One of these things is not like the others...

I can’t see how a ball can gain more spin by magic as it’s travelling through the air.

When you look at PitchFX traces of pitchers’ traces from the 1B side, you’ll see that the rate at which (say) a curveball “breaks” is constant, with the angle travelling down in an arc. There’s no point at which it “starts” or “stops” breaking, that I can make out. In fact, the further the ball travels, the more it deviates from the “normal” flightpath, due to gravity.

The difference in height between a fastball and a breaking ball will be greater at the back of the box than it will at the front. The kicker to that is that you have less time to recognise the breaking ball at the front of the box than you do at the back, and also that the balls will reach you at a higher velocity as they’ve had less far to travel.

I think it’s a really interesting area, actually, and I’m not aware of it being very well studied – cricket players (different game, I know) move around on the crease a lot and (against the slower bowlers) often actually advance a couple of steps down towards them as the ball is bowled; this is to reduce the ability of the ball to spin off the pitch (or to try and hit it before it bounces), so it’s kinda different, but I wonder if there maybe are advantages to be had in baseball of an analogous sort – moving around subtly in the batter’s box in order to nullify certain pitchers. The only time I’m aware that hitters ever do that is when they slightly crowd the plate – it’s an interesting hypothetical to wonder what might happen if they sometimes moved towards or away from the pitcher in different at-bats in the same game (or even on individual pitches).

Not true, by perception. A average or better breaking ball is going to be perceived as breaking late, because the eye is going to perceive it having more arc the closer it gets to you. Now, if that’s the case, then standing forward in the batters box gives you less time to see the breaking ball and adjust to it’s arc.

Seriously, if you want to see someone swing and miss at breaking balls every time, tell them to move up in the box and “hit it before it breaks”. They’ll be out in front and the ball will fall under the plane of their swing, because they can’t conceptualize where the ball will be when it gets to the plate. Again, you can’t think physics all the time, because perception has more to do with it. Stephen Hawking is going to be able to explain physics better than Don Baylor, but I certainly wouldn’t want him as the hitting coach for my baseball team.

but what if that guy only throws 94 to him the entire AB, and then pumps a 100 mph heater by him to strike him out? Big league pitchers change speeds all the time as a way to keep hitters off balance.

though that is apples to oranges

and one that I think makes more sense than the “trying to hit for average” one. Maybe he’s always struggled against breaking pitches, but times the straighter ones well with his quick swing and natural talent.

Annoyingly, I could find out how well he’s done vs CV, FB, CH, SL etc. by looking at Fangraphs’ “linear weights” – they grade out the number of runs above or below average an individual player has been against each class of pitch. The slight issue with that will be sample size – he’s only been around half a season or so of at-bats, and so just a couple of outs against a certain type of pitch would hurt his scores quite a lot. However, Fangraphs is currently telling me no such player exists. Rather coolly, it’s given me a nice long list of possible pseudonyms we can use in the game threads though:

No Baseball Players Found – Showing Possible Baseball Players

Bobby Ramos 1978 – 1984 C
Colby Ward 1990 – 1990 P
Colby Lewis 2002 – 2007 P
Bobby Reis 1931 – 1938 P/OF
Bobby Rose 1989 – 1992 2B
Cal Abrams 1949 – 1956 OF
Robby Hammock 2003 – 2008 C
Cody Ransom 2001 – 2009 SS
Bobby Coombs 1933 – 1943 P
Bobby Reeves 1926 – 1931 3B/SS
Cole Hamels 2006 – 2009 P
Bobby Castillo 1977 – 1985 P
John Ramos 1991 – 1991 C/DH
Leroy Reams 1969 – 1969 PH/PR
Bobby Cargo 1892 – 1892 SS
Bobby Rhawn 1947 – 1949 3B/SS
Chucho Ramos 1944 – 1944 OF
Bobby Richardson 1955 – 1966 2B
Domingo Ramos 1978 – 1990 3B/SS
Dick Calmus 1963 – 1967 P
Cal Crum 1917 – 1918 P
Robby Thompson 1986 – 1996 2B
Bobby Rothermel 1899 – 1899 2B/3B
Ray Cosey 1980 – 1980 PH/PR
Ray Foley 1928 – 1928 PH/PR

Cory Rasmus 11/6/1987 P
Bobby Rauh 11/25/1987 OF
Coby Mavroulis 2/7/1983 P
Colt Adams 5/23/1985 P
Colby Beach 7/9/1985 P
Coltyn Simmons 12/4/1983 C/DH
Corey Bass 2/8/1985 P
Cody Adams 11/26/1986 P
Bobby Cassevah 9/11/1985 P
Colby Miller 3/19/1982 P
Bobby Cramer 10/28/1979 P
Roberto Ramos 9/4/1988 3B
Cody Hams 11/23/1989 P
Cesar Ramos 6/22/1984 P
Julio Ramos 2/13/1988 P
Marquise Cody 10/7/1984 OF
Corey Adamson 2/23/1992 DH/OF
Wilson Ramos 8/10/1987 C/DH
Dominic Ramos 3/10/1983 2B
Corey Hamman 4/12/1980 P
Valentin Ramos 7/21/1988 SS
Cole Armstrong 8/24/1983 C
Coby Smith 9/21/1980 OF
Rob Cosby 4/2/1981 1B/3B
Corey Ragsdale 11/10/1982 SS

I think “Corey Ragsdale”, “Coby Mavroulis”, “Chucho Ramos” and “Bobby Casevah” might be my new favourites.

…some of your math assumptions aren’t quite right.

For example, the release point is going to be closer to the plate than 60.5 feet. It will be more like 55 feet, depending on the pitcher and the length of the stride.

I do think the difference is probably smaller than cited. Probably the maximum forward difference is 2 feet.

55/2 = 27.5 and 2/27.5 yields a 7% difference which is smaller by half, but probably still significant (since it’s greater than 5%).