The vogue pitch

It seems like every now and then there is a pitch that sweeps the baseball world and becomes popular in pitching circles. Let's see if I can recap certain pitches that become popular.

The first trendsetting pitch(at least one that I can remember being born in 1973) was the split fingered fastball. It seems that in the 1980's this pitch become the popular strike out pitch of its era. Roger Craig was the professed guru of this pitch. He developed it so journeyman pitchers could lengthen their career with a pitch that would drop off the table. Mike Scott of the Houston Astros was probably the most famous of Craig's disciples.

As the 80's became the 90's, Greg Maddux began to dominate baseball and his 2 seam fastball was the pitch of choice. It was literally the epiphany to some pitchers. Maddux seemed to be the first righty pitcher that would throw this 2 seamer in on lefty hitters. Conventional thinking said that you want to throw 4 seamers to lefties so the ball doesn't drift out over the plate. Maddux threw the 2 seamer where it would start at the lefties belt buckle and back up over the inside corner for a strike. This pitch singlehandedly caused "caught looking" strikeouts to rise exponentially in the early 90's and throughout the decade. Hitters would simply give up on the pitch and the ball would run back over the plate for strike 3.

For the early part of this decade, the vogue pitch was the straight change. When hitters became more rotational in their approach it made this great change of speed a much more effective pitch. The Trevor Hoffman's, Johan Santana's and Cole Hamels' have revolutionized this pitch to be a devastating equalizer to the amazing batspeed that is developed by today's premier players. It's effectiveness preys on a hitters aggression.

I'm sure there will be a new "vogue" pitch if there already isn't one. It seems to me that the "power sinker" may be the next pitch that everyone is trying to emulate. Fausto Carmona and Brandon Webb come to mind. We'll see if it can be taught or if Carmona and Webb may just be able to do something that is a little out of the ordinary with their arm action.

Whatever the case, baseball is a copycat sport, and if something is effective it will be become a widespread phenomenon.