Start with the population of the entire world. Some fraction of those people are familiar with the game of baseball. Some fraction of those people are familiar with Major League Baseball. Some fraction of those people are familiar with the Seattle Mariners. Some fraction of those people have heard of Carter Capps. Some fraction of those people have an idea of what Carter Capps throws. Some fraction of those people know that Carter Capps has a changeup. You all now belong to that group, as I am telling you that Carter Capps throws a changeup, in addition to his fastball and his breaking ball. His fastball gets almost all of the pub and his breaking ball gets what pub is left over, but the changeup is there, too, hardly getting noticed, but still existing, like every teenage protagonist in a movie about high school.
Maybe you haven't noticed Capps' changeup over the course of his appearances, but he has thrown it. In fact, here's Capps on Capps, and on pitching in general:
"I was trying to work on it," the 22-year-old said of his curve. "It felt good. I was throwing it for strikes for the most part and getting it down in the zone, so I was happy with it. It makes your fastball faster, no matter how hard you throw. And if you mix the changeup in there, it just opens up a doorway to other things."
Sounds perfectly sensible. Sounds like a guy who uses all three of his pitches. As a Mariner, Capps has thrown 224 pitches. 187 of those have been fastballs. 33 of those have been curveballs. Just four of those have been changeups. If you haven't noticed Capps' changeup, it's because he's thrown them less than two percent of the time. It's a pitch in progress, as Capps knows what he's good at and is having to fight the urge to just throw gas over and over and over.
Capps has thrown his four changeups over three appearances, which have also been his three appearances one might call long relief. All four have been thrown to left-handed hitters, three in 0-and-1 counts and one in an 0-and-2 count. The first big-league changeup Capps ever threw was in an 0-and-2 count against Omar Quintanilla. It was preceded by a mound conference. Three of the changeups have been balls, and one was fouled off. The one that was fouled off would've been a ball.
I'm not going anywhere with this, I promise you. I just wanted to see if Capps had thrown changeups, and once I confirmed that he had, I made a few .gifs because I don't know what else to do with myself. Below you will find .gifs of the four changeups Capps has thrown in the majors so far. They're not here for analysis -- they're just here to be looked at, if you want to look at them. If you're curious, they've measured 88-91 miles per hour. It'll be tricky for Capps to develop a consistent and effective changeup from that arm angle but it'll be invaluable if he wants to succeed against left-handed hitters. If Capps ever does develop a consistent and effective changeup, we'll be able to reflect on this post and see where everything started, even though technically everything started way before Capps ever showed up in the bigs. Here are Capps' first changeups. I'll be interested in seeing Capps' changeup a year from now, and three years from now.
