North Shore Tavern Mound Visit: How new pitchers create fake heat with fastball

That last motion with his right leg is a fairly new development for him. It started in spring training 2022 because he didn't like how he was coming off the mound, so he and Padres pitching coordinator Matt Hancock started to experiment.

"I was struggling with feeling sticky, a little robotic," Wolf explained. "I wanted to open myself up and get a little more free."

The end result is a motion that could be in the early stages of a Johnny Cueto-like timing weapon. Wolf experiments in catch play with different delivery timings, though it hasn't made its way in a game yet. If that happens, it could be a huge way to keep hitters off balance.

The lower-half is eye-catching, but it's the upper-half that makes Wolf a pitcher to watch. Not only his delivery unique, but so is his release.

In his major-league debut on July 22, Wolf's fastball averaged 88.9 mph. Mix in a changeup and a lower spin slider (which does have decent horizontal and vertical movement) and that's roughly what you can expect from him on a normal night.

However, going by Baseball Savant's estimation, that fastball had a perceived velocity (or how fast a pitch is from the batter's point of view) of 91.2 mph. That's still hardly a blow-it-by-you pitch, but that's at least major-league viable, especially for a lefty starter.

How does Wolf do it? It comes down to the release point. Wolf has some sidearm action, so it's already coming out of the hand at a spot few lefties go to. He takes the unique arm angle and then releases the ball deeper on the way to the plate, creating a unique look to hitters.

The pitcher's mound may be 60 feet, six inches away from home plate, but the ball doesn't travel that far. It goes from whenever it leaves the pitcher's hand to the mound, and it's a much shorter trip for Wolf. The average pitcher in baseball this year gets 6.5 feet of extension on the release of a fastball. Wolf got 7.6 feet in his MLB start, which is the third-best of the 736 pitchers who have thrown a major-league fastball this year. Wolf doesn't light up radar guns, but since the ball travels about 13 inches less than the average pitcher, it gives the hitter less reaction time.

This is something Falter does well, also. Of those 736 pitchers, he ranks 12th in extension at 7.4 feet. His fastball sits 90.6 mph on the gun, but is 92.4 mph in perceived velocity.

For reference, here are the top 12 pitchers in terms of extension, what their actual fastball velocity is and its perceived velocity:

Across the board, it's a couple ticks of fastball velo. If you don't have it, fake it.

Since the advent of Statcast in 2015, there have been 539 left-handers who threw a fastball in a major-league game. Of those 539, Wolf has the most extension and Wolf the third-most. Now if you're looking for proof that a deeper extension means more success for lefties... that isn't the case. It doesn't hurt, but there just isn't a real correlation for lefties:

If you want to take it more anecdotally, there are plenty of left-handers with deep extensions who had good major-league careers despite not throwing particularly hard. Brent Suter has pitched eight years, seven of them with a sub-4.00 ERA. Jeff Francis carved himself out an 11-year major-league career. Colin Poche, Sean Manaea and Tim Hill have all been solid big-leaguers the past couple seasons, all of whom are lefties who sit in the low 90s. There are guys you can gravitate to in this mix and see a blueprint for Falter and Wolf.

Perceived velocity and extension points do not make the whole pitcher, but when you can deliver strikes to a hitter at a n arm angle that is different from the norm on the x-, y- and z-axis, it can be a weapon that can make up for a couple mph. These guys are going to need to have to fall into that crafty lefty label to be successful pitchers, but they've got a really good head start.