There may not be an individual pitch that has garnered as much attention this year as Shohei Ohtani’s sweeper.
Of course, the sweeper is generally trendy, now that pitch classification systems have begun recognizing the breaking ball as its own distinct entity. But no one is using it quite like Ohtani. After making the sweeper his primary pitch for the first time last season—dethroning his four-seamer—he has leaned on it even more heavily this year. The sweeper now makes up 45% of Ohtani’s pitches. Yet it hasn’t lost any of its effectiveness. It features almost a foot and a half of horizontal break. The league batting average against it is a paltry .138. His sweeper bedevils hitters, awes broadcasters and regularly makes appearances in highlights.
And there’s one group paying extra close attention: Ohtani’s fellow Angels pitchers. Why? So they can throw it themselves.
“I have the opportunity to watch Shohei every day and how he utilizes it and how effective he is,” says Angels reliever Andrew Wantz. “So I thought, Why not adopt it?”
The Angels throw the sweeper more than all but three other teams. (The Twins, Yankees and Rays are the only clubs to use the pitch more.) A large part of that is directly from Ohtani: No one in baseball has thrown more sweepers than he has this year. But the rest is indirectly from his influence. His teammates know how great a resource they have in Ohtani. And several of them have made good use of it.
“All of us pitchers, we get to watch him every fifth day,” Wantz says. “How does he use it off other pitches and location-wise? I think it’s helped everyone.”
Angels reliever Tucker Davidson began developing his sweeper in the offseason. The team started him off by suggesting a few different grips, and with some experimentation, he reported to spring training with the one most similar to the grip he uses for his slider. Yet he kept tinkering and felt he needed an adjustment. The answer came from (who else?) Ohtani. But the two-way star wasn’t even in camp at the time. Instead, Davidson saw a clip of Ohtani showing his sweeper grip to fellow Team Japan pitcher Yu Darvish during the World Baseball Classic. It clicked: That was the adjustment Davidson wanted to make.
“I watched that probably a hundred times,” Davidson says. “Just feeling it in my hand and thinking, O.K., that’s what I’m trying to accomplish there. And from there, it was just kind of muscle memory, and I was able to start incorporating it.”
Davidson’s sweeper grip is now modeled after Ohtani’s. He uses the pitch sparingly—8.5% of his arsenal—but has gotten a higher whiff rate with it than any of his other pitches.
“It’s just kind of mixing and matching,” Davidson says. “You might not throw it more than 5% of the time, but then one hitter, you throw it three times—that’s a big out right there.”
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Wantz, meanwhile, ditched his slider and began throwing a sweeper last year. The righty spent lots of time with team staff working to design the pitch so that it tunnels with his fastball—meaning that the two look identical to hitters for as long as possible—and is now reaping the benefits. In Wantz’s third year with the Angels, he’s enjoying a breakout season with a 2.75 ERA, standing out as the most reliable option in this bullpen. That’s due in large part to the sweeper: Wantz now throws it 28% of the time, more than any of his other secondary pitches, and has gotten even more horizontal break on it this year. But for all the tools and concepts Wantz credits for helping him understand his sweeper (TrackMan, pitch tunneling, Hawk-Eye, seam-shifted wake), the most influential may have been the guy across the clubhouse. Ohtani was a big part of his inspiration for developing the pitch in the first place—and a resource ever since.
“I’ve asked him, like, Hey, how do you hold it?” Wantz says. “Where’s your thumb at? Where’s your fingers at? What’s your thought process? He’s definitely helped me along the way.”
And if they want another perspective on the pitch? The Angels have another generational talent around to ask, and he’s weighed in, too.
“We’re also fortunate enough to have Mike Trout on the team, you know, one of the best hitters in the history of baseball, and I’ve asked him, too,” Wantz says. “What do you have on the sweeper? He says it’s the hardest pitch to hit, just because of the movement.”
