Latest news with #KyleBland
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Brandon Woodruff is back, is Joe Boyle fixed?
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Advertisement Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. MLB: Milwaukee Brewers at Detroit Tigers 2025 Fantasy Baseball Top 300 update: Aaron Judge leads the way, Tarik Skubal overtakes Bobby Witt Jr. Advertisement Corbin Carroll's return and José Ramírez's slump further shake up the top 10 this week. Brandon Woodruff - Milwaukee Brewers (Season debut, New Cutter, New Sweeper) After almost two years away due to injury, Woodruff made his first start of the season on Sunday. (If you'd like to read more about Woodruff's recovery and his mindset going into the start, I wrote an article after speaking with him at Citi Field last week.) His debut went better than many people expected, with Woodruff allowing just one run on two hits in six innings while striking out eight. Let's dig into his pitch mix data to see how close to vintage Brandon Woodruff this start was. Brandon Woodruff Pitch Well, for starters, his four-seam velocity is down. Not that we should be surprised by that, coming off shoulder capsule surgery. However, the numbers are a bit misleading. He sat at 93.2 mph, which is down from 95.8 in 2023; however, he threw harder as the game went on. Many of his fastballs in the third and fourth and fifth innings were around 94 mph and he even humped some up to 96 mph, so perhaps his true average was closer to 94 mph, which is a bit better. The four-seam fastball still had elite command and tremendous 18.6 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB), which makes the pitch seem to "rise" as it approaches the plate. That helped it generate a handful of called strikes and whiffs. We do like to see that as a foundational pitch. Advertisement Woodruff also commanded his sinker well, locating it not just inside to righties but also getting tons of called strikes on backdoor sinkers that looked like four-seamers off the plate away and then broke back in. It's not a pitch that's going to get tons of whiffs, but having multiple fastball variations is important in baseball today since hitters are all trained to crush high velocity four-seam fastballs. Which leads us to yet another pitch, since Woodruff added a third fastball type with a new cutter. In my article from last week, I mentioned that Woodruff had split his old slider into a cutter and a sweeper. He used the cutter more often on Sunday, throwing it 90 mph with 2.4 inches of glove-side movement and 14.2 inches of vertical movement, which means that it only dropped 19.7 inches when also factoring in gravity. That's above-average from a movement standpoint; although, the cutter was not totally effective on Sunday with no whiffs and a 15% CSW. It might be nice as a piece to keep batters from sitting on any one of his fastball variations, but it's not going to be a plus pitch in its own right. Still, with Woodruff battling back from a shoulder injury, having multiple pitches to keep hitters off balance and the barrel of the bat is a good thing. Woodruff only threw his sweeper five times on Sunday, but it was 81.2 mph with nearly four inches of vertical break (38.3 inches when factoring in gravity) and 10.2 inches of horizontal sweep. He had a 60% zone rate, which is nice, inducing one whiff and two foul balls. He only threw the pitch to righties, which makes sense, throwing three of them in an 0-0 count and two of them in two-strike counts. Perhaps he's still getting comfortable with the feel of the pitch and will work it in more in the coming starts, but it seems like he'll focus on the four-seam, sinker, and cutter to righties and mix in the sweeper to keep hitters off balance. At the end of the day, I think this start is a solid case for Woodruff's floor. He's a veteran starter who knows how to pitch and now has a deeper arsenal to work with. His stuff is still good, but it's not what it was before his injury, so he can use that deeper arsenal to sequence effectively, keep hitters guessing, and induce weak contact. I don't think the strikeout numbers will carry over against teams that are not the Marlins, but this start made me more optimistic about Woodruff as a streamer in shallow leagues and a solid hold in deeper formats, where he should at least avoid many true blow-up outings. Advertisement Charlie Morton - Baltimore Orioles (Curveball usage, Sinker locations) It was a pretty brutal start to the season for Charlie Morton. He posted a 10.36 ERA and 2.22 WHIP in his first six starts of the year and was moved to the bullpen by the beginning of May. However, with Baltimore battling myriad injuries, Morton was back into the rotation on May 26th, and since then, has posted a 2.97 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and 44/11 K/BB ratio across 36.1 innings. That has ranked him 15th in K-BB%, 16th in SIERA, and 18th in xFIP among qualified starters over that span. So what is he doing that's any different? Charlie Morton Pitch Mix Four-Seam Sinker Cutter Curve Change First 6 starts 32.30% 12.00% 11.20% 33.70% 10.80% Since May 26th 26.70% 13.70% 5.80% 42.50% 11.30% The most immediate change you can see is a nearly 10% increase in curveball usage at the expense of both his four-seam fastball and cutter. We know where this is going since Morton's curveball has been his bread and butter for his entire career. Morton leaning on his best pitch more is certainly something we can get behind. You can also see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below that the specs on Morton's curveball in April were off. Charlie Morton Pitch As the season has gone on, Morton's curveball has gotten closer to the 82.3 mph velocity it was back in his strong 2023 campaign. He has also reduced the horizontal movement and gotten it closer to the 14.3 inches that he had back in the same 2023 season. Advertisement Morton has also improved the locations of his curveball in this most recent stretch. In his first stint in the Orioles' rotation, Morton threw his curve low in the zone 79% to righties but just 61% to lefties. He also kept the ball gloveside to lefties, so inside, 34% of the time. Over the last seven starts, he's kept his curveball low in the zone against lefties 70% of the time and thrown it gloveside 45% of the time. That's a 9% increase in low location and an 11% increase in gloveside curves to lefties. It should not surprise you that the curve saw a massive jump in swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch leads to a strikeout. Morton's curve had a 12% PutAway rate to lefties in his first stint in the rotation, but that has exploded to 26.6% in his last seven starts. His curve locations have improved to righties as well. Morton did a good job of keeping the pitch low to righties earlier in the year, but he's now spreading the ball around the strike zone more. He was exclusively using the curve on the outer third in his first stint in the rotation, but he's now attacking righties with the curve on the inside as well, which has also led to a big increase in swinging strike rate and PutAway Rate. Morton has been successful throughout his career when his curve is working, so it's not a surprise that finding his curve again has led to another level of success. We should highlight one other change from Morton: using his sinker down in the zone more often to righties. We saw above that his sinker usage is up a bit, while his cutter and four-seam usage has dropped, but he has also thrown his sinker low in the zone to righties 10% more often in this second stint in the rotation and gone inside 5% more often as well. That has been a big reason why the Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) allowed on the sinker fell from 47% early in the season to 37% in the last seven starts while keeping the SwStr% the same. Morton has been using the sinker more early in the count to righties, which has helped him get ahead or get weak contact, and then he's able to go to the curve for strikeouts. All of this feels earned. It's all on the back of the curveball, but that means that Morton will remain a viable streamer in fantasy leagues as long as his curveball is humming. We've seen the veteran have that pitch working for entire seasons, so it's not crazy to assume he can keep this going for a while. However, as soon as you see that curveball command start to falter or the swings and misses on it dry up, you should cut bait. There's just not enough else in the arsenal to keep him fantasy relevant. Advertisement Joe Boyle - Tampa Bay Rays (New Splitter, New Slider shape, New Role) There might not be a trendier starting pitcher in fantasy baseball right now than Joe Boyle. He intrigued people with the Athletics last year due to his plus raw stuff, but he could never find the strike zone. The Rays traded for him and revamped his pitch mix, which led to a dominant season in Triple-A, with a 1.85 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, and 96/31 K/BB ratio in 73 innings. We had been waiting for him to get another chance in the rotation, and it seems like that is happening now as he returned on Sunday to piggy-back with Drew Rasmussen and threw five shutout innings with two hits, one walk, and seven strikeouts. So, what is this new version of Joe Boyle, and is it useful in fantasy leagues? Joe Boyle Pitch Well, for starters, Boyle has ditched his curve and his sweeper and added in a "splinker," which is the split-finger/sinker hybrid that you see show up above as a splitter. This was part of the larger change the Rays made with Boyle, where they removed some of his biggest moving pitches due to his inability to find the strike zone. They added the sprinkler because it has less movement than the typical split-finger fastball and is easier to command. Boyle's splinker is 92.8 mph with nearly 16 inches of arm-side movement (dive) and only 29 inches of drop when you also account for gravity. Most importantly, Boyle throws it in the zone 33% of the time with a 53% strike rate, which are both about average for a splitter. Advertisement Given that it moves down and away from lefties, it makes sense that Boyle uses that pitch more often to lefties (24.5% usage) rather than righties (12% usage). Against lefties, the splinker has even higher zone rates and strike rates while also posting a 26% SwStr%. It's a pitch he throws 58% of the time in two-strike counts to lefties and has a 36% PutAway Rate, which is tremendous. However, as you can see from the pitch chart below (light blue dots), he's a little less consistent with the pitch against righties. Given its action, Boyle is likely concerned about hitting right-handed hitters if the splinker bites too hard inside, so he spiked more than a couple of them into the dirt on Sunday. Joe Boyle Pitch However, it doesn't matter much if Boyle's splinker is not as impactful to righties because his slider carves them up. This season, his slider is two mph harder, up to 90.3 mph, with one inch less horizontal break and three inches less drop. When you add in gravity, his slider has only 31 inches of vertical break, down from nearly 37 inches last year. His zone rates aren't much better on the pitch this year as opposed to last year; however, the harder and tighter slider is a pitch that can be more successful anywhere in the strike zone, which is what the Rays wanted for Boyle, who still has inconsistent command. With his old slider, he needed to be more careful to keep it low in the zone, but this new slider is a pitch that Boyle is throwing up in the zone more often to righties and using inside and outside, likely because he doesn't have to be as precise with his command. He throws his slider 37.4% of the time to righties, as opposed to 10% of the time to lefties. The slider has a nearly 21% SwStr% to righties, so it's no surprise that it's his primary two-strike pitch, using it 47% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, with a 31% chase rate and 44% PutAway rate in those situations. That's elite. However, those usages mean that he's basically a two-pitch pitcher to righties and a two-pitch pitcher to lefties, with a third pitch to each that is inconsistent, and he'll throw 10% of the time. That's not a huge margin for error. Advertisement The last change, as you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard, is that Joy Boyle dropped his arm angle this year. Like, A LOT. Boyle Arm That's a nearly 13-degree drop in arm angle (closer to sidearm), which is a huge amount. That may have been just a more comfortable slot for Boyle, but it also could be Tampa Bay trying to create more manageable shapes on his pitches. We talked about his two secondaries, but the lower arm slot has also led to far more horizontal movement (inside to righties) on his four-seam fastball and less vertical movement. Given his lowered release point, even with the decrease in iVB, Boyle's attack angle has become even flatter, which makes the fastball seem to rise more as it approaches home plate. That has helped him create a nearly 4% increase in SwStr% on his four-seam fastball. However, more importantly, the zone rate on his four-seam fastball has gone from 45% last year to 55% this year, which is slightly above average, and his overall strike rate has improved from 54% to 65%. Boyle only has three pitches, so he uses the four-seamer 57% of the time to righties and 64% of the time to lefties. He needs to be able to command that pitch in the zone because he has nothing else he throws consistently for strikes. It seems like this arm angle change has helped him with the four-seam fastball, and if you look at the pitch plot above, you can see that most of the four-seamers (red dots) are right around the strike zone. That's crucial for him. Advertisement All of this has me excited about Boyle, as does his role as a follower. He now doesn't need to go five innings or dominate to secure a win. If Drew Rasmussen has 2-3 good innings to start the game, Boyle will be in a good spot to only have to pitch four solid innings to get a win. That's the perfect role for him because he is still a three-pitch pitcher (really two pitches to hitters of each handedness) with average command of his fastball and inconsistent command of his secondaries. We need to keep that in mind. Boyle is better; there's no doubt about that, but he is not all of a sudden a pitcher with good command. He's a pitcher with a narrow arsenal of elite swing-and-miss stuff and average command. That's going to work a lot of the time, but there will be performances where he can't get ahead as consistently with the fastball, and the overall results will be less exciting. 2025 Fantasy Baseball: 60 Undervalued Players, from Jasson Domínguez to Bo Bichette 60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league. Advertisement Eric Lauer - Toronto Blue Jays (Cutter Shape/Usage, Slider Usage) Eric Lauer is an interesting story. He's been a solid MLB pitcher during his career, posting a 4.17 ERA and 22% strikeout rate in 647.2 career innings. However, he was out of MLB last year, pitching 34 2/3 innings in Korea with a pedestrian 4.93 ERA in seven starts. You would be forgiven for assuming that was the end of Lauer's MLB relevance, but since June 1st, Lauer is 26th in baseball in K-BB% among starters with at least 20 innings pitched. Over those five starts, he has a 3.24 ERA (3.47 SIERA), 1.16 WHIP, and 20.2% K-BB%. Since Lauer has only made seven starts this season, I decided to compare what he's doing this year to what we saw from him in Milwaukee back in 2023, before leaving for Korea. Eric Lauer Pitch Mix change What immediately stands out is the shift in cutter usage. Lauer was using the cutter far more often before heading to Korea and has now dialed back on the cutter while increasing his slider and changeup usage. The cutter itself is slightly different, with over three inches more horizontal movement and slightly more drop. He's using it to both righties and lefties this year and doing a good job of keeping the pitch up in the zone while also keeping it on the outer-third of the strike zone against lefties. The pitch is more successful against righties, with a higher SwStr% and lower ICR while also acting as a good two-strike pitch. He throws it 23% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, and it has a 30% chase rate and 25% PutAway Rate in those counts, both of which are well above-average. Advertisement This is a better version of his cutter to righties, and even though he's throwing it less often, it's more successful than his previous cutter against right-handed hitters. This version of the cutter has been far less successful against lefties, but that's likely why he's turning to the slider more often. He's using the slider 22.4% of the time against lefties this year after throwing it just 8% in 2023. The pitch is 1.1 mph harder this year, with less drop, but Lauer has far better command of it, and that's the key to its usage. Right now, Lauer is throwing his slider early in counts 76% of the time to lefties. He's pounding the zone with it and registering just a 36% ICR allowed. He has then turned to the curveball more against lefties later in counts. Back in 2023, he used his curve 11% of the time in two-strike counts to lefties. Now he's using it 22% of the time in those counts. It also has a 33% chase rate in those counts and an 18.5% SwStr% overall to lefties. That gives him a profile of four-seam, cutter, slider, and curve to lefties, with the curve and cutter as the primary two-strike pitches. Against righties, he uses the four-seam and curve early in the count and tries to use the cutter and slider with two strikes. That slider has actually been successful with two-strikes to righties, posting a 29% PutAway rate and a nearly 20% SwStr% overall. It gives him two pitches he can turn to when he gets ahead in the count, and he will also occasionally turn to his new changeup, but that pitch has yet to record a swinging strike in a two-strike count against righties and has just a 7.5% SwStr% overall with a nearly 73% ICR. It's just not a good pitch. At the end of the day, Lauer is better against righties because of his multiple two-strike offerings and the use of both the curve and fastball early in counts. That will keep him on the streaming radar since most of the hitters he sees will be righties. He's been fine against lefties, but the swinging strikes aren't as prevalent. I believe in Lauer's contact impression to a certain extent with this new pitch mix, but I think he's more of a 4.00 ERA pitcher with average strikeout upside who I'd rather use as a streamer against right-handed-heavy teams coming up. Yet, with Bowden Francis hurt and Max Scherzer battling this thumb injury, Lauer could continue to get chances in the rotation. Advertisement Ryne Nelson - Arizona Diamondbacks (Move to Rotation, Cutter Usage) Ryne Nelson's arc with the Diamondbacks over the last year has been a wild one. He was the team's best starter in the second half of last season, posting a 3.23 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, and 67/14 K/BB ratio in 64 innings in the second half of the season. However, he was forced out of the starting rotation at the beginning of this season with the addition of Corbin Burnes and the presence of Eduardo Rodriguez. However, injuries opened up a spot in the starting rotation for Nelson and, since June 7th, he's been a full-time starter in Arizona, posting a 3.34 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, and 29/10 K/BB ratio in 32.1 innings over six starts. Over that stretch, he ranks 16th among qualified starters in WHIP, 42nd in ERA, 42nd in K-BB%, and 45th in SIERA. While those are eye-popping metrics, they are good enough for him to be locked onto fantasy rosters in all types of leagues. So what is he doing to earn this, and is it sustainable? Ryne Nelson Starter I used Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard to show Nelson's pitch mix splits from when he's starting versus when he's relieving. My thought was to see if he's utilizing his mix any differently as a starter, and it doesn't seem like he has been, except for a decrease in his cutter usage and an increasing reliance on his four-seamer. This shouldn't surprise us since he threw multiple innings at a time as a reliever anyway, but it's worth digging into. Advertisement Nelson lives and dies with his four-seam fastball, which makes some sense since it's his best pitch. It's 95.6 mph with over 18 inches of iVB and a flat Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle that allows it to thrive up in the zone. Since he joined the rotation, he's been using the four-seamer up in the zone 52% of the time, and it's posted a 55% zone rate, 55% strike rate, and 13.6% SwStr%, with a 42% ICR. He uses the pitch as both an early count strike pitch and also a two-strike swing-and-miss pitch; however, it's far more successful as a two-strike pitch to lefties. Since he moved into the starting rotation, Nelson has a 17% PutAway Rate on the four-seam to righties but a 25.5% mark to lefties. Nelson should theoretically be able to compensate for that against righties because he throws his slider almost exclusively to righties, but that pitch is more of an early called strike pitch. Nelson has thrown his slider early in the count 67% of the time to righties since joining the rotation, with a 79% first pitch strike rate and just a 6% PutAway Rate when he does use it in two-strike counts. He'll also mix in a curve to righties 10% of the time and that pitch has been more successful in two-strike counts with a nearly 16% PutAwray Rate; however, you're seeing a bit of the weakness here since Nelson has just a 22% strikeout rate to righties in his six starts in the rotation. His strikeout rate isn't that much better against lefties, with a 24% mark, but I think his four-seam fastball misses more bats to lefties because he can use it off of the cutter he throws12% of the time to lefties. He uses it 81% of the time early in the count, and it's not a pitch he commands well against lefties, but much of that is because he misses up and out of the strike zone or inside off the plate. By missing in those spots, he forces lefties to back up off the plate or look for the cutter up, and then they get a four-seamer that's six mph faster and are unable to catch up. He will also throw the curve to lefties, but he throws it early in the count 73% of the time and has a poor 4% SwStr% on it against lefties in his last six starts. His changeup is another afterthought pitch that he has pretty much fazed out against lefties over the last few starts, which means he's really just four-seam, cutter, and curve to lefties. Advertisement In short, Nelson kind of only has a four-seam fastball. The good thing for him is that it's a really good four-seam fastball. He also has a deep enough arsenal where he can attack hitters of each handedness with at least three pitches. Those secondaries are inconsistent and don't miss many bats, which will limit his fantasy upside, but they also prevent hitters from simply sitting on his fastball. I think that profile will keep Nelson as a high-floor, low-ceiling fantasy option who can dominate weaker lineups who won't be able to handle his four-seam fastball. I like adding him in most league types, but this isn't "league-winning" upside, if that's what you're after.
NBC Sports
09-07-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Brandon Woodruff is back, is Joe Boyle fixed?
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, After almost two years away due to injury, Woodruff made his first start of the season on Sunday. (If you'd like to read more about Woodruff's recovery and his mindset going into the start, I wrote an article after speaking with him at Citi Field last week.) His debut went better than many people expected, with Woodruff allowing just one run on two hits in six innings while striking out eight. Let's dig into his pitch mix data to see how close to vintage Brandon Woodruff this start was. Pitcher List Well, for starters, his four-seam velocity is down. Not that we should be surprised by that, coming off shoulder capsule surgery. However, the numbers are a bit misleading. He sat at 93.2 mph, which is down from 95.8 in 2023; however, he threw harder as the game went on. Many of his fastballs in the third and fourth and fifth innings were around 94 mph and he even humped some up to 96 mph, so perhaps his true average was closer to 94 mph, which is a bit better. The four-seam fastball still had elite command and tremendous 18.6 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB), which makes the pitch seem to 'rise' as it approaches the plate. That helped it generate a handful of called strikes and whiffs. We do like to see that as a foundational pitch. Woodruff also commanded his sinker well, locating it not just inside to righties but also getting tons of called strikes on backdoor sinkers that looked like four-seamers off the plate away and then broke back in. It's not a pitch that's going to get tons of whiffs, but having multiple fastball variations is important in baseball today since hitters are all trained to crush high velocity four-seam fastballs. Which leads us to yet another pitch, since Woodruff added a third fastball type with a new cutter. In my article from last week, I mentioned that Woodruff had split his old slider into a cutter and a sweeper. He used the cutter more often on Sunday, throwing it 90 mph with 2.4 inches of glove-side movement and 14.2 inches of vertical movement, which means that it only dropped 19.7 inches when also factoring in gravity. That's above-average from a movement standpoint; although, the cutter was not totally effective on Sunday with no whiffs and a 15% CSW. It might be nice as a piece to keep batters from sitting on any one of his fastball variations, but it's not going to be a plus pitch in its own right. Still, with Woodruff battling back from a shoulder injury, having multiple pitches to keep hitters off balance and the barrel of the bat is a good thing. Woodruff only threw his sweeper five times on Sunday, but it was 81.2 mph with nearly four inches of vertical break (38.3 inches when factoring in gravity) and 10.2 inches of horizontal sweep. He had a 60% zone rate, which is nice, inducing one whiff and two foul balls. He only threw the pitch to righties, which makes sense, throwing three of them in an 0-0 count and two of them in two-strike counts. Perhaps he's still getting comfortable with the feel of the pitch and will work it in more in the coming starts, but it seems like he'll focus on the four-seam, sinker, and cutter to righties and mix in the sweeper to keep hitters off balance. At the end of the day, I think this start is a solid case for Woodruff's floor. He's a veteran starter who knows how to pitch and now has a deeper arsenal to work with. His stuff is still good, but it's not what it was before his injury, so he can use that deeper arsenal to sequence effectively, keep hitters guessing, and induce weak contact. I don't think the strikeout numbers will carry over against teams that are not the Marlins, but this start made me more optimistic about Woodruff as a streamer in shallow leagues and a solid hold in deeper formats, where he should at least avoid many true blow-up outings. It was a pretty brutal start to the season for Charlie Morton. He posted a 10.36 ERA and 2.22 WHIP in his first six starts of the year and was moved to the bullpen by the beginning of May. However, with Baltimore battling myriad injuries, Morton was back into the rotation on May 26th, and since then, has posted a 2.97 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and 44/11 K/BB ratio across 36.1 innings. That has ranked him 15th in K-BB%, 16th in SIERA, and 18th in xFIP among qualified starters over that span. So what is he doing that's any different? Charlie Morton Pitch Mix The most immediate change you can see is a nearly 10% increase in curveball usage at the expense of both his four-seam fastball and cutter. We know where this is going since Morton's curveball has been his bread and butter for his entire career. Morton leaning on his best pitch more is certainly something we can get behind. You can also see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below that the specs on Morton's curveball in April were off. Alex Chamberlain Pitch Leaderboard As the season has gone on, Morton's curveball has gotten closer to the 82.3 mph velocity it was back in his strong 2023 campaign. He has also reduced the horizontal movement and gotten it closer to the 14.3 inches that he had back in the same 2023 season. Morton has also improved the locations of his curveball in this most recent stretch. In his first stint in the Orioles' rotation, Morton threw his curve low in the zone 79% to righties but just 61% to lefties. He also kept the ball gloveside to lefties, so inside, 34% of the time. Over the last seven starts, he's kept his curveball low in the zone against lefties 70% of the time and thrown it gloveside 45% of the time. That's a 9% increase in low location and an 11% increase in gloveside curves to lefties. It should not surprise you that the curve saw a massive jump in swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch leads to a strikeout. Morton's curve had a 12% PutAway rate to lefties in his first stint in the rotation, but that has exploded to 26.6% in his last seven starts. His curve locations have improved to righties as well. Morton did a good job of keeping the pitch low to righties earlier in the year, but he's now spreading the ball around the strike zone more. He was exclusively using the curve on the outer third in his first stint in the rotation, but he's now attacking righties with the curve on the inside as well, which has also led to a big increase in swinging strike rate and PutAway Rate. Morton has been successful throughout his career when his curve is working, so it's not a surprise that finding his curve again has led to another level of success. We should highlight one other change from Morton: using his sinker down in the zone more often to righties. We saw above that his sinker usage is up a bit, while his cutter and four-seam usage has dropped, but he has also thrown his sinker low in the zone to righties 10% more often in this second stint in the rotation and gone inside 5% more often as well. That has been a big reason why the Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) allowed on the sinker fell from 47% early in the season to 37% in the last seven starts while keeping the SwStr% the same. Morton has been using the sinker more early in the count to righties, which has helped him get ahead or get weak contact, and then he's able to go to the curve for strikeouts. All of this feels earned. It's all on the back of the curveball, but that means that Morton will remain a viable streamer in fantasy leagues as long as his curveball is humming. We've seen the veteran have that pitch working for entire seasons, so it's not crazy to assume he can keep this going for a while. However, as soon as you see that curveball command start to falter or the swings and misses on it dry up, you should cut bait. There's just not enough else in the arsenal to keep him fantasy relevant. There might not be a trendier starting pitcher in fantasy baseball right now than Joe Boyle. He intrigued people with the Athletics last year due to his plus raw stuff, but he could never find the strike zone. The Rays traded for him and revamped his pitch mix, which led to a dominant season in Triple-A, with a 1.85 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, and 96/31 K/BB ratio in 73 innings. We had been waiting for him to get another chance in the rotation, and it seems like that is happening now as he returned on Sunday to piggy-back with Drew Rasmussen and threw five shutout innings with two hits, one walk, and seven strikeouts. So, what is this new version of Joe Boyle, and is it useful in fantasy leagues? Well, for starters, Boyle has ditched his curve and his sweeper and added in a 'splinker,' which is the split-finger/sinker hybrid that you see show up above as a splitter. This was part of the larger change the Rays made with Boyle, where they removed some of his biggest moving pitches due to his inability to find the strike zone. They added the sprinkler because it has less movement than the typical split-finger fastball and is easier to command. Boyle's splinker is 92.8 mph with nearly 16 inches of arm-side movement (dive) and only 29 inches of drop when you also account for gravity. Most importantly, Boyle throws it in the zone 33% of the time with a 53% strike rate, which are both about average for a splitter. Given that it moves down and away from lefties, it makes sense that Boyle uses that pitch more often to lefties (24.5% usage) rather than righties (12% usage). Against lefties, the splinker has even higher zone rates and strike rates while also posting a 26% SwStr%. It's a pitch he throws 58% of the time in two-strike counts to lefties and has a 36% PutAway Rate, which is tremendous. However, as you can see from the pitch chart below (light blue dots), he's a little less consistent with the pitch against righties. Given its action, Boyle is likely concerned about hitting right-handed hitters if the splinker bites too hard inside, so he spiked more than a couple of them into the dirt on Sunday. However, it doesn't matter much if Boyle's splinker is not as impactful to righties because his slider carves them up. This season, his slider is two mph harder, up to 90.3 mph, with one inch less horizontal break and three inches less drop. When you add in gravity, his slider has only 31 inches of vertical break, down from nearly 37 inches last year. His zone rates aren't much better on the pitch this year as opposed to last year; however, the harder and tighter slider is a pitch that can be more successful anywhere in the strike zone, which is what the Rays wanted for Boyle, who still has inconsistent command. With his old slider, he needed to be more careful to keep it low in the zone, but this new slider is a pitch that Boyle is throwing up in the zone more often to righties and using inside and outside, likely because he doesn't have to be as precise with his command. He throws his slider 37.4% of the time to righties, as opposed to 10% of the time to lefties. The slider has a nearly 21% SwStr% to righties, so it's no surprise that it's his primary two-strike pitch, using it 47% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, with a 31% chase rate and 44% PutAway rate in those situations. That's elite. However, those usages mean that he's basically a two-pitch pitcher to righties and a two-pitch pitcher to lefties, with a third pitch to each that is inconsistent, and he'll throw 10% of the time. That's not a huge margin for error. The last change, as you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard, is that Joy Boyle dropped his arm angle this year. Like, A LOT. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard That's a nearly 13-degree drop in arm angle (closer to sidearm), which is a huge amount. That may have been just a more comfortable slot for Boyle, but it also could be Tampa Bay trying to create more manageable shapes on his pitches. We talked about his two secondaries, but the lower arm slot has also led to far more horizontal movement (inside to righties) on his four-seam fastball and less vertical movement. Given his lowered release point, even with the decrease in iVB, Boyle's attack angle has become even flatter, which makes the fastball seem to rise more as it approaches home plate. That has helped him create a nearly 4% increase in SwStr% on his four-seam fastball. However, more importantly, the zone rate on his four-seam fastball has gone from 45% last year to 55% this year, which is slightly above average, and his overall strike rate has improved from 54% to 65%. Boyle only has three pitches, so he uses the four-seamer 57% of the time to righties and 64% of the time to lefties. He needs to be able to command that pitch in the zone because he has nothing else he throws consistently for strikes. It seems like this arm angle change has helped him with the four-seam fastball, and if you look at the pitch plot above, you can see that most of the four-seamers (red dots) are right around the strike zone. That's crucial for him. All of this has me excited about Boyle, as does his role as a follower. He now doesn't need to go five innings or dominate to secure a win. If Drew Rasmussen has 2-3 good innings to start the game, Boyle will be in a good spot to only have to pitch four solid innings to get a win. That's the perfect role for him because he is still a three-pitch pitcher (really two pitches to hitters of each handedness) with average command of his fastball and inconsistent command of his secondaries. We need to keep that in mind. Boyle is better; there's no doubt about that, but he is not all of a sudden a pitcher with good command. He's a pitcher with a narrow arsenal of elite swing-and-miss stuff and average command. That's going to work a lot of the time, but there will be performances where he can't get ahead as consistently with the fastball, and the overall results will be less exciting. Eric Lauer is an interesting story. He's been a solid MLB pitcher during his career, posting a 4.17 ERA and 22% strikeout rate in 647.2 career innings. However, he was out of MLB last year, pitching 34 2/3 innings in Korea with a pedestrian 4.93 ERA in seven starts. You would be forgiven for assuming that was the end of Lauer's MLB relevance, but since June 1st, Lauer is 26th in baseball in K-BB% among starters with at least 20 innings pitched. Over those five starts, he has a 3.24 ERA (3.47 SIERA), 1.16 WHIP, and 20.2% K-BB%. Since Lauer has only made seven starts this season, I decided to compare what he's doing this year to what we saw from him in Milwaukee back in 2023, before leaving for Korea. What immediately stands out is the shift in cutter usage. Lauer was using the cutter far more often before heading to Korea and has now dialed back on the cutter while increasing his slider and changeup usage. The cutter itself is slightly different, with over three inches more horizontal movement and slightly more drop. He's using it to both righties and lefties this year and doing a good job of keeping the pitch up in the zone while also keeping it on the outer-third of the strike zone against lefties. The pitch is more successful against righties, with a higher SwStr% and lower ICR while also acting as a good two-strike pitch. He throws it 23% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, and it has a 30% chase rate and 25% PutAway Rate in those counts, both of which are well above-average. This is a better version of his cutter to righties, and even though he's throwing it less often, it's more successful than his previous cutter against right-handed hitters. This version of the cutter has been far less successful against lefties, but that's likely why he's turning to the slider more often. He's using the slider 22.4% of the time against lefties this year after throwing it just 8% in 2023. The pitch is 1.1 mph harder this year, with less drop, but Lauer has far better command of it, and that's the key to its usage. Right now, Lauer is throwing his slider early in counts 76% of the time to lefties. He's pounding the zone with it and registering just a 36% ICR allowed. He has then turned to the curveball more against lefties later in counts. Back in 2023, he used his curve 11% of the time in two-strike counts to lefties. Now he's using it 22% of the time in those counts. It also has a 33% chase rate in those counts and an 18.5% SwStr% overall to lefties. That gives him a profile of four-seam, cutter, slider, and curve to lefties, with the curve and cutter as the primary two-strike pitches. Against righties, he uses the four-seam and curve early in the count and tries to use the cutter and slider with two strikes. That slider has actually been successful with two-strikes to righties, posting a 29% PutAway rate and a nearly 20% SwStr% overall. It gives him two pitches he can turn to when he gets ahead in the count, and he will also occasionally turn to his new changeup, but that pitch has yet to record a swinging strike in a two-strike count against righties and has just a 7.5% SwStr% overall with a nearly 73% ICR. It's just not a good pitch. At the end of the day, Lauer is better against righties because of his multiple two-strike offerings and the use of both the curve and fastball early in counts. That will keep him on the streaming radar since most of the hitters he sees will be righties. He's been fine against lefties, but the swinging strikes aren't as prevalent. I believe in Lauer's contact impression to a certain extent with this new pitch mix, but I think he's more of a 4.00 ERA pitcher with average strikeout upside who I'd rather use as a streamer against right-handed-heavy teams coming up. Yet, with Bowden Francis hurt and Max Scherzer battling this thumb injury, Lauer could continue to get chances in the rotation. Ryne Nelson's arc with the Diamondbacks over the last year has been a wild one. He was the team's best starter in the second half of last season, posting a 3.23 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, and 67/14 K/BB ratio in 64 innings in the second half of the season. However, he was forced out of the starting rotation at the beginning of this season with the addition of Corbin Burnes and the presence of Eduardo Rodriguez. However, injuries opened up a spot in the starting rotation for Nelson and, since June 7th, he's been a full-time starter in Arizona, posting a 3.34 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, and 29/10 K/BB ratio in 32.1 innings over six starts. Over that stretch, he ranks 16th among qualified starters in WHIP, 42nd in ERA, 42nd in K-BB%, and 45th in SIERA. While those are eye-popping metrics, they are good enough for him to be locked onto fantasy rosters in all types of leagues. So what is he doing to earn this, and is it sustainable? I used Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard to show Nelson's pitch mix splits from when he's starting versus when he's relieving. My thought was to see if he's utilizing his mix any differently as a starter, and it doesn't seem like he has been, except for a decrease in his cutter usage and an increasing reliance on his four-seamer. This shouldn't surprise us since he threw multiple innings at a time as a reliever anyway, but it's worth digging into. Nelson lives and dies with his four-seam fastball, which makes some sense since it's his best pitch. It's 95.6 mph with over 18 inches of iVB and a flat Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle that allows it to thrive up in the zone. Since he joined the rotation, he's been using the four-seamer up in the zone 52% of the time, and it's posted a 55% zone rate, 55% strike rate, and 13.6% SwStr%, with a 42% ICR. He uses the pitch as both an early count strike pitch and also a two-strike swing-and-miss pitch; however, it's far more successful as a two-strike pitch to lefties. Since he moved into the starting rotation, Nelson has a 17% PutAway Rate on the four-seam to righties but a 25.5% mark to lefties. Nelson should theoretically be able to compensate for that against righties because he throws his slider almost exclusively to righties, but that pitch is more of an early called strike pitch. Nelson has thrown his slider early in the count 67% of the time to righties since joining the rotation, with a 79% first pitch strike rate and just a 6% PutAway Rate when he does use it in two-strike counts. He'll also mix in a curve to righties 10% of the time and that pitch has been more successful in two-strike counts with a nearly 16% PutAwray Rate; however, you're seeing a bit of the weakness here since Nelson has just a 22% strikeout rate to righties in his six starts in the rotation. His strikeout rate isn't that much better against lefties, with a 24% mark, but I think his four-seam fastball misses more bats to lefties because he can use it off of the cutter he throws12% of the time to lefties. He uses it 81% of the time early in the count, and it's not a pitch he commands well against lefties, but much of that is because he misses up and out of the strike zone or inside off the plate. By missing in those spots, he forces lefties to back up off the plate or look for the cutter up, and then they get a four-seamer that's six mph faster and are unable to catch up. He will also throw the curve to lefties, but he throws it early in the count 73% of the time and has a poor 4% SwStr% on it against lefties in his last six starts. His changeup is another afterthought pitch that he has pretty much fazed out against lefties over the last few starts, which means he's really just four-seam, cutter, and curve to lefties. In short, Nelson kind of only has a four-seam fastball. The good thing for him is that it's a really good four-seam fastball. He also has a deep enough arsenal where he can attack hitters of each handedness with at least three pitches. Those secondaries are inconsistent and don't miss many bats, which will limit his fantasy upside, but they also prevent hitters from simply sitting on his fastball. I think that profile will keep Nelson as a high-floor, low-ceiling fantasy option who can dominate weaker lineups who won't be able to handle his four-seam fastball. I like adding him in most league types, but this isn't 'league-winning' upside, if that's what you're after.
NBC Sports
25-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Chase Burns' debut, Kumar Rocker cuts it up
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, Since returning to the Rangers' rotation in June, Rocker has a 4.61 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, and 15/6 K/BB in 13.2 innings. However, much of that is tainted by a poor first start against the Rays. He allowed just two runs on nine hits in 10.1 innings against the White Sox and Pirates in his last two starts, and while that is beating up on some poor opponents, Rocker also came back to the big leagues armed with a new pitch and a revised approach. Pitcher List As you can see from this Pitcher List chart above, Rocker's return to the MLB mound has coincided with a massive uptick in his cutter usage. In fact, over his last three starts, Rocker is throwing his cutter more than any other pitch, while also removing his slider completely and leaning into his curve more often. Kumar Rocker Pitch Mix You could conclude that Rocker turned his slider into a cutter, but these are drastically different pitches and he uses them in different ways. His slider is 84.1 mph with almost two inches of horizontal movement and nearly four inches of drop, which amounts to almost 41 inches of drop when you factor in gravity. Meanwhile, the cutter is nearly 91 mph with just over two inches of horizontal movement and just 28 inches of drop, when accounting for gravity. Although there is some overlap in Rocker's approach with the pitches, it's mainly in locations. He kept the slider low in the zone to both righties and lefties, which is how Rocker uses the cutter; even though he will throw some cutters up in the zone to righties more often than to lefties. He keeps both pitches glove-side, but perhaps has better feel for the cutter because he throws cutters in the middle of the zone to righties (not outside or inside) just 24% of the time, but that mark was 33% on the slider. That feel argument has more legs when you look at his zone and strike rates as well. Against righties, Rocker has a 61% zone rate and 81% strike rate on the cutter. He pounds the outside part of the strike zone against righties, up or down, and has gotten a 17% called strike rate. His slider had just a 44% zone rate to righties and a 67% strike rate with a sub-13% called strike rate. Yet, his slider did miss more bats against righties and was a strong two-strike pitch with a 28% PutAway rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch leads to a strikeouts, so I don't think Rocker should abandon the slider altogether. However, his curveball does have an above-average swinging strike rate (SwStr%) to righties with a 25% PutAway Rate, so perhaps that can emerge as a solid two-strike offering for him if he does table the slider. The most pressing issue for Rocker is finding an approach for lefties. In his career, Rocker has allowed a .333/.407/.490 slash line to lefties with a 19% strikeout rate. That's not going to fly. The slider was part of that problem. Even though he had a solid 17% SwStr% on the slider against lefties, it was not successful as a two-strike pitch, posting just an 11% PutAway Rate and a 19% chase rate in two-strike counts, which was 39th percentile. Lefties also crushed the slider to the tune of a 50% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR). Meanwhile, Rocker's cutter has a 30% SwStr% to lefties this season. Yes, 30%! While posting a 31% PutAway Rate, 31% two-strike chase rate, and 44% ICR. It's a better pitch to lefties in every way, shape, or form. He ties them up down-and-in with the offering and is able to both use it to get ahead in the count (70% first pitch strike rate) or put a hitter away. Rocker can now lead with the cutter against lefties, while mixing in the four-seam fastball, sinker, curve, and a few changeups. If that can make him even average against lefties, that's a huge win. Then he'll attack righties with his cutter, sinker, and curve and, hopefully, mix back in the slider there as well. For the first time in a long time, I can see a path forward for Rocker here, and I'd be adding him in deeper formats to see if he can build on this. Michael Soroka caught my attention last time out with a 10-strikeout performance against the Dodgers, and while that performance appeared flukey on the surface, I started to dig into what the right-hander has been doing of late. Since May 17th (seven starts), Soroka has a 4.58 ERA but ranks 24th in baseball among starting pitchers with a 3.29 SIERA. He also ranks 29th over that span with a 20.7% K-BB%, so is it possible that we could be on the verge of a hot stretch for Soroka? In order to determine that, we need to dig into what he's doing differently. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard above, Soroka has begun to dial back on his four-seam usage and started to lean into his sinker more than at the start of the season. He has also totally abandoned his modestly used slider and just turned that usage (and more) to his solid curveball. So, should this work? For starters, as you could likely guess, the sinker has been a more predominantly used pitch to righties. Over his last seven starts, Soroka has gone 49% four-seam and 4% sinker to lefties but 34% four-seam and 24% sinker to righties. In his first three starts of the year, he was 43% four-seam and 14% sinker to righties, so this is a noticeable change. And a good one. Soroka uses the sinker inside to righties 64% of the time, leading to just a 29% ICR and 65% groundball rate. He doesn't get many swings and misses on it, but it ties up righties and leads to tons of weak contact. It also keeps hitters from sitting on the four-seam as much. Over his first few starts, before the uptick in sinker usage, Soroka was throwing his four-seamer inside 29% of the time and up in the zone 58% of the time. Over his last seven starts, that inside rate has fallen to 21% and is even just 16% of his last five starts. Since he has the sinker to keep righties honest inside, he can attack with his four-seam all over the strike zone. That has led to an uptick in PutAway rate (albeit a small one) but also a jump from a 14.3% SwStr% to a 17.4% mark against righties. Most importantly, the ICR on his four-seam fastball against righties has fallen from 50% early in the season to just 20% over his last seven starts. That's a HUGE improvement thanks to the added emphasis on the sinker. Additionally, Soroka has tried to use the four-seam less in two-strike counts to righties. Early in the season, he was throwing the four-seamer 37% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, but that has fallen to 26% of the time over the last seven starts, and he didn't throw a single two-strike four-seam fastball to a right-handed hitter in that 10-strikeout game against the Dodgers. Instead, Soroka is using his curve nearly 29% of the time in two-strike counts to righties over these last seven starts, which is an uptick from his early-season marks. On the season, that pitch has a 15% SwStr% and 34% PutAway Rate overall and a nearly 20% SwStr% and 39% PutAway rate against righties. Leaning into it more, even if it's just marginally, makes tons of sense. Lastly, you can see from Alex Chamberlain's pitch leaderboard that Soroka has also slightly raised his arm angle overall, including raising it almost two degrees on his curveball and nearly four degrees on his four-seam fastball. While that hasn't really helped his four-seamer, it has given him a more drastic vertical approach angle on the curveball (in addition to 1.2 mph more velocity), which I think is helping the curve perform even better. At the end of the day, I think the curve is a crucial pitch for Soroka, and one that helps him against all hitters. Leaning into it more raises his floor. The reliance on the sinker clearly helps him against righties, and I think he'll be good for fantasy teams against right-handed-heavy lineups. I'm just not sure he has enough other than the curve when he faces a team loaded with lefties. We got another exciting MLB debut on Tuesday when Chase Burns took on the New York Yankees in Cincinnati. For three innings, we saw a debut so dominant that it brought images of Stephen Strasburg to mind. Burns struck out the side in the first, struck out the side in the second (around a two-out single), and retired the side in order in the third with yet another strikeout. However, things soured a bit in the fourth. Ben Rice took a middle-middle slider and hit it out of the park, and then Aaron Judge followed with a single. Burns retired the next two batters before Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled and Anthony Volpe tripled in two runs. To his credit, Burns was able to recover in the fifth inning, but that one fourth inning was a good lesson that MLB hitters will punish even the smallest of mistakes. So how does Burns' arsenal stack up at this level? For starters, the four-seam is not as electric as you'd hope. He averaged 98.1 mph on the pitch with a tremendous 17.9 inches of iVB, but also had a mediocre 6.4 feet of extension and a mediocre attack angle. If you look at the Pitcher List graphic below, it's a pitch that Burns tries to keep up in the zone, which we like to see, but it isn't as flat as the typical fastball that succeeds up in the zone. He did get six whiffs on his four-seamer, but the 10 foul balls (and the chart below) also tell me that the pitch is more hittable than we'd think at that velocity and his command of the pitch needs to improve a bit. Too many four-seamers, especially to righties, were over the middle of the plate. That may work in the minors, but that's not going to lead to many swings and misses at the big league level. This has a bit of a Jackson Jobe feel where the four-seamer may have looked dominant in the minors but will be a bit less impactful in the big leagues where almost everybody can hit high-end velocity. The big pitch for Burns was a plus slider that was 89.4 mph with a tight 5.3 inches of horizontal movement and 33.6 inches of drop, when accounting for gravity, which is slightly more than most sliders at that velocity. He used the pitch to both righties and lefties, but his command of the pitch was far better to righties. He was able to keep the pitch middle-away, and while I do like that he'll throw the slider backdoor to lefties, I didn't love that some of them leaked out over the plate, like the one Ben Rice hit out. The slider had six whiffs and a 37.5% CSW and 60% chase rate, so there's a lot to be excited about there. Burns also mixed in eight changeups, which he throws exclusively to lefties. The pitch was better than I expected, with just a 25% zone rate but a 75% strike rate thanks to a few swings and misses outside of the zone. However, there were a few that got away from him up in the zone (do you sense a pattern here?), so we'll need to see how the command of that improves. At the end of the day, Burns, like most talented rookies, is going to put together some dominant stretches and then also have some rough patches. He has a good fastball and an elite slider, but that's just has two pitches for right-handed batters, unless he begins to use that curve far more. The four-seam is fine against lefties too, but the slider is less impactful due to some command issues, and the changeup is a solid third offering to lefties but one that also has some inconsistent command. Perhaps that was the adrenaline of the first start, but it's also worth noting that many of the Yankees' better hitters had good swings the second time they saw Burns. He's going to need to keep developing his sequencing and refining the command of his arsenal to avoid big innings, but he needs to be added in all formats and should be started next week against a Red Sox lineup that figures to still not have either Alex Bregman or Masataka Yoshida. At a time when the Braves desperately need somebody in their rotation to step up and fill the void left by Chris Sale's injury, they may already have a solid option in Grant Holmes. The right-hander has stepped up his game over his last eight starts, posting a 2.96 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and 20.1% K-BB% in that span. His strikeout upside has also ticked up of late, and he ranks 8th in baseball among starting pitchers in K-BB% since May 20th (six starts) with a 24.3% mark. So what has changed, and how believable is this? As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard above, the easy changes we can spot are a reduction in four-seamer usage, an increase in slider usage, and the total elimination of his change and sinker, which were both little used anyway. Right from the start, we can support the reduction in his four-seam fastball use. It grades out as a below-average pitch according to PLV, posting a below-average strike rate and just a 6.6% SwStr%. It also gives up a 55% ICR, so it gets hit hard and doesn't miss bats. That's not a pitch we want a pitcher we like to be using. Holmes had also lessened up on his cutter usage in late May and early June, but he threw 25% cutters in his last start, using it to both righties and lefties, throwing it 70% of the time early in the count to righties. On the season, the cutter is a much better strike pitch for Holmes, but also allows just a 32% ICR overall and 29% mark to righties, so it would be a positive development for him if he started using this cutter more as his early fastball. We can also see that Holmes has dialed up his slider usage, going from 28% usage in March/April to 44% so far in June. While it's primarily a two-strike pitch for him, he has thrown it early in the count 49% of the time on the season and has an above-average first pitch strike rate on it. It's a huge strikeout pitch for him against righties, with a 37.4% two-strike chase rate and 31% PutAway rate to righties to go along with a 27% SwStr% on the season. What's been interesting is seeing him increase the usage to lefties of late. On the season, the slider has a solid 16% SwStr% to lefties but also just a 29% ICR, so it doesn't get hit hard at all. He does a good job buying it low but doesn't exclusively get it inside to lefties, sometimes throwing it on the outside corner, which has led to soft contact. In his first eight starts of the season, he used the slider 23% of the time against lefties, throwing it low in the zone 80% of the time and outside just 23% of the time. It posted a 16% SwStr%, and 36% ICR against lefties, which are solid numbers. However, over his last eight starts, he has used the slider nearly 27% of the time to lefties but thrown outside over 40% of the time. That has decreased its effectiveness in two-strike counts, but led to a 21.4% ICR while keeping the same SwStr%. Considering Holmes has an 84th percentile PutAway Rate against lefties with his curveball, we don't need him to get swinging strikes with his slider against lefties too. The slider can now induce weaker contact, and the cutter could potentially do the same if he leans back into it more. That means that this version of Grant Holmes can use his cutter early in the count to righties, with some four-seam mixed in, and then turn to the slider for swinging strikes, while using the cutter and slider for strikes and weak contact against lefties, and then turn to the curve for swinging strikes. It's still not an ideal setup because you have a pitcher who is hiding his four-seam fastball, but I think this is a profile that can work if Holmes brings that cutter back in more regularly. If he doesn't, I would be wary of him going forward.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Jacob Misiorowski debuts, Brayan Bello makes a change
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Advertisement Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. MLB: Boston Red Sox at Kansas City Royals 2025 Fantasy Baseball Top 300 update: Rafael Devers' outlook on Giants, Shohei Ohtani back on the mound Advertisement Fallout from the Devers trade and the return of Giancarlo Stanton shake up the rankings this week. Jacob Misiorowski - Milwaukee Brewers (MLB Debut) Brewers starting pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski made one of the most anticipated MLB debuts of the season last week when he tossed five hitless innings against the Cardinals on Thursday. Part of the intrigue for Misiorowski is his 6'7" frame and also the triple-digit fastball that he can still pump with high velocity deep into starts. His command had taken a step forward in the minors, and so there was a palpable feeling that we might be witnessing a true breakout. So, how did he look in that MLB debut? Misiorowski Pitch We'll start with the fastball because he sat 99 mph with it last week with 7.5 feet of extension, and that's just absurd. That kind of extension will make a 99 mph fastball look like a 102-103 mph pitch and comes with a 1.7 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle, which means it's a flat fastball that fights gravity and seems to rise as it approaches home plate. A pitch with that velocity that also seems to rise is incredibly hard to hit and immediately becomes one of the best fastballs in all of baseball. Advertisement However, this is where the command comes into play. A pitch that electric is often hard to control, and Misiorowski had just a 44% zone rate on it during his debut, which is well below the 52.4% mark that's MLB league average for a starting pitcher. Some of that might be due to nerves, but having just a 9% called strike rate is not great for your four-seam fastball, which is supposed to be a foundational pitch that Misiorowski can also use to get ahead in the count with. Yet, it seems like Misiorowski has another pitch for that, which is his slider/cutter. It's classified as a slider right now, but it's 94.3 mph with just 1.7 inches of horizontal movement and feels an awful lot like a cutter. He had a 48% zone rate on that pitch despite a below-average 56% strike rate. He used it early in the count 70% of the time to righties, which also suggests that he views it as a strike pitch that he can get ahead with. He threw 23 of his 25 cutters to righties, and only threw his four-seam early in the count 33% of the time to righties, so we're seeing a clear approach here. Misiorowski will use the cutter to get ahead on righties and then have the four-seamer as a two-strike pitch, but will use the four-seamer early in the count to lefties and then go to his curveball. He threw seven of his 11 curveballs to lefties and used it in two-strike counts 85.7% of the time, so the plan is pretty clear. It's an 88 mph pitch with nearly 11 inches of drop and six inches of horizontal run and can be downright filthy at times. It's incredibly rare to find a curve that's nearly 90 mph that drops as much as Misiorowski's does, but that could also be why he struggles to command it. All four of his curves to righties were thrown for strikes because it's just a "get me over pitch" against right-handed hitters. However, just two of his seven curves to lefties were for strikes. He missed up and away a handful of times, which indicates he was over-throwing it, and had a below-average PutAway Rate on the pitch, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. He also threw two nasty changeups to lefties at 91 mph, so maybe that will become a bigger offering for him, but right now we have a three-pitch mix and a pretty clear and narrow arsenal for all hitters. If righties know they're going to get a cutter early and a four-seam late in the count, will they adapt to that plan quickly? If lefties know the two pitches Misiorowski throws to them are two pitches he struggles to command, will they just wait him out? When you pair that with Misiorowski already being 29 innings away from matching his career high, there are some risks with him as a rest-of-season starter. Advertisement I think he needs to be rostered in all formats, and I can easily see a low ERA with plenty of strikeouts the rest of the way. However, I also think there's a chance his WHIP can hurt your ratios, and the Brewers may shut him down in the middle or end of August if they fall out of playoff contention, which I expect them to do. But for now, enjoy the ride. Eury Pérez - Miami Marlins (New Arm Slow, New Sinker, New Curve Grip) Eury Pérez made his long-awaited return to an MLB mound this month after missing all of last season following Tommy John surgery. The 22-year-old is one of the most exciting young pitchers in baseball, but has struggled in his first two appearances, allowing five runs on eight hits in seven innings with five strikeouts and five walks. We've also seen some interesting changes to his pitch mix and mechanics that are worth exploring. For starters, Pérez dropped his arm angle almost five degrees, which you can see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below. His teammate, Edward Cabrera, also dropped his arm angle significantly this season, so you have to wonder if this is an organizational shift for the Marlins. The new arm angle has, obviously, changed the shape of some of Pérez's offerings. His four-seam arm angle has dropped almost seven inches, which has cost him over an inch of Induced Vertical Break (iVB) but added over two inches of arm-side run. Even with that change in shape, he has the same Height Adjusted Vertical Approach angle, so it's still a flat fastball that will succeed up in the zone. Pérez is just not yet locating it there consistently early on, which is to be expected after surgery. Perhaps the new movement profile on the four-seamer will lead to less hard contact when he misses his spot, but sitting 98.1 mph with the pitch is nice to see. Advertisement Pérez also added a sinker this season, which might make some sense when paired with this new four-seam shape. Pérez's sinker is 96.6 mph with over 17 inches of horizontal break, so even though the four-seamer now rides in on righties a bit, the sinker will still bore in on their hands far more. That could create some nice deception and soft contact, but he has been using the sinker more to lefties so far, which is a bit odd to me. Eury The change in arm angle and a reported change in grip have also given his curveball over eight inches more horizontal break and nearly six inches more drop. It comes in about one mph slower than it used to, but he seems to, so far, have an easier time commanding the pitch. That pitch has morphed into his primary secondary offering to lefties, but he has yet to induce a single swinging strike on it against them. Some of that is simply that the pitch is catching too much of the plate, which is something he'll need to iron out as he gets more starts. Righties are still seeing his slider as the primary secondary offering, and that pitch has gotten a bit flatter with the new arm angle. However, the slider has not induced a single swinging strike to righties so far. It's a pretty wild stat between that and the curve to lefties. However, we should note that Pérez has faced FAR more lefties so far in his first two appearances, so we'll take those numbers with a grain of salt. However, the slider has graded out REALLY poorly by PLV so far this season. Advertisement Lastly, we saw a minor change with Pérez's change-up this season, coming in nearly one mph harder and with more arm-side run. However, he's only thrown five, and not one of them has been for a strike. At the end of the day, I don't see this as a package I'm pursuing right now in shallower redraft leagues. If you have the bench space and you want to stash him to see how the next few starts go, I have no issue with that, but Pérez is going to need to figure out his curveball and/or slider this season before he starts racking up strikeouts. The Marlins also have no reason to push him beyond 80-ish pitches per game in his first season back from injury. I'll be heavily invested in Pérez for next season, but I'm only taking low-cost shares for 2025. 2025 Fantasy Baseball: 60 Undervalued Players, from Jasson Domínguez to Bo Bichette Advertisement 60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league. Brayan Bello - Boston Red Sox (Cutter Usage) Bello is evolving before our eyes and is turning into a type of pitcher none of us ever expected him to be. When he debuted, Bello had an elite changeup but lacked a plus fastball or a great swing-and-miss breaking pitch. He has since developed a good slider, but the changeup has left him almost completely. Now, it seems that Bello is relying on three variations of a fastball (four-seam, sinker, and cutter), while mixing in his sweeper and changeup. Bello threw his cutter for the first time this season on May 13th. He then didn't throw a single cutter in his next outing, but from May 23rd on, Bello has thrown his cutter 13% of the time, including a career-high 33% usage on Sunday. Over that same span, he's using his sinker 39% of the time and sweeper 23% of the time, while dropping his changeup rate to 12% and kicking his four-seam usage up to an equal 12%. It's a pretty drastic shift for the 26-year-old, but is it one that can work? Brayan Bello changes In his start against the Yankees on Sunday, Bello used his cutter as his primary fastball to both righties and lefties, but it was such an anomaly in his usage pattern that we have to wonder if this was just a gameplan against the Yankees. However, Boston has also tweaked their entire pitching philosophy over the last week and has leaned harder into fastball usage than they have since Andrew Bailey became the pitching coach. The cutter is Bello's best fastball, so this may be a new avenue forward for him. Advertisement He can locate the pitch in the zone well, using it more as a strike pitch for lefties but bringing it in as a two-strike offering for right-handed hitters as well. The cutter is about 89 mph with just 1.5 inches of horizontal movement and very little drop, but it has been great as a two-strike pitch to righties, posting a 28.6% chase rate in those counts and a 28.6% PutAway Rate. We're dealing with a small sample size here, but because Bello throws his slider 36% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, he's able to create some deception by mixing in the cutter in those counts too. The cutter doesn't miss a ton of bats, but it's Bello's best fastball variation and gives him another pitch he can command while he struggles to harness his changeup. Bello's change has a league-average swinging strike rate to lefties, and his slider has a league-average swinging strike rate to righties, so having multiple fastball variations where he can get ahead certainly raises his floor. However, I still think Bello won't take a true leap forward until he figures out his changeup, which is, for some reason, now over two mph harder than it has been in his career and is posting a career-worst zone rate and strike rate. That's going to be the true key to unlocking Bello, but I do think this new cutter usage makes him a bit safer by raising his floor. Brandon Walter - Houston Astros (Pitch Mix Review) Moving from one Red Sox pitcher to a former Red Sox pitcher. Walter was a 26th-round pick by the Red Sox in 2019 and emerged onto the prospect radar in 2021 after a solid season split between A-ball and High-A. He then posted a 2.88 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, and 68/3 K/BB ratio in 50 innings at Double-A in 2022. However, he struggled in a promotion to Triple-A that year and struggled again in Triple-A in 2023 before getting promoted anyway and posting a 6.26 ERA in 23 innings out of the bullpen for the Red Sox. He suffered a rotator cuff injury that kept him out all of the 2024 season and was designated for assignment after the Red Sox acquired Lucas Sims at last year's deadline. Advertisement A member of the Astros organization since last August, Walter has made a few changes since we last saw him in big league games in 2023. For starters, his cutter velocity is up from 87 mph to 88.3 mph and features double the iVB while cutting down on some of the horizontal run. As you can see below, it's his primary fastball offering, and he uses it exclusively against right-handed hitters. He does a nice job getting the pitch inside, but keeps it more in the middle of the zone rather than attacking up or down with it. The pitch has high zone and strike rates, but it also doesn't miss many bats and has a 47% Ideal Contact Rate allowed, so that's not an ideal pairing. Brandon Walter mix He uses this cutter 72% of the time early in counts to right-handed hitters, so even if it doesn't get swings and misses, as long as he can get ahead with it, the pitch is doing its job. He then comes back with a sweeper that he throws 41% of the time in two-strike counts to righties and a changeup that he uses 34% of the time in two-strike counts. The sweeper is another pitch that he doesn't focus much on burying low in the zone, but it has a 72nd percentile PutAway rate to righties, likely because of how it plays off of his cutter. Advertisement The changeup is another high zone rate pitch that has an absurdly low 17% ICR allowed to righties while also posting a league-average swinging strike rate. He does a good job keeping it in the lower half of the strike zone and away from righties, which is who he throws it to exclusively. That's a pretty solid three-pitch mix against right-handed hitters that won't lead to tons of strikeouts but should lead to a fair amount of weak contact. Lefties see a heavy dose of Walters' sweeper, both early in the count and with two-strikes, and also get an equally heavy dose of sinkers that weirdly have an 83rd percentile PutAway Rate against lefties. He'll mix in the odd four-seamer to lefties and righties, which means that he has four pitches he can use to righties and three he can use to lefties, all while locating his pitch in the zone well. The easy comparison here will be Ryan Yarbrough, and I understand that, since both are low-velocity lefties with a funky arm angle and a five-pitch mix that relies primarily on a cutter and sweeper. However, Walter throws over three mph harder than Yarbrough, while Yarbrough has registered more swing-and-miss so far this season. To me, Walter is more of a 15-team league option, but I like him more than Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon because I think his pitch mix is deeper, and I can see a clear attack plan for both righties and lefties. He's still a streamer, but in deeper formats, I'd be OK using him against the bottom half of the league, and I think he can outlast his two teammates and remain in Houston's rotation.
NBC Sports
18-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Jacob Misiorowski debuts, Brayan Bello makes a change
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, Brewers starting pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski made one of the most anticipated MLB debuts of the season last week when he tossed five hitless innings against the Cardinals on Thursday. Part of the intrigue for Misiorowski is his 6'7" frame and also the triple-digit fastball that he can still pump with high velocity deep into starts. His command had taken a step forward in the minors, and so there was a palpable feeling that we might be witnessing a true breakout. So, how did he look in that MLB debut? Pitcher List We'll start with the fastball because he sat 99 mph with it last week with 7.5 feet of extension, and that's just absurd. That kind of extension will make a 99 mph fastball look like a 102-103 mph pitch and comes with a 1.7 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle, which means it's a flat fastball that fights gravity and seems to rise as it approaches home plate. A pitch with that velocity that also seems to rise is incredibly hard to hit and immediately becomes one of the best fastballs in all of baseball. However, this is where the command comes into play. A pitch that electric is often hard to control, and Misiorowski had just a 44% zone rate on it during his debut, which is well below the 52.4% mark that's MLB league average for a starting pitcher. Some of that might be due to nerves, but having just a 9% called strike rate is not great for your four-seam fastball, which is supposed to be a foundational pitch that Misiorowski can also use to get ahead in the count with. Yet, it seems like Misiorowski has another pitch for that, which is his slider/cutter. It's classified as a slider right now, but it's 94.3 mph with just 1.7 inches of horizontal movement and feels an awful lot like a cutter. He had a 48% zone rate on that pitch despite a below-average 56% strike rate. He used it early in the count 70% of the time to righties, which also suggests that he views it as a strike pitch that he can get ahead with. He threw 23 of his 25 cutters to righties, and only threw his four-seam early in the count 33% of the time to righties, so we're seeing a clear approach here. Misiorowski will use the cutter to get ahead on righties and then have the four-seamer as a two-strike pitch, but will use the four-seamer early in the count to lefties and then go to his curveball. He threw seven of his 11 curveballs to lefties and used it in two-strike counts 85.7% of the time, so the plan is pretty clear. It's an 88 mph pitch with nearly 11 inches of drop and six inches of horizontal run and can be downright filthy at times. It's incredibly rare to find a curve that's nearly 90 mph that drops as much as Misiorowski's does, but that could also be why he struggles to command it. All four of his curves to righties were thrown for strikes because it's just a 'get me over pitch' against right-handed hitters. However, just two of his seven curves to lefties were for strikes. He missed up and away a handful of times, which indicates he was over-throwing it, and had a below-average PutAway Rate on the pitch, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. He also threw two nasty changeups to lefties at 91 mph, so maybe that will become a bigger offering for him, but right now we have a three-pitch mix and a pretty clear and narrow arsenal for all hitters. If righties know they're going to get a cutter early and a four-seam late in the count, will they adapt to that plan quickly? If lefties know the two pitches Misiorowski throws to them are two pitches he struggles to command, will they just wait him out? When you pair that with Misiorowski already being 29 innings away from matching his career high, there are some risks with him as a rest-of-season starter. I think he needs to be rostered in all formats, and I can easily see a low ERA with plenty of strikeouts the rest of the way. However, I also think there's a chance his WHIP can hurt your ratios, and the Brewers may shut him down in the middle or end of August if they fall out of playoff contention, which I expect them to do. But for now, enjoy the ride. Eury Pérez made his long-awaited return to an MLB mound this month after missing all of last season following Tommy John surgery. The 22-year-old is one of the most exciting young pitchers in baseball, but has struggled in his first two appearances, allowing five runs on eight hits in seven innings with five strikeouts and five walks. We've also seen some interesting changes to his pitch mix and mechanics that are worth exploring. For starters, Pérez dropped his arm angle almost five degrees, which you can see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below. His teammate, Edward Cabrera, also dropped his arm angle significantly this season, so you have to wonder if this is an organizational shift for the Marlins. The new arm angle has, obviously, changed the shape of some of Pérez's offerings. His four-seam arm angle has dropped almost seven inches, which has cost him over an inch of Induced Vertical Break (iVB) but added over two inches of arm-side run. Even with that change in shape, he has the same Height Adjusted Vertical Approach angle, so it's still a flat fastball that will succeed up in the zone. Pérez is just not yet locating it there consistently early on, which is to be expected after surgery. Perhaps the new movement profile on the four-seamer will lead to less hard contact when he misses his spot, but sitting 98.1 mph with the pitch is nice to see. Pérez also added a sinker this season, which might make some sense when paired with this new four-seam shape. Pérez's sinker is 96.6 mph with over 17 inches of horizontal break, so even though the four-seamer now rides in on righties a bit, the sinker will still bore in on their hands far more. That could create some nice deception and soft contact, but he has been using the sinker more to lefties so far, which is a bit odd to me. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard The change in arm angle and a reported change in grip have also given his curveball over eight inches more horizontal break and nearly six inches more drop. It comes in about one mph slower than it used to, but he seems to, so far, have an easier time commanding the pitch. That pitch has morphed into his primary secondary offering to lefties, but he has yet to induce a single swinging strike on it against them. Some of that is simply that the pitch is catching too much of the plate, which is something he'll need to iron out as he gets more starts. Righties are still seeing his slider as the primary secondary offering, and that pitch has gotten a bit flatter with the new arm angle. However, the slider has not induced a single swinging strike to righties so far. It's a pretty wild stat between that and the curve to lefties. However, we should note that Pérez has faced FAR more lefties so far in his first two appearances, so we'll take those numbers with a grain of salt. However, the slider has graded out REALLY poorly by PLV so far this season. Lastly, we saw a minor change with Pérez's change-up this season, coming in nearly one mph harder and with more arm-side run. However, he's only thrown five, and not one of them has been for a strike. At the end of the day, I don't see this as a package I'm pursuing right now in shallower redraft leagues. If you have the bench space and you want to stash him to see how the next few starts go, I have no issue with that, but Pérez is going to need to figure out his curveball and/or slider this season before he starts racking up strikeouts. The Marlins also have no reason to push him beyond 80-ish pitches per game in his first season back from injury. I'll be heavily invested in Pérez for next season, but I'm only taking low-cost shares for 2025. Bello is evolving before our eyes and is turning into a type of pitcher none of us ever expected him to be. When he debuted, Bello had an elite changeup but lacked a plus fastball or a great swing-and-miss breaking pitch. He has since developed a good slider, but the changeup has left him almost completely. Now, it seems that Bello is relying on three variations of a fastball (four-seam, sinker, and cutter), while mixing in his sweeper and changeup. Bello threw his cutter for the first time this season on May 13th. He then didn't throw a single cutter in his next outing, but from May 23rd on, Bello has thrown his cutter 13% of the time, including a career-high 33% usage on Sunday. Over that same span, he's using his sinker 39% of the time and sweeper 23% of the time, while dropping his changeup rate to 12% and kicking his four-seam usage up to an equal 12%. It's a pretty drastic shift for the 26-year-old, but is it one that can work? In his start against the Yankees on Sunday, Bello used his cutter as his primary fastball to both righties and lefties, but it was such an anomaly in his usage pattern that we have to wonder if this was just a gameplan against the Yankees. However, Boston has also tweaked their entire pitching philosophy over the last week and has leaned harder into fastball usage than they have since Andrew Bailey became the pitching coach. The cutter is Bello's best fastball, so this may be a new avenue forward for him. He can locate the pitch in the zone well, using it more as a strike pitch for lefties but bringing it in as a two-strike offering for right-handed hitters as well. The cutter is about 89 mph with just 1.5 inches of horizontal movement and very little drop, but it has been great as a two-strike pitch to righties, posting a 28.6% chase rate in those counts and a 28.6% PutAway Rate. We're dealing with a small sample size here, but because Bello throws his slider 36% of the time in two-strike counts to righties, he's able to create some deception by mixing in the cutter in those counts too. The cutter doesn't miss a ton of bats, but it's Bello's best fastball variation and gives him another pitch he can command while he struggles to harness his changeup. Bello's change has a league-average swinging strike rate to lefties, and his slider has a league-average swinging strike rate to righties, so having multiple fastball variations where he can get ahead certainly raises his floor. However, I still think Bello won't take a true leap forward until he figures out his changeup, which is, for some reason, now over two mph harder than it has been in his career and is posting a career-worst zone rate and strike rate. That's going to be the true key to unlocking Bello, but I do think this new cutter usage makes him a bit safer by raising his floor. Moving from one Red Sox pitcher to a former Red Sox pitcher. Walter was a 26th-round pick by the Red Sox in 2019 and emerged onto the prospect radar in 2021 after a solid season split between A-ball and High-A. He then posted a 2.88 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, and 68/3 K/BB ratio in 50 innings at Double-A in 2022. However, he struggled in a promotion to Triple-A that year and struggled again in Triple-A in 2023 before getting promoted anyway and posting a 6.26 ERA in 23 innings out of the bullpen for the Red Sox. He suffered a rotator cuff injury that kept him out all of the 2024 season and was designated for assignment after the Red Sox acquired Lucas Sims at last year's deadline. A member of the Astros organization since last August, Walter has made a few changes since we last saw him in big league games in 2023. For starters, his cutter velocity is up from 87 mph to 88.3 mph and features double the iVB while cutting down on some of the horizontal run. As you can see below, it's his primary fastball offering, and he uses it exclusively against right-handed hitters. He does a nice job getting the pitch inside, but keeps it more in the middle of the zone rather than attacking up or down with it. The pitch has high zone and strike rates, but it also doesn't miss many bats and has a 47% Ideal Contact Rate allowed, so that's not an ideal pairing. He uses this cutter 72% of the time early in counts to right-handed hitters, so even if it doesn't get swings and misses, as long as he can get ahead with it, the pitch is doing its job. He then comes back with a sweeper that he throws 41% of the time in two-strike counts to righties and a changeup that he uses 34% of the time in two-strike counts. The sweeper is another pitch that he doesn't focus much on burying low in the zone, but it has a 72nd percentile PutAway rate to righties, likely because of how it plays off of his cutter. The changeup is another high zone rate pitch that has an absurdly low 17% ICR allowed to righties while also posting a league-average swinging strike rate. He does a good job keeping it in the lower half of the strike zone and away from righties, which is who he throws it to exclusively. That's a pretty solid three-pitch mix against right-handed hitters that won't lead to tons of strikeouts but should lead to a fair amount of weak contact. Lefties see a heavy dose of Walters' sweeper, both early in the count and with two-strikes, and also get an equally heavy dose of sinkers that weirdly have an 83rd percentile PutAway Rate against lefties. He'll mix in the odd four-seamer to lefties and righties, which means that he has four pitches he can use to righties and three he can use to lefties, all while locating his pitch in the zone well. The easy comparison here will be Ryan Yarbrough, and I understand that, since both are low-velocity lefties with a funky arm angle and a five-pitch mix that relies primarily on a cutter and sweeper. However, Walter throws over three mph harder than Yarbrough, while Yarbrough has registered more swing-and-miss so far this season. To me, Walter is more of a 15-team league option, but I like him more than Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon because I think his pitch mix is deeper, and I can see a clear attack plan for both righties and lefties. He's still a streamer, but in deeper formats, I'd be OK using him against the bottom half of the league, and I think he can outlast his two teammates and remain in Houston's rotation.
