The Best Sliders in the game start out as a strike and end up a ball.

In the split second that it takes for a Hitter to recognize that a pitch is over the middle of the plate, Their eyes light up and they are ready to jump out of their shoes to swing at the pitch. When the pitch has the ability to quickly take a sharp, downward turn, it’s a very abrupt period of chaos for the hitter. This makes it all the more fun to ruin the day of hitters. That is why the best Sliders in the game start out a strike and end up a ball. The deception and trickery of the Slider baits hitters into thinking they are getting a fastball.

 

When the realization quickly kicks in for the hitter, there is clearly…nothing that they can do.  This goes without saying that the results are very favorable to the pitchers. Hitters want fastballs.  They want fastballs that are straight and mislocated by the pitcher….preferable up and over the plate.  

However, the hitter has the approach of a spoiled child. They get no say in what comes to them.  They have to react to the velocity, the location, and the movement of each pitch.  Sometimes they guess right or somehow get lucky.  Yet, the best ones still fail 70% of the time….this is not a miscalculation.  It’s Reality. The BestSliders in the Game

Because hitters want fastballs, they don’t want to get beat by the fastball.  Which means that they may even have to cheat to get to it.  So this makes change of speed even harder for the the hitter to protect against.  This is where the Slider that starts out as a strike and then bolts out of the zone is a Top Tier Money Pitch.

The Best Sliders in the Game….
How The Hitter Sees It

The hitter thinks he sees a fastball, reacts to hit the fastball until he has another thing coming.

The deception of the Slider proves beneficial both when the pitcher is behind in the count as the hitter is assuming to get a fastball and ahead in the count when the hitter is extremely vulnerable with 2 strikes. 

Even Better, there are some super examples of this deception for lefties like Randy Johnson, Andrew Miller, Chris Sale among others.  These are tall lefties with long arms who throw low ¾.   Because of their physical build and arm angle, their Sliders start off the plate, arm side, break entirely down and across the zone and end up in the dirt.   It doesn’t matter if they are throwing this to a righty or a lefty hitter.  When you have to ability to eliminate matchups from the opposing line up, your Slider is downright DOMINANT!!!

Now the Best Back Door Sliders go the opposite route, however, we will get to that in the next article.

 

The Best Sliders in the Game…
What it Forces the Hitter to Do

 

When hitters are tired of looking bad against the Slider, they will lay off of it, and hope that it is called a ball. Many times it is.  When you throw the Slider the correct way, it is rarely a called strike.  Which is fine.  The pitch is designed to make the hitter chase.  However, let’s use this as a tactic to keep the upper hand over hitters, in the psychological battle, which should always belong to the pitcher.

When the hitter is take mode from HOPE that it will be a ball, or fear of increased embarrassment at the hand of the Slider, who is to say that he still has enough aggressiveness to pull the trigger on a Fastball???

 

 

 

Keep Dominating!!!!

 

 

 

The Best Sliders in the Game