![]() ![]() Wally Skalij / Gettyīut then COVID hit, shutting camps down. The truth, though, was that he never quite felt comfortable trying to be an up-in-the-zone, four-seam pitcher. Webb had thrown two-seamers before in the minors, when his elbow started to hurt, but after Tommy John surgery he added velocity and the Giants thought he should switch to a four-seamer. They were going to still try and miss bats, of course, but ground balls were great, too. His right index finger and middle fingers were to go along with the seams, not run perpendicular to them. That was the message from Bannister and Bailey. While sinkers had fallen out of fashion with many pitchers, Webb was reminded: not too long ago, Jake Arrieta won a Cy Young Award with the Chicago Cubs by relying on a sinker-slider mix.Įven in long toss and in catch with teammates, Webb was to throw with only a two-seam grip - no four-seamers. Instead of four-seamers, Webb was to only throw two-seamers, which the Giants felt was a better pitch in terms of movement profile. The arm slot change was key because Webb was going to alter what he threw out of it. Puk and Javy Guerra lowered their arm slots more. Of 463 pitchers to qualify over those time periods, only A.J. Webb's vertical release - how high a pitcher releases the ball above the ground - dropped from 5.58 feet in 2019 to an average of 4.99 feet over the last two seasons. Rather than burden Webb with too much information, Bailey focused on a few cues about timing and throwing motion. "You start to struggle, you get internally focused on some delivery stuff. "When I first came on, Logan was a prospect with some big-league time and he really didn't understand himself as a mover, as a pitcher, what he was trying to do - and it's a scary place," Bailey told theScore. Once a pitcher himself, Andrew Bailey helped Webb build a new throwing motion. ![]() Bailey and the Giants staff felt Webb should embrace his "unique" athletic movements and be more rotational than direct to home plate in his delivery. Watching over the project was then first-year pitching coach Andrew Bailey. So in the sun-soaked Arizona bullpens, Webb started dropping down with little initial instruction other than to throw lower and find something that felt comfortable. The goal was for Webb to throw nearer to Sale's low arm slot. "They literally told me to throw sidearm," Webb said.īannister shared with Webb video of Chris Sale's motion Bannister was familiar with the lefty ace from his time in Boston. ––––––––––Ī few weeks after the call, Webb reported to spring training and began working on the Giants' plan for him. ![]() And what Webb did so naturally well after an adjustment has allowed him to ride the wave of one of baseball's great breakthroughs in pitching science, one that in December 2019 even the Giants didn't see coming. The Giants build upon an individual's strength. The idea that there are one-size-fits-all organization philosophies in how or what to throw are over. The story of Webb's ascension to the top of a major-league rotation, where the Giants need him to keep pitching well to try and jump back into the wild-card race, is a story about individualized development. As he digested Bannister's message and plan, Webb became open to it. He was hit hard in his first 39 innings, posting a 5.22 ERA. Norm Hall / Getty Images Sport / GettyĪt the time, Webb was coming off his first partial season in the majors - a season of struggles. (In the Statcast era, elevated four-seamers are an en vogue pitch designed to get swing and miss above uppercut swings.) That experiment was now over, and Bannister recommended Webb do something completely different. They wanted him to pitch more effectively with it at the top of the zone, and also wanted him to add a cutter to play off it. Prior to hiring Bannister, Giants coaches were working with Webb on refining his four-seam fastball, his primary offering. ![]()
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