I am finally trying the Athletic trail subscription, after being pointed to this article about Danny Farquhar using analytics to teach Lucas Giolito. Basically Giolito’s fastball works well up in the strike zone:

“The fastball has a thing called carry,” Farquhar said. “My fastball has an average of 10 or 11 inches of carry — and this is what the Rays told me — the average big league fastball is nine inches of carry, so it’s a couple inches above that. Then you have the kill zone which is the one that gets murdered most of the time by the hitters, and that’s eight inches of carry. That’s the one where you don’t want to be no matter what the pitch is. That’s not to say that every pitch with that carry level is going to be hit over the fence, but a majority of them get hit for extra-base hits. And then you have the changeup, I think mine sits between three and four, so it comes out the same but there’s separation in the pitch.”

Being above or below the kill zone, where sinkers and offspeed pitches drop at a quicker rate than expected, is thus where effectiveness lies. Lucas Giolito’s four-seam fastball averaged around 10 inches of carry in his brief time in the majors last season, which by the Rays’ model, made it destined for success once he decided to elevate it, even though it only sat at 92 mph.

The concept was called the “rising fastball.” It didn’t rise, it just didn’t drop as quickly. The best example of this I know was Matt Cain through 2012. He produced high fly ball rates, but gave up few home runs on those fly balls. Fly balls that don’t leave the park tend to come down in gloves. Giolito is supposed to be a star, and if he can master the high fastball, he might be better than the White Sox imagined.

Hat tip, South Side Sox.