The great minds at Statcast published a new leaderboard this week, and it’s great: a movement leaderboard that ranks each pitch, from the nastiest on down. The Atlanta Braves are all over the top of these rankings, starting with Luke Jackson’s slider at No. 3 overall. If you take that message into the Braves clubhouse, as I did, you get an inside look at the value of teamwork, coaching and friendship that’s behind all of these ridiculous pitches.



The Statcast boards are excellent. Each pitch is ranked by its movement compared to the average movement by pitch type in different velocity buckets, so things like gravity and time in the air are accounted for. Nestled within each ranking are little nuggets of how baseball works and the best research about pitching.



But you might notice something as you go along: a ton of Braves logos at the top of the list. Your eyes do not deceive you. Look at how many of the top 400 pitches by vertical movement are...