MLB The Show 25: What Is the Sweeper and What Makes It Different?

If you’ve been playing MLB The Show 25, you’ll notice that there’s a new pitch in some pitchers’ repertoire: The sweeper. The term has been one of the big buzzwords in MLB land in recent years, and in turn, it’s been added to MLB The Show. But what is the sweeper, and what makes it different than other pitches with horizontal breaking movement in MLB The Show 25?

How The Sweeper Differs From Other Pitches In MLB The Show 25

Before we can talk about the sweeper and its effects in MLB The Show 25, we must first establish what a sweeper is. Here is what a sweeper is, as defined by Major League Baseball itself:

A sweeper is a variant of a slider that has become popular in the Major Leagues over the last few seasons. The main characteristic of a sweeper is a large amount of horizontal movement, as opposed to a traditional slider, which has “tighter” break.

A sweeper tends to be thrown slower than a traditional slider, which gives it more time to “sweep” across the strike zone. Where the average MLB slider breaks about six inches horizontally, the average sweeper breaks about 15 inches. You might hear a sweeper referred to as a “Frisbee slider” because of the way it moves.

To sum it up, a Sweeper is a variation of a slider that’s much slower and tends to break vertically, as well as horizontally. Generally, a sweeper is used to keep a hitter off-balance and induce weak contact, whereas a slider is used off the fastball to deceive the hitter and get them way out in front.

Now that we know what the sweeper is generally supposed to look like, how does it play in MLB The Show 25? Well, pretty similarly.

Generally speaking, the speed of a sweeper should be between the low-to-mid 80s for any pitcher with decent velocity — think Garret Crochet. If a pitcher isn’t throwing heat, then expect their sweeper to top out anywhere between the high 70s and low 80s.

How To Use The Sweeper In MLB The Show 25

As we discussed in our article about the best pitching tips, tunneling your pitches is the ultimate key to success in MLB The Show 25. And if you’re using a pitcher that has a sweeper, this is no different. There are two ways to effectively tunnel a sweeper and make it an effective pitch against the opposition:

• Tunnel the sweeper with the fastball. If you throw a fastball to a batter, tunnel the sweeper so that it looks like the same pitch for a split second, before having the bottom completely fall out. Or vice versa; throw a big, dipping sweeper, and follow it up with the fastest pitch in your arsenal. This also applies to fastballs with arm-side action, such as the sinker.
• Tunnel the sweeper with the slider: As mentioned above, the sweeper is a slower and more vertical variation of a slider. Therefore, if you’re lucky enough to be a pitcher that possesses both, you can work one off the other and give an opposing batter fits.

When it comes to where you should locate the sweeper, the options are pretty endless depending on how well you’re tunneling and changing speeds. As a general rule, when throwing a sweeper towards the inside of the plate, I like to keep it belt high and off the plate. For some reason, human-controlled batters seem to love whiffing on those. When throwing away to a batter, I like for it to fall just off the outside of the plate, knee high. You can progressively change the location as games go on and batters become more accustomed to your modus operandi.