To some within the Yankees, it was just a tweaked slider. Some viewed it as a sweeping slider. At one point, the organization dubbed it a “whirly,” acknowledging it was a new offering altogether.
The new pitch — which is not really a new pitch — has officially made its way into the major league lexicon and has gone mainstream as a sweeper.
This season, MLB’s Statcast has taken a cult pitch and introduced it to the wider baseball world, now showing up on scoreboards, stat websites and TV broadcasts with its own distinct classification.
Last season, the Yankees’ Clay Holmes threw two different forms of breaking pitches, one with more horizontal movement (the sweeper) and one with more depth (the slider). He has not changed his arsenal this year, but according to the pitch logs, he now has a new offering.
