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NBC Sports
5 days ago
- 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.
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.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Jameson Taillon's new changeup, Tanner Bibee bounceback, more
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: Tampa Bay Rays at Arizona Diamondbacks 2025 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani & Bobby Witt Jr. lead Top 300 rest of season ranks Advertisement Roman Anthony makes a big jump after getting the call to Boston, and CES returns to the rankings. Robbie Ray - San Francisco Giants (New Curve Shape, New Slider Shape, New Changeup) Robbie Ray has been one of the best pitchers in baseball through the first two months of the season, pitching to a 2.44 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 28.4% strikeout rate. While much of that is simply a return to full health, there are a few tweaks to Ray's pitch mix that I think have helped him put together his best stretch of production since 2021. For starters, Ray has added a changeup this season, throwing the pitch exclusively to right-handed hitters, against whom he uses it nearly 18% of the time. The pitch is almost 85 mph with 11.5 inches of horizontal run and close to 11 inches of drop. He throws it all over the strike zone, and while it's primarily used low in the zone (69%), he does throw it up in the zone more than average and that's likely to tunnel with his four-seam fastball, which also has over eight inches of horizontal movement given his arm angle at release. Robbie Ray Ray has used the changeup to steal strikes early in the count, using it 68% of the time in early counts; however, he will also mix it in in two-strike counts and has an above-average PutAway Rate on it, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. Overall, the pitch has an above-average 61% strike rate and an impressive 24% swinging strike rate (SwStr%). It doesn't get hit hard, with just a 30% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR), and gives him an important fourth offering to righties since righties have hit his slider and curve relatively hard, even if they do also miss bats. Advertisement The other big change has been shape changes on both his slider and his curveball. This season, the slider has 1.5 inches more horizontal movement and also 1.6 inches more drop. The added movement has also given him more confidence to throw it in the zone. He has a higher zone rate and strike rate on the pitch and has focused less on burying it inside to righties or keeping it on the outside corner to lefties. That has brought down the overall SwStr% and ICR, but much of that has to do with him using the pitch early in the count to righties as a way to get ahead or generate weak contact. The pitch has also posted a 15.3% SwStr% and 19% ICR to lefties, which is great. He has also seen the zone rate increase on his curve, and you have to wonder if the move to spacious Oracle Park over these last 20 total starts has caused him to be more comfortable pitching to contact. This season, his curve has slightly more sweep but nearly five inches more vertical break. The sharper vertical break pairs better with Ray's four-seam fastball, which has strong vertical movement as well. That might be part of the reason the curve has an above-average called strike rate to righties, which is who Ray uses it primarily against. At the end of the day, these changes don't make Ray a drastically different pitcher, but they widen his arsenal from just the fastball-slider guy he used to be, which has led to far less hard contact and a strong 30% CSW. None of what he's doing should be viewed as fluky. Jameson Taillon - Chicago Cubs (New Changeup) Since May 1st, Jameson Taillon has posted a 3.16 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, and 19.5% strikeout rate over 42.2 innings in seven starts. OK, that strikeout rate isn't great, but is the rest of it sustainable? It feels like a big part of it is due to Taillon's increased reliance on his changeup. Taillon Pitch Mix Change Taillon is also throwing a slightly different version of the changeup this season, adding nearly two inches of arm-side run and over two inches of drop. He's also cut over 1.5 mph on the pitch and killed some of the spin as he has switched to a kick-change grip. As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's chart above, Taillon has also raised his arm angle on the pitch as the year has gone on, perhaps getting more comfortable with a release point that allows him to command the new grip. Advertisement Overall, the changeup has seen a huge jump in SwStr%, posting a 23.1% mark this year, up from 7.5% last year. He's also throwing it in the zone more and has a 71% strike rate on it, after having just a 59% strike rate in 2024. Oh yeah, and the pitch is allowing just a 23% ICR. All of that is tremendous. As you'd expect, he's using the pitch exclusively to left-handed hitters and is more comfortable using it in two-strike counts. Last year, he used his changeup just 10% of the time in two-strike counts, and it had a 9% PutAway Rate. This season, he's using it 28.5% of the time in two-strike counts and has registered a 19% PutAway Rate. That's important for him because his sweeper is used only to righties, his cutter is not a swinging strike pitch, and his curveball has a below-average PutAway rate to lefties, so he needs that changeup to give him a solid two-strike option other than his four-seam fastball. This is not going to make Jameson Taillon an ace or a fantasy asset when it comes to strikeouts, but I think it gives him a safer floor and makes him a streamer in shallow formats and a must-roster player in deeper formats rather than just being a streamer in deeper leagues. 2025 Fantasy Baseball: 60 Undervalued Players, from Jasson Domínguez to Bo Bichette Advertisement 60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league. Tanner Bibee - Cleveland Guardians (Arm Angle Change, Sweeper Usage, Curve Usage) It has been an up-and-down start to the year for Tanner Bibee, but I've started to see some pitch mix changes that I felt were worth digging into. In the first six starts of the season, Bibee had a 4.36 ERA (4.68 SIERA), 1.30 WHIP, and 18.4% strikeout rate with a 9.5% SwStr%, 28.8% CSW, and 31.3% ICR. Not awful marks, but a poor swinging strike rate and a SIERA that suggested he was earning his mediocre marks. However, he started tweaking his pitch mix in May, which you can see in the table I made below, and in the seven starts since, he has posted a 3.38 ERA (3.79 SIERA), 1.13 WHIP, and a 21.1% strikeout rate with a 10.5% SwStr%, 27.9% CSW, and 37.5% ICR. Tanner Bibee Pitch Mix Four-Seam Sinker Cutter Sweeper Curve Change Until 5/1 33.90% 15.70% 22.10% 6.90% 3.70% 12.50% From 5/1 On 27.90% 12.90% 18.70% 20.80% 5.80% 13.80% In his two starts in June, which you can see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below, he has continued some of those earlier modifications. In both of those starts, he was tremendous through six innings before fading in the seventh. In those two starts, he has also posted a 24% strikeout rate, 12.3% SwStr%, 28.2% CSW, and 38.9% ICR, so while the contact allowed is getting a bit harder, the swing and miss is coming back a bit. Tanner Bibee Pitch Mix I immediately noticed that Bibee's arm angle had changed pretty drastically throughout the season. Now, that could be an intentional overall shift, but it could be that Bibee has different arm angles on different pitches, which you can see in the chart. So if he were to alter his pitch mix significantly, which is what he's doing, that could change his average arm angle. However, we can see that he has a little more carry/rise on his four-seam fastball, which is improving its overall performance. He also has a flatter cutter, which has similarly led to far less hard contact and better overall command of the pitch, and suggests that the arm angle change is an actual change and not just the result of a new pitch mix distribution. Advertisement Another big part of Bibee's recent success has been the evolution of his sweeper and increased use of his curveball. The sweeper, in particular, has a few things that stand out. For one, Bibee has raised his arm angle on the sweeper by about five degrees. That's not just a random sample or a potential mistake; you can see the huge change in vertical release point on the chart above. The new arm angle has led to a shift in his sweeper movement profile. Since May, his sweeper has gotten over 1.5 mph harder and tightened up its horizontal break while adding nearly two inches of drop. That has led to improvements in SwStr% and CSW but also more hard contact, likely because Bibee needs to alter his locations to account for less overall movement on the pitch. In his last four starts, Bibee has a 15.7% SwStr% on his sweeper after posting a 10.4% mark in his starts before May 22nd. He's using it less frequently early in the count, likely to account for its increased swing-and-miss abilities, but is throwing it more often when he gets deeper into the count (2-2, 3-2, etc.). The added drop has also likely made him more comfortable using it to lefties, as he's increased his sweeper usage by over 7% in his last four starts. Bibee has also started using his curve more as the season has gone on, specifically using it more in two-strike counts and more often to lefties. He could be relying on it more often because the cutter has not been as successful for him early in the season, but I also think the curve is a nice addition against lefties when paired with the changeup and four-seamer. The curve comes out of the same tunnel as his two fastballs, and since it's a late-breaking curve, it stays in that tunnel for longer than you'd expect. It also has a similar pitch height to his changeup but breaks more vertically, while the change has armside run. That creates solid tunneling with the rest of his offerings to lefties. The curve itself has a 15.8% SwStr% against lefties over the last four starts, with a nearly 32% CSW and 74% strike rate. I think Bibee is trending in the right direction with these changes. The decrease in reliance on his four-seam fastball and sinker is working because he has the secondaries to fill in the gaps. The curveball works early in the count to lefties, as does the changeup, and the changeup could even be used to righties more early on. The new sweeper shape gives him more swing and miss ability, and the cutter has flattened, which is improving its overall performance. If Bibee continues to use his more dynamic sweeper and keeps tunneling his curve effectively, he could get back to being a 26-28% strikeout rate pitcher with a low-to-mid 3s ERA. Colton Gordon - Houston Astros (Pitch Mix Review) After covering three pitch mix changes for veterans, I wanted to dive into an overall pitch mix review of Colton Gordon, the Astros left-handed rookie who has earned a spot in the rotation due to injuries and has a 5.11 ERA (3.30 SIERA), 1.38 WHIP, and 20.8% K-BB% in 24.2 inning across five starts this season. Below, you can see Kyle Bland's chart that breaks down Gordon's pitch shapes and usage in his last start against Cleveland, as well as highlighting the specific results of those pitches. Gordon Pitch Mix Gordon starts his arsenal with a four-seamer that he uses more often to righties than lefties. The pitch is just 91.2 mph from the left side with 11 inches of horizontal run and 14.8 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB). It is a flat fastball with a 1.0 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle, but he doesn't keep it up in the zone at all. He does a good job of getting it inside to lefties, but it catches far too much of the plate against righties, which has led to just a 7% SwStr% and 46% ICR. That's concerning. Advertisement He also adds a 91.6 mph sinker, which is his primary fastball to lefties, but also doesn't miss bats to them while posting a 44.4% ICR. So neither of his fastballs misses bats or gives up weak contact. That's a bad start. He does have a good sweeper as his primary secondary pitch, which he throws to both righties and lefties, and has above-average swinging strike rates to both. However, righties also hit the pitch hard when they do make contact, which isn't entirely surprising, and he probably needs to stop throwing it early in counts as often to them as he has been. It can be used as a chase pitch to righties when he's ahead in the count, but he can continue to use it regularly against lefties because it's a truly dominant pitch there. His other best secondary pitch is an underutilized curveball. He uses the pitch exclusively to righties, and it has an above-average zone rate, strike rate, and SwStr%. It's a big breaker at 74.5 mph with over 15 inches of horizontal break and nearly six inches of drop. He has thrown it 97% of the time early in the count, but it really can be used for swings and misses late in the count based on how it's performing as a whiff pitch. In fact, he really should be using it far more at the expense of a changeup that he uses 9% of the time to righties but misses no bats and gives up a 46% ICR. Overall, there's not a ton here that stands out to me. I do think the sweeper is a great pitch against lefties and can be a good swinging strike pitch for righties. I think he can use his curve more often to righties to give him two solid secondaries, but the changeup is not great, and he'll need to hide his fastballs to both righties and lefties, which will always make him a bit of a minefield. If we see his curveball usage tick up then I feel a bit more confident using Gordon as a streamer in plus matchups, but that feels like the ceiling for me right now.
NBC Sports
11-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Jameson Taillon's new changeup, Tanner Bibee bounceback, more
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, Robbie Ray has been one of the best pitchers in baseball through the first two months of the season, pitching to a 2.44 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 28.4% strikeout rate. While much of that is simply a return to full health, there are a few tweaks to Ray's pitch mix that I think have helped him put together his best stretch of production since 2021. For starters, Ray has added a changeup this season, throwing the pitch exclusively to right-handed hitters, against whom he uses it nearly 18% of the time. The pitch is almost 85 mph with 11.5 inches of horizontal run and close to 11 inches of drop. He throws it all over the strike zone, and while it's primarily used low in the zone (69%), he does throw it up in the zone more than average and that's likely to tunnel with his four-seam fastball, which also has over eight inches of horizontal movement given his arm angle at release. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard Ray has used the changeup to steal strikes early in the count, using it 68% of the time in early counts; however, he will also mix it in in two-strike counts and has an above-average PutAway Rate on it, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. Overall, the pitch has an above-average 61% strike rate and an impressive 24% swinging strike rate (SwStr%). It doesn't get hit hard, with just a 30% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR), and gives him an important fourth offering to righties since righties have hit his slider and curve relatively hard, even if they do also miss bats. The other big change has been shape changes on both his slider and his curveball. This season, the slider has 1.5 inches more horizontal movement and also 1.6 inches more drop. The added movement has also given him more confidence to throw it in the zone. He has a higher zone rate and strike rate on the pitch and has focused less on burying it inside to righties or keeping it on the outside corner to lefties. That has brought down the overall SwStr% and ICR, but much of that has to do with him using the pitch early in the count to righties as a way to get ahead or generate weak contact. The pitch has also posted a 15.3% SwStr% and 19% ICR to lefties, which is great. He has also seen the zone rate increase on his curve, and you have to wonder if the move to spacious Oracle Park over these last 20 total starts has caused him to be more comfortable pitching to contact. This season, his curve has slightly more sweep but nearly five inches more vertical break. The sharper vertical break pairs better with Ray's four-seam fastball, which has strong vertical movement as well. That might be part of the reason the curve has an above-average called strike rate to righties, which is who Ray uses it primarily against. At the end of the day, these changes don't make Ray a drastically different pitcher, but they widen his arsenal from just the fastball-slider guy he used to be, which has led to far less hard contact and a strong 30% CSW. None of what he's doing should be viewed as fluky. Since May 1st, Jameson Taillon has posted a 3.16 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, and 19.5% strikeout rate over 42.2 innings in seven starts. OK, that strikeout rate isn't great, but is the rest of it sustainable? It feels like a big part of it is due to Taillon's increased reliance on his changeup. Alex Chamberlain Pitch Leaderboard Taillon is also throwing a slightly different version of the changeup this season, adding nearly two inches of arm-side run and over two inches of drop. He's also cut over 1.5 mph on the pitch and killed some of the spin as he has switched to a kick-change grip. As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's chart above, Taillon has also raised his arm angle on the pitch as the year has gone on, perhaps getting more comfortable with a release point that allows him to command the new grip. Overall, the changeup has seen a huge jump in SwStr%, posting a 23.1% mark this year, up from 7.5% last year. He's also throwing it in the zone more and has a 71% strike rate on it, after having just a 59% strike rate in 2024. Oh yeah, and the pitch is allowing just a 23% ICR. All of that is tremendous. As you'd expect, he's using the pitch exclusively to left-handed hitters and is more comfortable using it in two-strike counts. Last year, he used his changeup just 10% of the time in two-strike counts, and it had a 9% PutAway Rate. This season, he's using it 28.5% of the time in two-strike counts and has registered a 19% PutAway Rate. That's important for him because his sweeper is used only to righties, his cutter is not a swinging strike pitch, and his curveball has a below-average PutAway rate to lefties, so he needs that changeup to give him a solid two-strike option other than his four-seam fastball. This is not going to make Jameson Taillon an ace or a fantasy asset when it comes to strikeouts, but I think it gives him a safer floor and makes him a streamer in shallow formats and a must-roster player in deeper formats rather than just being a streamer in deeper leagues. It has been an up-and-down start to the year for Tanner Bibee, but I've started to see some pitch mix changes that I felt were worth digging into. In the first six starts of the season, Bibee had a 4.36 ERA (4.68 SIERA), 1.30 WHIP, and 18.4% strikeout rate with a 9.5% SwStr%, 28.8% CSW, and 31.3% ICR. Not awful marks, but a poor swinging strike rate and a SIERA that suggested he was earning his mediocre marks. However, he started tweaking his pitch mix in May, which you can see in the table I made below, and in the seven starts since, he has posted a 3.38 ERA (3.79 SIERA), 1.13 WHIP, and a 21.1% strikeout rate with a 10.5% SwStr%, 27.9% CSW, and 37.5% ICR. Tanner Bibee Pitch Mix In his two starts in June, which you can see in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below, he has continued some of those earlier modifications. In both of those starts, he was tremendous through six innings before fading in the seventh. In those two starts, he has also posted a 24% strikeout rate, 12.3% SwStr%, 28.2% CSW, and 38.9% ICR, so while the contact allowed is getting a bit harder, the swing and miss is coming back a bit. I immediately noticed that Bibee's arm angle had changed pretty drastically throughout the season. Now, that could be an intentional overall shift, but it could be that Bibee has different arm angles on different pitches, which you can see in the chart. So if he were to alter his pitch mix significantly, which is what he's doing, that could change his average arm angle. However, we can see that he has a little more carry/rise on his four-seam fastball, which is improving its overall performance. He also has a flatter cutter, which has similarly led to far less hard contact and better overall command of the pitch, and suggests that the arm angle change is an actual change and not just the result of a new pitch mix distribution. Another big part of Bibee's recent success has been the evolution of his sweeper and increased use of his curveball. The sweeper, in particular, has a few things that stand out. For one, Bibee has raised his arm angle on the sweeper by about five degrees. That's not just a random sample or a potential mistake; you can see the huge change in vertical release point on the chart above. The new arm angle has led to a shift in his sweeper movement profile. Since May, his sweeper has gotten over 1.5 mph harder and tightened up its horizontal break while adding nearly two inches of drop. That has led to improvements in SwStr% and CSW but also more hard contact, likely because Bibee needs to alter his locations to account for less overall movement on the pitch. In his last four starts, Bibee has a 15.7% SwStr% on his sweeper after posting a 10.4% mark in his starts before May 22nd. He's using it less frequently early in the count, likely to account for its increased swing-and-miss abilities, but is throwing it more often when he gets deeper into the count (2-2, 3-2, etc.). The added drop has also likely made him more comfortable using it to lefties, as he's increased his sweeper usage by over 7% in his last four starts. Bibee has also started using his curve more as the season has gone on, specifically using it more in two-strike counts and more often to lefties. He could be relying on it more often because the cutter has not been as successful for him early in the season, but I also think the curve is a nice addition against lefties when paired with the changeup and four-seamer. The curve comes out of the same tunnel as his two fastballs, and since it's a late-breaking curve, it stays in that tunnel for longer than you'd expect. It also has a similar pitch height to his changeup but breaks more vertically, while the change has armside run. That creates solid tunneling with the rest of his offerings to lefties. The curve itself has a 15.8% SwStr% against lefties over the last four starts, with a nearly 32% CSW and 74% strike rate. I think Bibee is trending in the right direction with these changes. The decrease in reliance on his four-seam fastball and sinker is working because he has the secondaries to fill in the gaps. The curveball works early in the count to lefties, as does the changeup, and the changeup could even be used to righties more early on. The new sweeper shape gives him more swing and miss ability, and the cutter has flattened, which is improving its overall performance. If Bibee continues to use his more dynamic sweeper and keeps tunneling his curve effectively, he could get back to being a 26-28% strikeout rate pitcher with a low-to-mid 3s ERA. After covering three pitch mix changes for veterans, I wanted to dive into an overall pitch mix review of Colton Gordon, the Astros left-handed rookie who has earned a spot in the rotation due to injuries and has a 5.11 ERA (3.30 SIERA), 1.38 WHIP, and 20.8% K-BB% in 24.2 inning across five starts this season. Below, you can see Kyle Bland's chart that breaks down Gordon's pitch shapes and usage in his last start against Cleveland, as well as highlighting the specific results of those pitches. Pitcher List Gordon starts his arsenal with a four-seamer that he uses more often to righties than lefties. The pitch is just 91.2 mph from the left side with 11 inches of horizontal run and 14.8 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB). It is a flat fastball with a 1.0 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle, but he doesn't keep it up in the zone at all. He does a good job of getting it inside to lefties, but it catches far too much of the plate against righties, which has led to just a 7% SwStr% and 46% ICR. That's concerning. He also adds a 91.6 mph sinker, which is his primary fastball to lefties, but also doesn't miss bats to them while posting a 44.4% ICR. So neither of his fastballs misses bats or gives up weak contact. That's a bad start. He does have a good sweeper as his primary secondary pitch, which he throws to both righties and lefties, and has above-average swinging strike rates to both. However, righties also hit the pitch hard when they do make contact, which isn't entirely surprising, and he probably needs to stop throwing it early in counts as often to them as he has been. It can be used as a chase pitch to righties when he's ahead in the count, but he can continue to use it regularly against lefties because it's a truly dominant pitch there. His other best secondary pitch is an underutilized curveball. He uses the pitch exclusively to righties, and it has an above-average zone rate, strike rate, and SwStr%. It's a big breaker at 74.5 mph with over 15 inches of horizontal break and nearly six inches of drop. He has thrown it 97% of the time early in the count, but it really can be used for swings and misses late in the count based on how it's performing as a whiff pitch. In fact, he really should be using it far more at the expense of a changeup that he uses 9% of the time to righties but misses no bats and gives up a 46% ICR. Overall, there's not a ton here that stands out to me. I do think the sweeper is a great pitch against lefties and can be a good swinging strike pitch for righties. I think he can use his curve more often to righties to give him two solid secondaries, but the changeup is not great, and he'll need to hide his fastballs to both righties and lefties, which will always make him a bit of a minefield. If we see his curveball usage tick up then I feel a bit more confident using Gordon as a streamer in plus matchups, but that feels like the ceiling for me right now.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
MLB Starting Pitcher News: Chris Paddack surging, Brandon Pfaadt and Max Meyer struggling
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: Tampa Bay Rays at Arizona Diamondbacks 2025 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani & Bobby Witt Jr. lead Top 300 rest of season ranks Advertisement Jac Caglianone, Camilo Doval and Addison Barger surge in the June 2 rankings update. Chris Paddack - Minnesota Twins (New Slider) It was trendy early in the season to push for Chris Paddack to be sent packing. I get it, I was a part of the crowd calling for him to be pushed aside in order to make room for Zebby Matthews or David Festa. But we may have all been a little too quick in writing the obituary for Paddack's fantasy value. After starting the season with two inconsistent outings, Paddack has pitched to a 2.17 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 46/14 K/BB ratio in 58 innings for the Twins. While that strikeout rate is not something to write home about, and the 25.4% CSW and 11.2% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) don't tell the story of a pitcher who's dominating his opponents, we have a 10-game sample size of Paddack producing solid results. It's time we take that seriously and start to look at WHY that might be happening. Advertisement For starters, Paddack's four-seam fastball has traded some horizontal run for vertical movement. In Kyle Bland's awesome chart below, I toggled Paddack's stats from his start on Sunday against the Mariners and set them to compare to his 2024 stats. That means the nearly one-inch increase in Induced Vertical Break (iVB) is from this year to last year. That has made Paddack's four-seamer a bit flatter, and he has responded by throwing it up in the zone a bit more. In particular, Paddack is using the four-seamer up in the zone to lefties over 7% more and has attacked them inside 8% more. While it hasn't led to much improvement in many surface-level numbers, lefties last year had a 30% HR/FB ratio, 8.5% barrel rate, and .365 wOBA off Paddack's four-seamer. In 2025, those numbers are now a 7.1% HR/FB ratio, 2% barrel rate, and .286 wOBA. Paddack Pitch The biggest change that you can see in Paddack from 2024 to 2025 is the shape of his breaking balls. The curveball has a pretty minimal shift, but he's cut over an inch of horizontal movement on the pitch while keeping the vertical break the same. This has drastically improved the zone rate and the quality of contact allowed, but I think the curve was primarily altered as part of a plan to attack lefties. By removing some of the horizontal movement, that means the pitch doesn't break down-and-in to lefties as much. That tends to be a hot spot for left-handed hitters, so this is a change we can get behind. In 2025, the curve has seen a slight improvement in SwStr% to lefties (it's still bad) but has also seen the Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) fall from 44.4% to 30.8%. Since he can command the pitch better, he's using it early in the strike zone more often and has seen his early called strike rate on the curve to lefties jump from 39th percentile to 75th percentile. Advertisement It's OK for both the four-seamer and curve to not miss many bats to lefties because the changes Paddack made to his slider are taking care of that. This year, his slider is almost two mph harder with nearly three inches less horizontal movement and more iVB, which implies it's more of a gyro spin and closer to a cutter than a sweepier slider. He's using this gyro slider up and inside to lefties often, and has seen it get a 15.2% SwStr% and a nearly 29% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. He has not been as successful getting two-strike swing-and-misses to righties, but the 12.4% SwStr% on the pitch to righties is solid, and it has a league average ICR against them. What this all means is that the minor four-seam and curve shape changes, paired with an approach change, have led to far more soft contact against lefties and decreased the home run issue. His new gyro slider has also added some swing and miss to lefties instead of just having to rely on his changeup, but he still has that solid changeup and four-seam pairing to mitigate damage to lefties. At the end of the day, Paddack is not going to emerge as a major strikeout weapon, but the new shapes and attack plan do make his ratio improvements seem real, and it would not be a shock to see him settle in as a 3.50 ERA type of pitcher with a good WHIP and mediocre strikeouts. Ryan Yarbrough - New York Yankees (New Changeup Grip, New Sweeper, Cutter Usage) One of the guys in my home league said the Yankees signed "prime Jamie Moyer" when they signed Ryan Yarbrough, and we laughed, but Yarbrough has been good this season. The Yankees moved him into the starting rotation in May, and in those five starts, Yarbrough has posted a 2.08 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, and 24/5 K/BB ratio in 26 innings. It wasn't all cupcake opponents either. He faced the Dodgers and Rangers, who I know are slumping, and also had to go to Sacramento to face the A's in an offensive stadium. Advertisement One of the ways Yabrough has had some success is due to some pitch mix tweaks that he's made since joining the rotation. In that span, he has cut his sinker and sweeper usage by over 8% and increased his cutter usage by nearly 14%. Some of that is certainly because he is not facing as many lefties as he did when he was a reliever, so he has to dial back the usage of pitches that are specifically designed to get out lefties, but it also highlights some of the success the Yankees have had with his new pitch shapes. So far this season, the Yankees have made the cutter Yarbrough's most-thrown pitch, upping the usage from 10% last year to 24% this year. They've also added nearly three inches of horizontal break to the cutter and a touch more drop as well as you can see in Kyle Bland's chart below, which is also set up to compare shapes and usage to 2024). Ryan Yarbrough Mix Yarbrough is also throwing the pitch in the zone 23% more often, which has led to more called strikes and a 31.5% CSW, compared to 20% last year. He's primarily throwing the pitch to righties in 2025 and has stopped focusing on jamming hitters up-and-in with it. He's still using it primarily up, but is OK with throwing it more middle, and he's increased his oLOC% (outside location rate) from 19% to 43% against righties this season. While righties aren't swinging and missing much, they have just a 23% ICR on the pitch, so it's getting tons of weak contact. Advertisement The Yankees have also made a tweak to Yarbrough's changeup, adding nearly five inches of vertical movement and over an inch and a half of horizontal run. He uses the pitch almost exclusively to righties and has seen his SwStr% jump from 12% to 19.3% on the season with the added movement. He's commanding it in the zone less effectively, but that appears to be by design since he uses it 40% of the time in two-strike counts to righties and gets a 39% chase rate in those counts with a 76th percentile PutAway Rate. Lastly, Yabrough has added a sweeper this season that he throws to both righties and lefties, but uses 40% of the time to lefties. The pitch is 72 mph with nearly 13 inches of horizontal movement and 5.3 inches of vertical movement, which means the air kind of catches the seams en route to the plate and prevents the pitch from falling as much due to gravity. He uses it 75% of the time early in counts to righties, to steal strikes, and has a 21.6% SwStr% on the pitch to lefties. He does a good job of keeping the pitch low, and while his PutAway Rate to lefties isn't that good, he can piece together some strikeouts with the sweeper, cutter, and sinker. This creates a version of Yarbrough that has more strikeout upside than we've seen from him, maybe ever. The new movement profile on the cutter means that he doesn't need to be as precise with his location in the zone, and he can get ahead to set up the changeup or sweeper. He likely gets bumped from the rotation when Luis Gil is back, and it's unlikely this run of production continues for the left-hander, but he had a 3.19 ERA over nearly 100 innings in relief last year, so he could remain a solid streaming option as long as he stays in this Yankees rotation. 2025 Fantasy Baseball: 60 Undervalued Players, from Jasson Domínguez to Bo Bichette Advertisement 60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league. Max Meyer - Miami Marlins (Slider Usage and Performance) I was a big fan of Max Meyer in the off-season, writing about him as one of my favorite late-round draft picks with the upside to be an impactful starting pitcher. In that article, I mentioned that I was intrigued by Meyer's added fastball velocity, his new sweeper, and the sinker that would take some pressure off his four-seam fastball. Through his first five starts, it seemed like everything was going smoothly. Meyer had a 2.10 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 34% strikeout rate. He had faced the Mets, Braves, and Diamondbacks in that stretch as well, and it seemed like things were trending up. However, starting with his last appearance in April, things took a turn for the worse. In seven starts, he has posted a 7.01 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, and 16.5% strikeout rate. BIG YIKES. So what is at the heart of his struggles, and where do we go from here? Advertisement For starters, the usage and execution of his slider have been trending down. In his first five starts, he used his slider nearly 42% of the time; yet, over his last seven starts, that number has fallen to 29%. Meyer Pitch Mix In its place, he has increased his sweeper usage by about 5% and leaned into his sinker more against righties, which is likely part of the reason his overall SwStr% has dropped from 17.4% to 9.5%, and his CSW has gone from 34% to 27%. If we look at the metrics for just the slider, we can see a stark decline in swinging strike rate and PutAway Rate since the calendar has flipped to May. Max Meyer Slider SwStr% CSW Zone% Strike% PAR Early 4/9 - 5/9 25.1 37.5 45.2 66 34.8 44.8 5/16 - 6/2 14 34 54 67 25.6 51 So what could be behind that? Advertisement For starters, it's pretty clear that his feel for the slider is faltering, and I believe that's a key reason we have seen a lack of swinging strikes. Meyer has seen his zone rate on the slider increase a bunch, but the contact rate is also way up, and the chase rate is down by 8%. He's keeping the slider low in the zone to righties 62% of the time, which seems fine, but it was 74% in his first five starts, which hints at some issues with command. He has also thrown 10% of the sliders middle-middle over this last seven-game stretch after doing so just 2% of the time in his first five games. Since Meyer is no longer able to be as precise with the command of his slider, he has stopped using it as much in two-strike counts. That has led to him using the changeup far more often in two-strike counts over the last seven starts, and that has just a 9% PutAway Rate over that stretch. In the same article I referenced above, I also said that Meyer came into this season with a career 19% strikeout rate and didn't have any clear plus pitches other than his slider, so he needed the fastball velocity to hold and sweeper to be effective if he was going to maintain value. The sweeper has posted just a 6% SwStr% on the season, so that has not emerged as a swing-and-miss offering, which means that pressure for strikeouts is still on the struggling slider. What's more, the four-seam velocity has settled in around 95 mph, which is not quite one mph up from last year. It's an improvement, but not one that is causing any meaningful change to Meyer's value. At the end of the day, I think it's time to cut Meyer in all leagues. If you see his slider command come back, you may see the strikeouts follow, but we've seen many young pitchers spend so much time focused on new pitches that they lose feel for their old pitch (Brayan Bello and his changeup). I think we may be seeing the same thing with Meyer here. UPDATE: AFTER THIS ARTICLE WAS SUBMITTED, MAX MEYER WAS PLACED ON THE IL WITH A HIP INJURY. IT'S POSSIBLE THE HIP INJURY WAS CAUSING SOME OF THE ISSUES WITH THE SLIDER COMMAND, BUT IT'S ALSO EQUALLY POSSIBLE THAT'S JUST AN OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE MEYER A BREAK AND A RESET. Brandon Pfaadt - Arizona Diamondbacks (Changeup and Curve Usage, Struggles with Left-Handed Hitters) Much like with Max Meyer, Pfaadt was off to a strong start to the season, posting a 2.78 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 29/6 K/BB ratio in his first six starts. I even featured him in this exact column, discussing how he was evolving as a pitcher and getting rid of his biggest weakness, which was allowing hard contact to lefties. Advertisement When the calendar flipped to May, he alternated a bad start against the Phillies with six shutout innings against the Dodgers to give him a 3.28 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and 41/10 K/BB ratio in 46.2 innings. Not a bad way to begin the year through eight starts. However, in the four starts since then, he has allowed 18 runs on 20 hits in 15.2 innings while striking out eight and walking five. YUCK. So what's at the heart of this? I'm gonna go back to the start of May to dig in. In my earlier article on Pfaadt, which I published in April, I talked about the two key changes for Pfaadt being that he was using his changeup more often and "throwing his curveball almost three mph harder, with more vertical break and significantly less horizontal break. The more north-south movement on the pitch makes it a better weapon against lefties." There was still work to be done, but I saw a path forward for Pfaadt against lefties. Then a boulder fell and blocked that path. In his first six starts of the season, Pfaadt threw his changeup to lefties 25.7% and his curve 18% of the time. In his six starts since May 1st, he has thrown the changeup 24.3% to lefties and the curve just 11% of the time. Since the changeup usage has stayed pretty similar, let's see where the numbers stack up. Brandon Pfaadt Changeup versus LHH SwStr% CSW Zone% Strike% ICR PAR Early% 3/25 - 4/30 14.3 24.5 31.6 60.2 43.5 0 71.4 5/1 - 6/2 18.6 32.9 38.6 65.7 53.8 18.8 63 On the surface, we like to see the swinging strike rate and CSW go up, while the zone rate and strike rate have also gone up, so that seems positive. However, the hard contact allowed has exploded to nearly 54%, and it seems that he has stopped using it early in the count as much. When we dig in further, we can see that the locations to lefties are not that much different. He was getting the pitch low in the zone 79% of the time in April, but that's now 73% to lefties. His outside location rate is pretty similar, but he had thrown his changeup middle-middle just 3% of the time to lefties in his first six starts, and that has ballooned to 8.3% in his last six starts. That's part of the reason his groundball rate has dropped 7%, and his hard contact is up. Advertisement It seems like just a bit of a location issue where he is no longer as precise with the location of his changeup to lefties. Yet, considering he doesn't have many other offerings to lefties and has stopped using his curve as much, that small change can have a big impact. But why did he stop using his curveball as much? Brandon Pfaadt Curve versus LHH SwStr% CSW Zone% Strike% ICR PAR Early% 3/25 - 4/30 20.6 27.9 25 62.3 50 21.2 39.7 5/1 - 6/2 9.1 24.2 33.3 48.5 40 22.2 66.7 On the surface, the pitch was a huge swinging strike asset for him, and he seemed to thrive by using it in the zone less often and throwing it primarily in two-strike counts. Yes, it got hit hard, but it was just a two-strike pitch to get lefties out, so it didn't matter as much because it was doing its job as a swinging strike rate pitch. Now, Pfaadt is throwing it in the zone more but also trying to use it early in the count too, I assume, steal some called strikes or get weak contact by fooling hitters. However, even though the pitch is giving up less hard contact, it's not missing any bats and puts him right back in the same spot where he can't seem to get lefties out. As a result, that puts me back in the same spot I was in with Pfaadt coming into this year, where I think he lacks a consistent out pitch to lefties, which will give him major splits issues and limit his strikeout upside. I can see benching him in a 15-team league to see if he can figure this out again, but I'm ready to avoid the headache in 12-team formats and just move on.
