Location is everything. Heart-of-zone pitches degrade +14.3m. Outside the zone: near zero. Batters learn where to swing, not how to hit.
Bad stuff gets punished 2–3x more. Terrible sliders: +13.7m. Elite sliders: +5.8m. Quality buys TTO resistance.
Sliders & changeups most vulnerable. SL +6.55m, CH +6.26m. Deception pitches lose their edge fastest.
Cutters & splitters most resilient. FC +2.31m, FS +1.62m. Pitches disguised as fastballs hold up longest.
More swings, fewer whiffs. Swing% +2pp, Whiff% −0.4pp, Chase% +1.2pp. Batters aren't guessing — they're recognizing.
Batter familiarity is almost entirely a zone recognition effect. By TTO 3, batters have calibrated which pitches to attack. Heart-of-zone pitches get crushed (+14.3m) while pitches outside the zone show no meaningful degradation.
This explains why breaking balls (+16.0m in the heart) suffer most — a curveball that catches the zone at TTO 3 is a hittable mistake the batter has learned to expect.
| Pitch Type | Terrible | Bad | Average | Good | Elite | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SL | +13.74m | +5.43m | +4.27m | +5.62m | +5.79m | 2.4x |
| SI | +13.30m | +2.03m | +3.92m | +4.19m | +5.51m | 2.4x |
| ST | +12.98m | +3.49m | +2.43m | +2.39m | −0.91m | 14.3x |
| FF | +9.68m | +4.69m | +4.11m | +0.45m | +2.36m | 4.1x |
| CH | +8.14m | +4.45m | +4.23m | +6.26m | +8.32m | 1.0x |
| CU | +5.74m | +7.78m | +4.80m | +5.98m | +3.97m | 1.4x |
| FC | +3.72m | −0.26m | −1.63m | +7.14m | +1.18m | — |