The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players

by Ben Lindbergh

There’s another compelling case for promoting so-called secondary stuff. Recent research has shown that contrary to long-held beliefs about breaking balls inflicting the most stress on pitchers’ arms, fastballs actually do the most damage. “When you see there’s not a spike in injuries with guys throwing more secondary pitches—and in fact it might even be the opposite—it opens up this whole world of opportunities that was never there before, because people were afraid,” Bannister says. The unfounded bias against breaking balls, he adds, “prevented thousands of pitchers from pitching at a higher level.” One wonders how many Hill-like soft tossers fell by the wayside before teams had the tools to find them and the willingness to let them work in the ways that would benefit them the most. Without those things, Hill says, “you’ll never know the potential of the player.”