Sliders are all the rage nowadays. We have Rob Friedman to thank for that.

Friedman, more commonly known by his Twitter handle Pitching Ninja, has made a name for himself by posting GIFs of physics-defying pitches during the last couple of seasons. On his account, he’s highlighted certain hurlers that he’s found interesting.

Chaz Roe owes Friedman a bottle of wine.

Roe, a reliever for the Tampa Bay Rays, has found himself at the center of multiple viral tweets sent from Friedman’s account.

Chaz Roe is not your typical fireman. He’s a slider-heavy monster in the scientific experiment that is the Tampa Bay Rays relief corps. The righty has been worth 2.4 fWAR over the course of his career, posting a 3.85 ERA and 3.59 FIP.

Roe’s repertoire consists of a fastball, a slider, and a cutter; all three pitches have fared well in the majors. It’s his slider that sets him apart from other late-inning relievers.

Every slider is unique. Some bite. Others cut. Some others act like frisbees. As one of MMO’s resident Ultimate Frisbee players, I can confirm that Chaz Roe’s slider has frisbee-like qualities.

It’s movement is off-the-charts. Earlier this season, David Adler of MLB.com noted that one of Roe’s sliders moved two feet to the left. That’s almost humanly impossible.

A physics-breaking slider is nothing new for Roe; his name has routinely appeared atop slider movement leaderboards.

I spent a lot of time watching Chaz Roe’s breaker this quarantine (Don’t judge me). While scrolling through his GIFs, I started to think about what makes a slider successful. Do all successful sliders have fantastic movement qualities? Or is Roe just an anomaly?

Jacob deGood.

Jacob deGreat.

Jacob deGod.

Throw any and every moniker on Jacob deGrom; the point still stands he’s a God among mortals.

Right now, there’s no better pitcher on Planet Earth than deGrom. And yes, that includes Gerrit Cole.

DeGrom’s modest beginnings as a pitcher started midway through his tenure at Stetson University. He was initially recruited to play shortstop but fully transitioned to the mound by his junior year.  Once he committed to the mound full-time, he became a staple under Friday night lights.

The lanky right-hander was drafted by New York in the ninth round of the 2011 draft, but underwent Tommy John surgery shortly after. DeGrom gradually rose up the Mets’ system as a starting pitcher, while being more well-known for his flow than his pitching. Boy, that opinion quickly changed once he reached the majors.

Within a year, every Mets fan knew the name. Within two years, every baseball fan knew who the hairy, Queens-based right-hander was. Wins be damned, he certified himself as the best pitcher in baseball.

The average velocity on both his fastball and slider are tops in the majors. The velocity on his change-up ranks second, only behind the Rays’ Tyler Glasnow. His simple, repeatable motion generates elite extension, which has allowed him to develop into one of the most dominant pitchers of this generation. His raw stuff is very good.

And I haven’t even mentioned his back-to-back NL Cy Young Awards, his NL Rookie of the Year award, his three All-Star nominations, or his 42 career starts with double-digit strikeouts, a mark that ranks second all-time among pitchers with 175 starts.

And the scary part for the league is that he’s only getting started.

Former Mets analyst Andrew Perpetua posted this graphic on Twitter a couple of weeks ago.

Matt Kelly of MLB.com recently analyzed this phenomenon and concluded that few pitchers have approached the trajectory deGrom is on. Since 2008, only eight other pitchers have increased their velocity for four consecutive seasons. As deGrom’s growing older, he is adding on velocity at an unprecedented rate. Many pitchers lose effectiveness as they get older; deGrom’s an anomaly.

How is Jake doing this?

The scary thing is, no one really knows. DeGrom might be an exception to the rules of science; he is baseball’s answer to Black Holes. We don’t know how they exist; we just take them for granted.

For someone who didn’t start pitching until college, his arsenal is earth-shattering. It consists of a high-90s four-seam fastball, thrown at a 12:40 tilt with a 95% spin efficiency. He complements his fastball with a pair of devastating off-speed deliveries: a slider and a change-up. His slider is thrown at 11:20 tilt with a 50% spin efficiency while his changeup has a 2:20 tilt with a 92% spin efficiency.

As deGrom’s career has progressed, he’s relied more on his slider, with its usage rising from 16% in 2014 to 35% in 2020. As it’s velocity has increased, batters have been chasing it more often.

Even though the pitch had a pVAL of 21.8 last season, it’s still a work-in-progress. Tim Healey of Newsday described deGrom’s efforts in spring training to improve the pitch by adding a “backdoor” element to it. By backdooring the slider, he hoped that lefties would have a tougher time picking the ball up.

So far, it’s working. Through five starts in 2020, lefties have only mustered a .063 wOBA against the pitch.

It’s been deGrom’s main offspeed weapon this season. It’s a beautiful thing to watch every fifth day. Insanely fast and it tunnels extremely well with his fastball.

Good luck hitting this.

But his slider isn’t good for the reason you think.

It isn’t thrown with the demonic movement qualities that Chaz Roe’s slider is. If we glance at the slider movement leaderboards available on Baseball Savant, deGrom’s name is absent.

Then why is it so nasty?

Well, because it’s technically not a slider.

Ethan Moore of Prospects 365 posted this fascinating visual on Twitter a couple of weeks ago.

The pitch’s definition shouldn’t be ambiguous, but it is. It’s only characterized as a slider because deGrom says so and who are we to argue with the two-time reigning Cy Young Award winner. It has some qualities that profile as a slider, but others that designate it as a cutter.

If we look at its velocity, spin axis, and movement, it’s a cutter. DeGrom’s average velocity on the pitch ranks first among all sliders thrown in the majors this season. If we look at the spin axis of the pitch, it’s 11:20 tilt is consistent with other cutters.

Its vertical and horizontal movement values also correspond more with an MLB-caliber cutter. It drops less than the standard MLB slider but still has above-average run.

This Google Sheet has the vertical/horizontal movement values for every MLB pitcher who threw a cutter in 2020. DeGrom’s “slider” fits in much better in this categorization, compared to his ranking in the slider movement leaderboard.

Still, the spin efficiency on the pitch portrays it as a slider. As baseball analyst Jeremy Maschino pointed out on Twitter, deGrom’s spin efficiency on his slider is around 40%, a mark that’s very similar to other sliders.

DeGrom’s not the only Met with a slider that confuses pitch-tracking systems. When Dan Warthen gained the reins to the Mets’ pitchers, he taught his pupils a new slider, “The Warthen Slider”. Instead of a slider that runs, he emphasized his pitchers to throw one that rose more. The pitch has a high amount of gyro spin, which allows the pitch to have more natural cut.

“A Warthen Slider” has more velocity and less drop than the average slider, which allows it to tunnel better with a properly-designed fastball. It’s a pretty unique pitch with Warthen telling Fangraphs‘ Eno Sarris in 2015:

“It’s a different spin, it’s a different grip. The whole idea is not to use your wrist to try and spin the ball, you want your fingers to spin the ball. You’re thinking fastball and just kind of cutting through the ball,”

DeGrom’s embraced the pitch. He’s grown extremely comfortable with it, throwing it more often every year. It’s helped him transform from the ace of the Mets’ staff into one of the best pitchers in Mets history.

DeGrom’s parlayed his success with “The Warthen Slider” into two Cy Young Awards. Many think that Jacob deGrom has developed into one of the majors’ best pitchers thanks to his fastball and slider combo. But the question still remains: is that truly the case?

Previous iterations in this series:

Edwin Diaz

J.D. Davis

Jeff McNeil

Marcus Stroman

Noah Syndergaard

Michael Conforto

Seth Lugo

Wilson Ramos

Rick Porcello