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Deep Dive: How Kyle Hendricks has mastered his repertoire and keeps hitters guessing

4 years agoLance Brozdowski

The Cubs and many other teams in baseball have concocted facilities to help their pitchers with mechanics, pitch design and efficiency. There was even a sign that once read “pitch lab in progress” at Sloan Park.

One of the tools used by the Cubs is known as an Edgertronic camera. It’s a small blue box, a little bit bigger than a wallet that captures images at extremely high frame rates. The slow-motion setting on an iPhone captures at 240 frames per second (fps). Edgertronic cameras can capture images at over 2,000 fps. This allows coaches like Tommy Hottovy or Craig Breslow to examine the minutia of how a pitcher releases a pitch. From there, they can decide to alter the movement profile of the pitch by tweaking its release.

Although Kyle Hendricks is not a pitcher in need of change given his prolonged success with below-average velocity, comparing him to other pitchers with the footage from Edgertronic cameras provides insight into how he succeeds.

Hendricks’ sinker achieves about 26 inches of downward vertical movement on average, roughly five inches more than league average in 2020. Part of the reason Hendricks achieves this much drop is due to his ability to kill spin.

Among 112 pitchers who have thrown at least 50 sinkers or two-seam fastballs entering Monday’s slate of games, Hendricks is tied for the fifth lowest average spin rate (1878 rpm). Although other factors come into play, less spin means less resistance to the downward force of gravity, which allows the ball to drop more than expected. (It’s no surprise that Zack Greinke has the lowest sinker spin in baseball this season.)

“Hendricks’ sinker has a little bit different of a grip,” Marquee Sports Network analyst Sean Marshall said. “He’s a little bit higher up on the horseshoe [of the baseball].”

A typical two-seam fastball is thrown with the index and middle finger “between the tracks” or where the two seams are narrowest on a baseball. At the 50-second mark in the video above, there’s an example of this grip from an Edgertronic camera. Hendricks rotates the ball backwards less than 90 degrees, allowing his two fingers to sit right below the horseshoe (the right side of the split screen at the 50-second mark).

Marshall threw his two-seam fastball similar to this Edgertronic footage, but from a left-handed release. Hendricks’ grip is one of the factors that allows him to kill as much spin as possible and achieve this above-average sink. 

The odd thing about Hendricks is that his changeup actually spins more than his fastball, roughly 300 rpm more on average in 2020. This counteracts the idea that killing more spin automatically means more downward movement (multiple factors go into the movement of every pitch). But what creates that downward movement on Hendricks’ changeup is, in part, his grip.

“The power finger, or [index finger], is off the ball,” Marshall said. “And he replaces it with his ring finger… you let the changeup grip do the work.”

Hendricks, in a way, sacrifices that extra killed spin on his changeup for a nearly identical arm slot and release point to his sinker, creating a superb amount of deception. At the 2:09 mark in the video above, this slight grip alteration between Hendricks sinker and changeup is the only thing that’s noticeable. His arm slot and the speed at which he releases each pitch are indistinguishable.

“He keeps his arm speed exactly the same,” Marshall said. “When you have a successful changeup…you’re not trying to slow down your body at all.”

The incredible thing about Hendricks is that in his Game 1 quality start in Monday’s doubleheader, neither his sinker or changeup were his best pitch. It was his sparingly used curveball that stole the show, a pitch he altered the grip on during quarantine and has seen improved results compared to last season. Hendricks achieved a season high in curveball usage (25%) and whiffs (5), finishing off two hitters with the pitch.

“You want something with different speed,” Marshall said. “Hendricks throws a sinker and changeup within 7-8 mph of one another. With his 70-72 mph changeup, he creates an even larger speed differential.”

The Professor’s sparkling career continues to improve. And technology like Edgertronic cameras can help us appreciate his success more than ever.

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