I’m an economist by training, and a former writer by profession: in much the same way, I a sabermetrician by inclination, but I watch and write about baseball for the poetry. Which is a long-winded way of saying, here, please read this excerpt from Neyer and James on pitchers, because not only are they great at breaking down - and reconstituting - the data, they do so in a way that doesn’t dessicate baseball, but makes you love the game even more. The part from the excerpt about pitchers not knowing what made their fastballs rise or sink reminds me of Derek Lowe’s attitude to his sinker:
Pitchers universally seemed to regard the movement of their fastball not as a function of strategy, but as a gift from the heavens. “My fastball had a natural sink to it,” they would say, or “My fastball had a pretty good hop to it,” or “I had pretty good speed, but my fastball was straight, so I had to keep it away from the middle of the plate.”