O's Sig Mejdal on how spin rates impact roster, potential additions

So after spending some time researching and learning about spin rates and active spin or spin efficiency for Orioles pitchers, it was probably time to turn to a real expert for more.

I went to the top and got an interview with Sig Mejdal, the Orioles' vice president and assistant general manager, analytics.

"Sig Mejdal is one of the most experienced and accomplished analysts working in baseball today," O's executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said when he hired him not long after his own hiring in November 2018. "To have him join our Orioles organization is a major moment for this franchise, and I look forward to him charting the course for all of our forthcoming efforts in the analytics space."

I had recently written this and this to take a look at spin rates and what we should know about the data.

Mejdal worked with Elias both in St. Louis and Houston and the duo come together here in Baltimore to lead the O's rebuilding efforts. And in Mejdal's case, to bring the Orioles up to speed with data, technology and analytics.

And recently he helped bring me further up to speed with this aspect of pitching and pitching performance. We recorded a Zoom interview that you can watch at the end of this entry. Here are a few topics we covered.

Can pitchers improve their spin rates and on-field performance using this data?

"Yeah, for sure," Mejdal said. "Originally, it was more of an evaluative tool. But I think as you learn more about it and as your pitching coaches have more and more experience with it and then develop anecdotes of what they can improve, it eventually turned into a tool for not only evaluating pitchers but for giving feedback towards their improvement.

"Thank goodness we got Chris Holt and the pitching coaches that he brought in. That is so much of their life. Every day, having a plan for the pitchers how they can get a little bit better, and the feedback from TrackMan is paramount in that to give them sort of the road map to being a little bit better every day and getting major league hitters out."

One way to use the data is to help pitchers improve their overall pitch mix.

"There have probably been quite a few stories out there of pitchers when they go from one organization to another and they take a step up," Mejdal said. "People reverse engineer what they've changed. And you can see sometimes it is throwing what they thought was a second or third-best pitch a lot more, to a specific handedness. Or maybe to a different location. A lot of that comes from analytics and a bigger-picture look at what has succeeded for this pitcher."

Much of this information and team findings is proprietary to clubs and they won't be discussing it publicly.

"We are not in the research world, where you publish your findings and you get kudos from others. We've got to keep it to ourselves," said Mejdal.

We should always keep in mind that spin rate and efficiency are just two data points. Important yes, but not the sole reason that someone can properly execute a pitch.

"I think we are all searching for that simple thing where more is better and that's the end of the story," he said. "The pitches and what makes a successful pitch, there is just so much to it. There is the release point, the extension, sidearm, submarine. There is the interaction with velocity. There is spin efficiency, which relates how much of the total spin goes to movement. But even after that there is how much of the movement is horizontal. How much is vertical. The handedness of the hitter and the location of the pitch. There are very few things in which - maybe other than velocity - where more is better and that's the end of the story."

Getting quality data and findings from the analyst to the pitcher and then to the mound in a game is a challenging process.

"I think that is the biggest hurdle," Mejdal stated. "The work the analysts do is of no use if it doesn't get implemented. And it's not going to get implemented without a coach that understands it and believes in it. And if it's new, that is pretty much willing to change to some degree what he's done. And to a similar degree, it's not going to get used if the hitter or pitcher has no interest in it. So, changing that culture in order to take advantage of the analytics findings is a difficult thing.

"But Mike Elias, since he came here Day One, the message has been clear. And the personnel - coaches, scouts, analysts - that he's brought in, we're all on the same page. We are trying to use all the information available to make these players as good as we can, as quickly as we can."

Spin-rate data can be vital when looking at potential acquisitions or additions.

"Very important. We feel naked if we are drafting a player and we have no TrackMan on him. I think it's like more than 96 percent of the drafted players last year, there was TrackMan data. But there are still sometimes Division II guys, or junior college or high school guys, that we don't have that data on. It feels like we are sort of in the dark ages when that happens. It's changing and it's changing quickly. I would bet soon it will be 100.0 percent of the drafted amateur players we have this type of information on," Mejdal added.

Check out our entire Zoom interview here.