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Three of the most valuable curveballs in the NL will be on display this weekend

While researching Hayden Birdsong’s Statcast figures to test a hypothesis that he’d be better served switching from a four-seam fastball to a sinker (more on that later), I stumbled across a happy bit of coincidence. Earlier today, Maria Guardado, the San Francisco Giants beat writer for MLB.com, posted the pitching probables for this weekend’s season finale against the St. Louis Cardinals:

Giants probables for their final 2024 series against the Cardinals:

FRI: RHP Landen Roupp
SAT: LHP Blake Snell
SUN: RHP Hayden Birdsong— Maria I. Guardado (@mi_guardado) September 26, 2024

The coincidence is that I had this in mind while looking up Birdsong’s figures and discovered that these three pitchers happen to have three of the top 25 curveballs — according to Run Value — in Major League Baseball.