For a long time, I've been frustrated by spin movement (Magnus effect) charts because they don't genuinely show how much a pitch actually moves. These charts perfectly demonstrate how the spin of the ball changes its path, but they don't show how velocity adds a vertical element to the pitch's movement.
Take this chart for example. These are the pitches thrown by Texas Rangers LHP Derek Holland during September and October of last season.
Even though they are much slower pitches, Holland's change ups are located in the exact same place on the graph as his fastballs. If his fastball and change up start with the same trajectory, the change up will always cross the plate lower than the fastball. I wanted to capture this on a chart, so I put gravity back into the equation.
Using Gameday's physics data (initial position, initial velocity, acceleration), I calculated how long each pitch was in the air. Keep in mind, though, that PITCHf/x starts at 50 from the plate and ends just in front. The mapped data covers only about 48 1/2 feet.
With the flight time for each pitch, I calculated the drop caused by [sea-level] gravity. After converting this number from feet to inches, I added the vertical spin movement. Here's how it turned out:
Success. The change ups now appear below his fastballs. The chart reflects not only gravity's effect on a pitch, but it also helps separate pitches by velocity, making identification a little bit easier.
This chart does not replace virtualizations by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it does show how different two pitches can be from each other even when spin movement alone can't show it. Taking this a step further could lead to a "hitter's decision" chart that would represent how different the pitches look at a certain time or distance from the plate.
The gravity charts are now available for all pitchers in TexasLeaguers.com's PITCHf/x Database.
[[Update: On April 24, 2010, the Spin Movement w/Gravity charts were updated to reflect gravity's effect from y = 40 to y = 1.417. This change was made based on the information that can be found at Alan Nathan's PITCHf/x site: MLB Extended Gameday Pitch Logs: A Tutorial]]