Over at the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog there’s a very interesting post showing “heat maps” for Mariano Rivera’s pitches, which are unique in that they’re rarely thrown over the middle of the plate. That may sound obvious, but as you’ll see if you click the link Rivera is actually an oddity compared to MLB pitchers as a whole and some of the league’s elite closers.
Replacement Level Yankees Weblog: Mariano Rivera’s pitch frequency
Rivera essentially throws one pitch and he commands it so well that he’s perhaps the only pitcher who can truly live on the edges of the strike zone while also walking fewer than two batters per nine innings. Just when you think we’ve run out of ways to show how amazing Rivera is, stuff like the heat maps comes along to shine a new light on his unique greatness.
