Sweeper

The sweeper is a type of pitch that became all the rage in Major League Baseball early in the 2023 season. It is a type of slider (or curveball) whose break, instead of being downward, is largely horizontal. For a righthander, the break takes the sweeper towards the left-handed batter's box, and the reverse for a lefthander. The effect is achieved through a slightly different grip, compared to a regular slider. Among the pitchers using the pitch on a regular basis were such stalwarts as Shohei Ohtani, Nestor Cortes or Yu Darvish. The master of the pitch is considered to be Adam Ottavino, whose sweeper can break as many as 20 inches horizontally.

Old-timers were not convinced that the pitch was in fact a new one, and tended to dismiss it as a "flat curveball" that was simply a fad. Critics pointed out that the horizontal break meant that the pitch stayed in the strike zone longer than a typical breaking ball, making it easier to hit, and that a horizontal break on a level plane was a lot easier to adjust to than a vertical one. Not to mention the increased risk of the pitch resulting in a hit batsman.

Notwithstanding these critics, Statcast gave it some legitimacy as it began tracking it separately in its reports, whereas it would previously have been reported as either a slider or curveball.

Further Reading

• David Brandt (Associated Press): "What is a sweeper? A look at the pitch taking over MLB", Yahoo! News, April 25, 2023. [1]