Under The Knife 9/17/25

Wicked Googlies and Dibbly-Dobblies

For years, I lived in an Indianapolis neighborhood where cricket reigned because of the Indian population. Parks filled with the crisp crack of leather on willow, kids bowling off improvised run-ups, dads arguing leg-before calls. I tried to learn, asked questions, squinted at YouTube explainers. Still, cricket felt (and feels) opaque, but one thing was immediately obvious: cricket has a better vocabulary than baseball. Not more exciting - just more precise.

In baseball, pitch names are often misleading. A “curveball” doesn’t always curve; it drops. A “sinker” isn’t purely sinking; it’s tailing arm-side. A “cutter” sounds surgical but barely cuts. Ask a coach about a pitch’s movement and you’ll get hand gestures, not terminology. Ask a cricket player and you’ll get “off-spin,” “leg break,” “googly,” “doosra,” “carrom ball” - all words that carry spin axis, wrist position, and deception in just a syllable or two. For now, ignore that the ball bounces as well.

That vocabulary, oddly enough, may be more useful now than ever—because for the first time in baseball history, we actually have the tools to see spin in high fidelity. Hawk-Eye, Statcast, and pitch modeling can measure not just velocity and movement, but seam orientation, spin efficiency, and gyro angle. Yet, we still describe pitches like it’s 1932. I’ve tried for years to do this, even before I did a whole chapter in The Science of Baseball on it.

Take Devin Williams’ “Airbender”. It’s a vicious changeup thrown with a circle change grip, pronated hard, creating heavy arm-side tail and vertical drop. The cricket analogy? It’s something like a “leg-side googly”(!!), an off-speed delivery that spins opposite its apparent direction, crossing the batter up. That comparison isn’t just poetic. It hints at something baseball lacks: a consistent taxonomy of spin deception.

In cricket, spin types are categorized primarily by axis and intention. An “off-spinner” is like a right-handed pitcher throwing a slider. A “leg spinner” maps roughly to a sweeping curveball or big slurve. The “googly” (or “wrong’un”) is a leg break delivered with off-spin action. It’s essentially the cricketing version of tunneling, where grip and motion disguise spin direction. Then there’s the “doosra,” which mimics a fastball’s arm action but breaks away late, an idea similar to the modern sweeper in baseball: side-spinning, horizontally breaking, designed to buck expectations.

By translating these cricket terms into baseball’s emerging spin database, we might get a more unified model of movement. Instead of vague pitch labels, we could define pitches by spin axis (like cricket does), seam orientation (lift vs drift), and deception vector. A curveball with top-down action could be an “over-breaker.” A sweeper might be a “side-cutter.” We might just adopt “leg break” and “off-cutter” outright.

Pitching coaches and data analysts are already building libraries of spin mirroring, tunneling, and seam-shifted wake. However, they’re doing it without a well-defined and agreed-upon language. Cricket has had that language for over a century, because in cricket, what a ball does is the whole game. In baseball, it’s a detail behind 100 mph velocity and things we just discovered a few years ago like tunneling and seam wake.

If we steal anything from cricket - and we should - it’s not the tea breaks or five-day matches. It’s the vocabulary. In a world of pitch design and AI-enhanced training, naming things like “splinkers” isn’t enough. It needs to be precision data.

Now, let’s get to the injuries (or as cricketers call them, niggles!):

YORDAN ALVAREZ, OF/DH HOU (sprained ankle)

If the AL West comes down to availability, as I think it will, then something as innocuous, even quirky, as Yordan Alvarez slipping on home plate will be seen as less slapstick and potentially costly. The Astros have as good a shot as anyone of making a run as this team is in playoff position despite a spate of injuries, pitching issues, and their best hitter down with a quirky leg injury.

First, Alvarez has a history of knee issues that are under constant maintenance, so any ankle issue has to be considered holistically. It could take longer to come back from even something minor to make sure that the knees aren’t thrown off or changed biomechanically. I have no idea why Alvarez’s ankle suddenly turned either, but it’s tough to see.

Second, this is a significant injury. It’s a Grade II, I’m told by a trusted source, and that the swelling was immediate and also significant. Not a high ankle sprain, but a standard one and even on the low end of the standard return time, Alvarez will be into the playoffs. It’s normally a three to six week quote for this and his case has complications, but it’s also the playoffs, so yes, he’ll push to get back once he’s at the bare minimum of function. Kirk Gibson, anyone?

The first indications we’ll get is Alvarez merely walking without the boot. That’s progress and would show the swelling is down, he’s walking more stably, and that the start of healing is happening. That’s the point where they start working on braces, swing adjustments and the like, as we see if the Astros get there and how far.

By the way, can we please stop with the “he was seen in a walking boot” discussions? Boots are standard practice and there’s several on hand in every training room for just this situation. No writer (I hope) would write “he was seen given normal treatment” because that’s all this is. It’s not telling, is not significantly different than crutches, but are more comfortable, and in cases where you see someone with crutches and a boot, that just means he didn’t look stable with the boot for whatever reason and the ATs decided to give him both.

AL East shortstops down, power rises in the NL West, and do we have a new Skenes? (No, but there’s a lot of good young pitchers here and coming, if we can keep them healthy.) Read all this and more, if you subscribe.