O.T. Genasis said it best.
The cutter is an interesting pitch. In most cases, it exists to bridge the gap between a primary fastball and a breaking ball. But it’s highly contextual.
Cutters are tricky. From a production and performance perspective, an 85-mph cutter could outperform a 94-mph cutter because of the other pitches that surround it in an arsenal. If that 85-mph cutter is folded into a full arsenal with steady usage of secondaries, it can dominate. Perhaps that 94-mph cutter is a pitcher’s primary fastball and is thrown 50 percent of the time. If that’s the case, hitters can anticipate it’s coming, and command of big "stuff" plays greater importance. While it may pop on Stuff+ models, it may not perform like its pitch grade.
Pitch-tracking technologies can at times struggle to identify the differences between a cutting four-seamer, a cutter, a slider and a sweeper. For this …