It’s been a bit since I’ve continued the spin rate series and part of the reason for that is that the next couple of pitches I planned on looking at didn’t have clear connections between their spin rates and the quality of the pitch, at least going by what we can see on Baseball Savant. One of those pitches was today’s topic: the sinker.
In today’s era of high-octane fastballs, the sinker is becoming a pitch that’s seen less often. However, pitchers who can effectively pitch to contact using sinkers have a couple of advantages over pitchers who rely on swing-and-miss stuff.