PHOENIX -- Brian Bannister, the lauded new White Sox senior advisor to pitching, promised a lot of golf metaphors. But he quickly moved on to a more affordable instrument to explain how every pitcher has their own ideal movement path.
"Imagine an invisible hula hoop around a player," Bannister said to begin his explanation of planar rotation. "Some are more up and down, north-south. Some are more side-to-side, east-west. It's due to a pitcher's knees, hips, spine, shoulder construction. It's different for everybody.
"My goal for the pitchers is to get them on that plane of rotation where they have the highest velocity, maximum command, their pitches interact with each other visually really, really well; they tunnel, they have this visual deception. Because when you see a player finally moving that plane of rotation that's unique to him, pitching feels a lot easier."
Bannister views the opening weeks of spring as vital for his work. It's the only time where he can work with pitchers who are built up from their offseason throwing, and can try (and even fail) to incorporate new adjustments without the anxiety of games.
The premise that Bannister was raising to his old pupil Michael Kopech in a recent bullpen session was that he had drifted from his ideal plane of rotation; or rather, had fallen out of line with his invisible hula hoop. That, and nagging knee problems, have conspired to make pitching much harder than it ever looked for the 27-year-old Kopech earlier in his career.
With a high-velocity, high-spin (over 2,500 RPM on average) four-seam fastball, Kopech has generally been in pursuit of making sure his backspun heater's vertical action plays as true as possible. But Bannister was encouraging him to not resist the natural rotation in his delivery and finish his throwing motion across his body, believing it would curb the number of high misses to his arm side that contributed to Kopech pacing MLB in walks last year. To add insult to injury, that inconsistent execution led to less spin efficiency and effectiveness in Kopech's heater in 2023.
"The past couple of years I've tried to get on top of the ball and tried to stay as directly behind it and upright as much as possible, and that's kind of created a resistance to how my body is supposed to move," Kopech said. "He's saying I already get to that spot with my hand, and I create that natural movement pattern with the ball, so just allow my body to move the way it's supposed to work."
If Erick Fedde's wayward journey to the White Sox tells the story of a pitcher who had to be non-tendered and exiled to South Korea before he was free to embrace that he naturally works better more east-west across the strike zone, Kopech could be a subtler but similar tale. His spinny four-seamer suggests someone who should spot their fastball at the top of the zone and work vertically off of it, but there's still room to get contorted within that pursuit.
"Some pitchers are chasing individual metrics in the pitch data or have a concept that one of their buddies uses, or somebody at a facility they worked out at the offseason told them to chase and they just get off," Bannister said. "The pitches start popping up out of his hand or his walk rate starts going up, or he never feels like he can really step on the gas with his delivery because he doesn't feel like the release point is there consistently."
"When you're thinking linear like to the plate, a lot of times guys are getting off their plane of rotation, and you see one secondary pitch, like his slider last year, struggle with command or miss up arm side, and fail to have a production that you did a couple years ago like in 2021. You don't always know where and when they got off track, but just explaining a little concept like that to them and giving them confidence to go, 'This is OK, this is actually the superior way to do it.' And you see that smile when they start to feel good, and they start to execute and pitching feels better. An emotional part goes hand in hand with the physical part, and you want to work both sides equally."
Bannister's work this spring involves a lot of reviewing a lot of video of veteran pitchers when they were at their best, and getting them to embrace past versions of themselves. Kopech doesn't feel he's quite to the point of just chasing his 2021 self, feeling there were bad mechanical habits present even that year that can still be ironed out. And he wasn't actually that happy with his first bullpen, where his control was still scattershot and Bannister's suggestions were brand new.
But now he believes there's a happy medium he can find this spring.
"It's a tough thing to balance because we have access to all these biomechanics and optimal positions that we can get into," Kopech said. "This is the optimal position to get into but maybe I don't get there well. What is the most optimal position for my body type? It's a tough thing to tinker with, but that's the art of this game."
Lightning Round(-Up)
Some evaluators regard it as a plus offering, but prospect Nick Nastrini doesn't feel that his changeup needs to be his best pitch, or even super effective. It just always needs to be there, commanded well enough to be part of what hitters have to consider.
"My fastball is straight, it rides," Nastrini said. "My two breaking balls go left. Having something that goes to the right, that goes into right-handed hitters opens up a completely different side of the plate that I wasn't able to use before. Just having the ability to use that is a game-changer. Without it, righties are leaning over the plate or lefties are pulling off and sitting down and they don't have to cover the other half of the plate."
After a rough debut at Double-A last year, expect more changeups from right-hander Jonathan Cannon, who needed an off-speed pitch that moved to his arm side to protect his sinker. Like Nastrini and Dylan Cease, Cannon trained at Maven Baseball in Atlanta, where he watched high-speed video of his pronation and honed in on a release that will produce the changeup movement he's looking for. Unlike some pitchers who don't want to be overloaded with data, pouring through metrics and video suits Cannon fine.
"I mean, I threw six pitches. I have all sorts of ideas," Cannon quipped.
Maybe it won't be a six-pitch mix anymore. Rather than a slider and curveball, which rarely were clicking at the same time, Cannon is combining them into a power curve that he's palpably excited about as the swing-and-miss breaking ball his arsenal has lacked. The tall right-hander also believes he's added more depth to his trusty 88-90 mph cutter that can help it play off his sinker while darting to the glove side.
"This is the best arsenal that I've had."
Maybe you have already deduced this from the reported trade packages for Dylan Cease, but Chris Getz is dutifully mentioning that the White Sox want their return to be able to help the major league team quickly.
"The goal with any move we've made this past offseason but also going forward is can it help our major league club now and can it help for future years," Getz said.
Indications are that the White Sox would like the package to be composed of players at Double-A or higher, which offers another variable for contending teams to consider, since their natural preference would be to hold onto to players with the potential to help them in 2024.
