 155 | 89.4 |
3 | Tigers | Tyler Alexander | 142 | 89.3 |
4 | Mariners | Yusei Kikuchi | 112 | 88.0 |
5 | Brewers | Adrian Houser | 153 | 87.7 |
6 | White Sox | Ross Detwiler | 126 | 87.3 |
7 | Twins | Devin Smeltzer | 120 | 87.2 |
8 | Angels | Dillon Peters | 282 | 87.2 |
9 | White Sox | Ivan Nova | 204 | 87.2 |
10 | Astros | Will Harris | 173 | 87.1 |
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It’s worth pointing out that Orioles pitcher Asher Wojciechowski, who threw the eleventh most curveballs after the All-Star Break (310), just missed the bottom ten in the exit velocity category. Wojciechowski finished with the eleventh worst exit velocity on the breaking ball, as the mean velocity off the curve was 87.0 MPH.
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