Patrick Oehler/USA TODAY NETWORK

Not all splitters are the same. Hybrids are common — think “splinkers” and split-changes — hence the variations seen in both velocity and movement. The human element is also at play. Regardless of the grip, one pitcher’s split isn’t necessarily going to behave exactly like another pitcher’s. From finger dexterity to arm action, and whatever else might factor in, differences are inevitable.

And then there is spin. Per Statcast, pitches classified as splitters currently range from 508 rpm (Cade Smith) to 2,105 rpm (Joe Boyle). Fifteen of the 71 pitchers who have thrown a splitter this year (minimum 10 innings pitched) are averaging fewer than 1,000 rpm, with Smith being one of seven under 800 rpm, the others being Logan Gilbert (687), Hunter Barco (689), Mark Leiter Jr. (689), Fernando Cruz (774), and Roki Sasaki (776).

Watching a recent game where a splitter acted almost like a knuckleball got me thinking about low spin, and what better way to learn about the subject than talking to someone in the know? Previously with Driveline and Prime Sports Performance, Spencer Medick is now the pitching coach for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RoughRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees.

I began by asking Medick if anyone on his current club throws a splitter.

“Yovanny Cruz has one,” replied Medick, who is his fifth year tutoring hurlers in the Yankees system. “He hasn’t used it a whole lot this year — he’s been pretty dominant with fastball-slider — but he’s got a splitter in the bag that’s really good. Brendan Beck has a hybrid splitter, kind of a changeup-split drop that kills some spin.

“Beck usually lives around 1,000 rpm, and can get it down to 800 at times,” Medick added. “Yovanni’s is anywhere from 600 — kind of a true forkball, like Fernando Cruz’s — to around 900.”

Which brings us to the crux of my questioning: What are the characteristics, grip and otherwise, that lead to less spin?

“A lot of it is finger dexterity, just how deep you can get it,” Medick replied. “The biggest difference between forkballs and splitters is that with splitters you’re generally getting a gap to kill enough spin, and kind of deflect some spin direction, whereas with forkballs you’re getting it deep into the hand, like you see Fernando Cruz do. It just kind of pops out, killing all sorts of spin. It has some knuckleball characteristics where the ball just drops, essentially.”

Is less spin better?

“Less spin doesn’t always equal better,” said Medick. “But typically, the lower spin you get, the more variance and dance the ball is going to appear to have to a hitter. A lot of times, you want to kill as much as you can, and not necessarily worry about the movement profile.”

Dance and variance. As the pitching coach stated earlier, low-spin splitters can have knuckleball characteristics.

“Fernando Cruz is an excellent example of a guy who kills a ton of spin, and the ball kind of balloons up in the middle of zone, and then the bottom falls out,” said Medick. “Guys are swinging at it, and chasing it, even if they know it’s coming. It looks like that cookie they don’t want to miss, they pull the trigger, and all of a sudden it’s gone.

“Gravity is going to take an effect,” he continued. “But it’s not necessarily about getting the -2 or -4 movement. It’s really more, ‘Hey, how much can we sell, essentially, a fastball over the heart of the plate and get it to bottom out?’ The unpredictability of the low spin helps makes the pitch effective.”

Depth obviously matters, and with that in mind, I circled back to the pitchers he initially mentioned: Yovanny Cruz and Brendan Beck. How much do they get?

“I’m kind of firing from the hip here, but Beck usually lives about four to six positive, and Cruz lives around zero and sometimes gets negative,” Medick told me. “Yerry De los Santos is another guy who throws a true splitter variation. His spin is maybe 1,100-1,200 — he kills enough — and gets some bottoming action to it. He’s a lower [arm] slot, so he’ll get down to -6 at times. He’ll live around the zero to -2, and that allows him to get below guys’ barrels.”

There was one more thing I needed to ask Medick. As there are multiple variations of a splitter (the Vulcan, which is typically classified as a changeup, arguably belongs in this category), how does one go about finding the optimal grip?

“First, it’s ‘Does that pitch fit into the arsenal?’” explained Medick. “Then we usually get on high-speed video and see how the ball is coming out of the hand. How are the fingers interacting with the ball? How can we manipulate the grip to create the split we want? Brent Headrick throws a split. We toyed around with that last year and made some alterations to it. But it’s mostly how deep we can comfortably get the ball into the hand. Where does it sit? Where do the fingers sit on the ball relative to how it’s coming out? Those are things we look at.”