Vance Worley interview on Fangraphs

[Willihammer]

Q&A: Vance Worley, Deceptively-Diverse Twin | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Worley says he has 6 pitches in his armory but his best 2ndary pitch is a cutter

 

DL: What is your best secondary pitch?

 

 

VW: Probably my cutter. I throw it like a cutter, but it moves more like a slider. You can call it whatever you’d like. The pitch has two-plane action. It slides and it falls out.

It is basically a cutter that morphed into a slider. I throw it the way you’re supposed to throw a cutter, but it moves like a slider. Everybody is different. Everybody has different arm slots when they pitch, and that’s how mine breaks.

My four-seam, with a big-league ball, has cut movement. With a minor-league ball, it won’t cut. I guess I have a four-seam cutter and a cutter/slider.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

What is the difference between a minor league and major league ball? Do they not slather the minor league balls in that special mud? Why would the ball move differently?

[Willihammer]

I'm going to bring a ball back from Cedar Rapids at some point this summer so I can compare it to the MLB one I have on my desk (Ben Sisko style) to answer that very question. I have no idea.

[ThePuck]

What is the difference between a minor league and major league ball? Do they not slather the minor league balls in that special mud? Why would the ball move differently?

 

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/minor_league_baseballs_are_built_to_different_specifications_than_major_lea/

[Brock Beauchamp]

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/minor_league_baseballs_are_built_to_different_specifications_than_major_lea/

 

Interesting. I had no idea.

[Mike Sixel]

What? They don't use the same ball? What?

[ThePuck]

Every time I read an interesting baseball story I think I'll need later, I link and save it, especially if it has odd info like this particular one.

[ThePuck]

What? They don't use the same ball? What?

 

click on the link I gave, it'll explain it.

[ericchri]

Liam Hendricks immediately jumps to mind when reading that story about the different baseballs.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I learned something new today. The real question is why they would do this. That's the kind of thing I'd think would be developmentally harmful to young players to not be playing with the same equipment. That would be like allowing aluminum bats up through AAA but forcing a wood bat in the pros.

[ThePuck]

I learned something new today. The real question is why they would do this. That's the kind of thing I'd think would be developmentally harmful to young players to not be playing with the same equipment. That would be like allowing aluminum bats up through AAA but forcing a wood bat in the pros.

 

There's a huge monetary difference between the costs of the balls...and then add there's way more minor league teams to boot...

[Halsey Hall]

This is interesting. I've got 6 balls sitting here next to me that I got that were hit over the fences. I use a Magic Erasers and they clean up real nice most of the time. So I looked them over, and all 6 are official Rawlings MLB baseballs, and have the Killebrew MLB logo on them. But one ball has Practice stenciled just below that logo. And that ball has higher seams than the other 5. Must be some cheaper balls mixed in with the bunch for spring training.

[ashbury]

Somebody in the linked article estimated $3,000,000 per season for all of the minor leagues, to use the major league balls. Even though the minors in theory pay for their own expenses, they get do some subsidies (player salaries, at minimum), and this seems like small change in order to avoid the perpetual question of what the players would do when pitching and batting with regulation MLB ball.

[LaBombo]

The hardest thing for me to figure out about this is why it's taken so long to hear a pitcher reference the difference. Weird. It's not April 1st today, is it?

[JB_Iowa]

Thanks for both links. I enjoyed the original story and the side trip into the difference between baseballs.

 

(And I believe the story about the dog being able to sort baseballs. A friend's dog was visiting one night and about went nuts trying to get to a ball that had accidentally gotten beneath the couch -- in a back corner. We couldn't see the ball but she knew it was there -- we had to move the couch to get to it.)

[Shane Wahl]

What in the hell? If the difference is such that certain pitches down cut or break, then this is pretty relevant thing that I have NEVER heard of before.

[FrodaddyG]

Somebody in the linked article estimated $3,000,000 per season for all of the minor leagues, to use the major league balls. Even though the minors in theory pay for their own expenses, they get do some subsidies (player salaries, at minimum), and this seems like small change in order to avoid the perpetual question of what the players would do when pitching and batting with regulation MLB ball.

If it's only $3M, it's beyond stupid for each team to not pony up $100K to let their guys get used to the equipment they ideally will be paying them to use at some point.

[ashbury]

If it's only $3M, it's beyond stupid for each team to not pony up $100K to let their guys get used to the equipment they ideally will be paying them to use at some point.

 

Although I basically agree, I suspect a reason to stay with the cheaper balls is that they don't fly as far. In minor league parks, you'll end up with stats that aren't representative when the players reach legitimate playing fields. I think this is a secondary issue to the raised stitches, but isn't nothing.

[Willihammer]

It does make you wonder where teams are at in their ability to project how a minor league pitcher's stuff will change with the different ball, esp. when you see teams like the Twins trade MLB regulars for those guys.

[FrodaddyG]

Although I basically agree, I suspect a reason to stay with the cheaper balls is that they don't fly as far. In minor league parks, you'll end up with stats that aren't representative when the players reach legitimate playing fields. I think this is a secondary issue to the raised stitches, but isn't nothing.

They aren't playing minor league games on softball fields. I'd say the difference in size of field area of the average minor league park and the average MLB park is negligible, and adding a ball that flies slightly further isn't going to turn the minors into the MLB steroid era, stats-wise.

[ashbury]

I think MLB forced MiLB to upgrade a lot of their facilities, particularly at AAA, to minimal standards close to those of MLB parks. I'm not sure that is widely true at the low minors, though. Anybody got the dimensions of the Twins' farm system parks handy?

 

This business of different balls is something that I'd enjoy Terry Ryan clearing the air about.