This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
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Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
I've read on wikipedia.org that he (will carrol) later realized that the shuuto and the "gyroball" are not the same pitch... however they continue to be associated thanks to this article
>>>>>
anyway, I am the kind of guy who just digs weird stuff like submarine pitchers, switch pitchers, left handed catchers and of course Brooks Kieschnick. I love Knuckles, I love Screwballs, I love Eephuses, Fadeaways, Spitballs.......
The semi-mythological "Japanese Gyroball" is like a holy grail.
Obviously, the name is fabricated. Shuuto isn't it either, so I hear and means "shootball" (so I hear) because it shoots away from or into the RHH from a RHP or something---
The only kind of hypothetical description I've been able to collect is that it is a "weird and singly unique pitch" which is hard to distinguish from a fastball and which is often mistaken for a two-seam fastball by the hitter/american fan> in other words, it breaks unexpectedly, but apparently, very unexpectedly and very, very late. On top of that is supposed to go "slower" than a fastball (or two-seamer). Slider speed, so I've heard, but thats pretty general, I've seen sliders at 76 and sliders at 91. Curves for instance, even if a guy throws 99 and the other throws 89, are likely to be in the mid seventies, unless they are those rare hard curves which are about slider speed. (These are MLB observations of course, but I'm pretty sure effective velocity is only a few MPH different even among the low grade pitchers between the leagues.)
The Gyroball is so special, whatever its name or exact movement, because is supposed to integrate new research and a completely different method of achieving movement. Its supposed to be called "double spin mechanics" of something, where your hips and shoulders/arms make two seperate but complementry motions. The Gyroball is supposedly an unexpected biproduct of this supercomputer Japanese underground baseball research.
If its true and actually functions as in legend,
it might have its own family of pitches, considering its completely different from the fastball (I think backspin?) family and the extended breaking ball family and changeup family (which also supposedly includes forkballs esp). I think the splitter and knuckleball pitches are the only really standalone pitches, and the Gyroball would be more fantastic than both of these combined, as it involves more than just a grip change.
Daisuke Matsuzaka is supposed to throw it and I watched some cheap internet video of him throwing something which had some odd movement which I couldn't really describe> it could have been a circle change or something like a boring/riding fastball, I'm not sure.
What I'd like to ask is
Is this a pitch which exists? If so, is it something worth getting excited about? What is its motion, speed?
What do Japanese fans, analysts or players call it?
Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.