Astros Pitchers Spin Changes (Bauer Units) in Most Recent Appearances Compares to Year Average

With the “sticky stuff” enforcement now in effect, as well as rumored to be coming for a few weeks, here’s the difference in spin rate for the Astros pitchers. Note that it’s just one game and there could be a number of contributing factors. Also note that spin increases with velocity, so I’ll be looking at “Bauer Units”; or RPM/velocity. The 4 seam fastball is the bellwether pitch for spin rate changes, so that is the pitch I’ll be looking at.

For comparison, Gerrit Cole’s average 4 seam fastball last game was 97.6 mph, 0.2 mph faster than his average of 97.4 mph. But his 4SFB spin rate dropped from his by 229 rpm from his average of 2518 to 2289. Or a significant drop of 2.4 Bauer units. There have been other big notable drops I spin on pitchers last starts. For example, some notable drops over the last couple days:

Scherzer -1.53 Bauer Units (-122 rpm)
Giolito -2.1 Bauer Units (-187 rpm)
Richard Rodriguez -2.65 Bauer Units (-239 rpm)
Kitteredge -3.25 Bauer Units (-312 rpm)
Stroman -1.43 Bauer Units (-118 rpm)
Lyles -2.39 Bauer Units (-239 rpm)
Kershaw -1.21 Bauer Units (-99 rpm)
Freeland -1.82 Bauer Units (-157 rpm)
Montas -1.48 Bauer Units (-147 rpm)
Darvish -1.52 Bauer Units (-101 rpm)

And for our guys:

Greinke -0.30 Bauer Units (-34 rpm)
Pressly +0.22 Bauer Units (-14 rpm)
Odorizzi -0.38 Bauer Units (-12 rpm)
Javier -0.33 Bauer Units (+31 rpm) *his velocity was 2.5 mph higher than average
Bielak -0.17 Bauer Units (-11 rpm)
McCullers +0.13 Bauer Units (+33 rpm) *sinker used instead of 4SFB
Taylor +0.69 Bauer Units (+45 rpm)
Valdez +0.13 Bauer Units (+24 rpm) * sinker used instead of 4SFB
Stanek -0.43 Bauer Units (-24 rpm)
Garcia +0.33 Bauer Units (+57 rpm)
Urquidy -0.06 Bauer Units (-3 rpm)

What does this all mean?

Again, it’s a small sample size, but the main takeaway would be that none of our pitchers appear to have suffered big drops in spin rate based on new enforcement measures as of yet.