Ranking MLB's 10 Most Devastating Pitches

Pitching is an art form, and baseball fans have been treated to museum-quality work in the first half of 2013. With Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright in the prime of their careers, and the emergence of young arms like Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez, baseball's golden age of pitching is here to stay.

But who has the best pitch in Major League Baseball?

Yu Darvish has five filthy pitches in his arsenal. Wainwright and Kershaw have two of the best curveballs the game has ever seen. And don't forget Mariano Rivera, who at age 43 is still mowing down the competition with his nasty cutter.

It's hard to quantify exactly what makes one pitch better than another. Fangraphs.com has done a great job with Pitch Value and PITCHf/x, but advanced metrics can only go so far. At some point it comes down to watching the games and studying what the league's best pitchers are doing that others aren't.

Based on a combination of metrics and scouting, here are the 10 most devastating pitches in Major League Baseball today.

Honorable Mentions

Robert Coello—Forkball

If this list had been made in late May, Robert Coello would have made the top ten.

It had been years since major league hitters had seen a forkball, but that's exactly what they got from Coello early this year. His "mystery pitch" had no rotation, coming out of his hands like a knuckleball, fooling the hitter, the catcher and even the umpire, as you can see in the above clip.

Unfortunately his ERA ballooned from 0.68 on June 4 to 4.30 on June 9 before being placed on the disabled list two days later.

Max Scherzer—Everything

Max Scherzer is an astounding 13-0 this season, making it very difficult to leave him off this list. However, none of his pitches stand out above the rest. His fastball clocks in at about 93 mph, and he throws a good slider and a very average curveball.

What makes Scherzer so good isn't one overpowering pitch, it's his ability to change speed and location effectively. He may not be the best pitcher in the league, but he has gotten the job done for the Tigers every time he's been asked so far in 2013.

Cliff Lee—Fastball

According to Fangraphs, Cliff Lee has saved more runs with his fastball than any pitcher not named Matt Harvey.  

But Lee's fastball only averages 91 mph. Like Scherzer, Lee's effectiveness is based around setting hitters up with an array of pitches. By also throwing a cutter, slider, curveball and changeup, Lee gets hitters out not because of his fastball, but because he knows when to throw it. 

10. Cole Hamels: Changeup

The best pitchers in baseball are the ones who can keep a hitter off-balance. The best way to do that is with a good changeup.

No one has a better changeup than Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Hamels' changeup has a pitch value of 14.6, highest of any major league changeup according to Fangraphs.

What makes the pitch so effective is the movement. Hamels' changeup starts on the same plane as his fastball before diving toward the dirt. As Gary Matthews says in this clip, "it just disappears."

Hamels gets hitters to swing at pitches outside the zone 36.4% of the time, and it's all because of his late-breaking changeup. 

The problem for Hamels this year has been locating his fastball.  He has given up 10.6 more runs with his fastball than the average pitcher.

But despite his 4.17 ERA, his changeup is still one of the best pitches in baseball.

 

9. Jeff Locke: 2-Seam Fastball

One of the most under-appreciated pitches in baseball, the two-seam fastball can be devastating to hitters, and no one has used it more effectively this season than Pirates hurler Jeff Locke.

Locke's two-seamer tops out at about 92 mph, but with the movement he gets on it (Fangraphs says it breaks about seven inches), that's fast enough to confuse even the best hitters in the game.

On May 25, Locke put on a show in Milwaukee, striking out seven hitters in six shutout innings, many of them with a simple two-seam fastball.

As you can see in the video, most of his pitches are coming in under 90 mph, but because he is able to locate it effectively with an incredible amount of movement, the velocity doesn't matter.

8. Aroldis Chapman: Slider

A lot has been said about Aroldis Chapman's fastball, but his slider is actually his most effective pitch. According to FanGraphs, Chapman's slider has a pitch value of 6.40 this season, compared to just 0.40 for his fastball.

As his fastball velocity decreases—his average fastball has gone from 99.6 mph in 2010 to 97.6 in 2013—the Cincinnati Reds fireballer has to rely more and more on his slider.  

Houston's Derek Dietrich can tell you how that's working out.

At 87 mph, the pitch reaches home plate quicker than some fastballs and it has an incredible amount of movement as it breaks across the entire length of the plate.

Unlike his first few seasons in the league, Chapman now uses his fastball more as a setup pitch, while pulling out a hard slider when he needs an out. 

7. Travis Wood: Cutter

Most cutters look just like a fastball, then break left or right along the horizontal axis. Travis Wood's is not like most cutters. 

Wood has been one of the very few bright spots for an otherwise miserable Chicago Cubs franchise, and his success starts and ends with this pitch.

Almost all of the break on Wood's cutter is downward, a product of his overhand delivery. As the pitch zips in at about 88 mph, it dives more than eight inches, according to Fangraphs.

It's this extreme drop that keeps hitters off balance. It's the reason opponents are hitting just .170 off the pitch this season.

It is easy to see just how difficult it is to pick up, especially after Wood sets it up with a fastball which routinely reaches 91-93 mph.

6. Jose Fernandez: Curveball

One of the very few bright spots for this year's Miami Marlins has been the pitching of Jose Fernandez. The rookie sensation brings the heat every time he takes the mound, firing fastballs at more than 95 mph. 

But Fernandez's bread and butter is his curveball.

According to Fangraphs, opponents are hitting a meager .130 against his hook this season, and he has recorded 56 strikeouts with the pitch so far.

After giving hitters a healthy dose of heat, dropping in a slow hook is almost unfair.

Fernandez showed his skills as early as his first start this season, when he mowed through the Mets to the tune of eight strikeouts in just five innings.

His curveball may not be the best in the game, but it's darn close.

5. Adam Wainwright: Curveball

Statistically speaking, no one has thrown a more effective curveball this year than Adam Wainwright. According to Fangraphs, Wainwright's curve has a Pitch Value of 12.1, more than four points higher than Clayton Kershaw (more on him later). 

The Cardinals ace has used his curveball to pitch his way to a 12-5 record in the first half. 

Wainwright's curveball truly is a thing of beauty, unless you are an opposing hitter. Coming in at 74 mph, his curve falls off the table with nearly 10 inches of vertical break. After a 91 mph fastball, that's almost unhittable.

As you can see in the video above, the ball not only breaks vertically, but also laterally. What's more impressive, Wainwright starts his windup from the extreme left side of the rubber. To right-handed batters, this makes the pitch look like it is coming right at them, which is what enables Wainwright to get so many of them to watch it fall in for strikes without a swing. 

4. Matt Harvey: Fastball

With a stellar 2.35 ERA so far this season, Matt Harvey has emerged as one of the league's top young pitchers. He possesses four really good pitches, but no one has had a better fastball in the majors this year than the New York Mets ace.

Harvey's fastball has a Pitch Value of 23.8, higher than any other pitch in the big leagues according to Fangraphs.  

Capable of throwing it upwards of 98 mph, Harvey's fastball generally clocks in at round 95. Though he's not the hardest thrower, he might be the most accurate. He rarely misses his target as he mows hitters down with the pitch.

Just watch the video to see how silly Harvey can make hitters look with a simple fastball. 

3. Clayton Kershaw: Curveball

The L.A. Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw is undeniably one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball and has been for several seasons. One of the reasons why is that he compliments his 93 mph fastball with a devastating curveball which floats in at 20 mph less.

The pitch he throws at the :24 mark of the above video shows just how nasty that curveball can be. It starts up around the letters before breaking below the knees, forcing an awkward swing that has no chance of making contact.

What makes Kershaw's curveball and all of his other pitches so good is his incredible mechanics. His delivery is consistent on every pitch. 

2. Yu Darvish: Slider

Yu Darvish has a full arsenal of nasty pitches, but his slider is easily his best.

FanGraphs gives Darvish's slider a 19.6 Pitch Value, more than five points higher than the second-highest rated slider in the league. 

The video above shows exactly why it's so nasty. In this example, Darvish's slider starts right over the heart of the plate before finishing two inches off the outside corner, well out of the reach of the Astros' Chris Carter.

Fangraphs lists the average horizontal break of Darvish's slider at nine inches, more than half the width of home plate. 

The greatest strikeout pitcher of all time has been singing the praises of Darvish's slider this year. Texas Rangers CEO Nolan Ryan told the Dallas Morning News that Darvish's slider in the best in all of baseball.

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"And I don’t know if I’d call them his secondary pitches because I really think his slider is the best slider in baseball."

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But what makes Darvish so good is that he can he can throw so many pitches for strikes that he hitters have no idea what's coming.

1. Mariano Rivera: Cutter

Nothing can be said about Mariano Rivera's cutter that hasn't been said before. He throws it an astounding 86.9% of the time, according to Fangraphs. Hitters know it's coming and still can't hit it. It's because of this pitch that the 43-year-old has an incredible 1.89 ERA in 37 appearances this year.

What makes the pitch so effective is its velocity. Though Rivera doesn't throw as hard as he did in his prime, the Yankees legend still hurls his cutter at over 90 mph on a consistent basis.

Out of Rivera's hands, his fastball and cutter look the same. It's only as the ball nears the plate that his cutter moves, making it nearly impossible for hitters to make good contact. 

In the above clip, John Brenkus of ESPN's Sports Science explains what truly makes the pitch so nasty.

Rivera's cutter is still the best pitch in Major League Baseball today, and it has to be considered among the best single pitches in the sport's storied history.