Last week, I investigated the increasing divergence between the way pitchers approach same-handed and opposite-handed batters. I learned that pitchers across the league are varying their arsenals more and more every year. But that was a broad look, and I had some follow-up questions. Mainly, who specifically? Which teams? Which players? And how? Today, I’ll provide some answers.

As a refresher, I calculated what I’m calling “adaptation score” by comparing how frequently a pitcher uses his top-two offerings, both against same-handed and opposite-handed batters. Adaptation score is simply the difference between how frequently a pitcher throws his two best pitches when he has the platoon advantage and how often he throws those same two pitches when the batter has the edge. I split the data up by teams to see who was driving the move. First, we’ve got the five most and least adaptable teams in 2025:

Not much to see here. The Dodgers’ being on the bottom might suggest that adaptation is bad, even. But truthfully, there’s a big element we’re missing in looking at the data this way: personnel. Changing who’s on your team, even if you have the same philosophy, can change how you score in this metric. The Dodgers were in the middle of the pack last year when it came to adaptation score. Then they overhauled their pitching staff and ended up here.
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It isn’t supposed to be this easy. When the Phillies traded for Jesús Luzardo over the winter, they did so with the understanding that he wouldn’t be an ace right from the jump. He was coming off a rough and injured 2024, he’d only hit 20 starts in a season once in his career, and every warning light you could possibly imagine was flashing – worst stuff model grades of his career, lowest strikeout rate, lowest whiff rate, highest hard-hit rate.

Those warning signs explain why the Phillies were able to acquire Luzardo for relative peanuts. It also explains why our projection systems were unenthused by him heading into this year, projecting a 4.19 ERA, a distant fifth among Philadelphia’s starters. No one doubts Luzardo’s potential, but after six seasons and 500 innings (itself not a great sign) of roughly league-average work, well, at some point you are what you are.

Right, yeah, Luzardo’s been the best pitcher on the Phillies this year and one of the best pitchers in baseball. I’m not as surprised as I thought I’d be. But given that we’re a quarter of the way through the season and his ERA and FIP are both below 2.00, I think it’s time to take a closer look at what he’s doing differently.
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Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. With the first month of major league baseball in the books, I’m settling into the rhythm of the regular season. Baseball writing in the morning, baseball on TV in the afternoon, and usually baseball on TV in the evening. Every so often, I’ll skip two of those and go to the ballpark instead. The actual baseball is falling into a rhythm, too. The Dodgers have the best record in baseball, Aaron Judge is the best hitter, and Paul Skenes is the best pitcher, just like we all expected. But part of the rhythm of baseball is that the unexpected happens multiple times a day, and that’s what Five Things is for. With a nod of recognition and thanks to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the column format, let’s start the shenanigans.

1. Stopping at Third
The math is pretty easy: A double with runners on second and third scores both runners. Sometimes it even brings home a guy standing on first at the start of the play, too. Last week, though, things got weird. First, Jacob Stallings flat out demolished a ball off the right field wall, but Hunter Goodman didn’t have the read:

Hey, that happens. There are a few plays like this in the majors every year. The batter can tear around the bases as much as he wants, but runners have to stop and make sure it’s a hit first. Goodman couldn’t be sure that the ball would hit the wall, and with no one out, he quite reasonably played it safe. Blake Dunn played the carom perfectly, and again, with nobody out, Goodman didn’t try his luck at home. Read the rest of this entry »

Every winter, pitchers step off the mound and into the lab. Sure, not every pitcher is in a wind tunnel with a high speed camera from October to January, but enough are that everyone seems to reap the benefits. You’ve got the sweeper, the kick change, the rise of the splitter, new fastball shapes – you name it, someone has tried it recently. That means that every year, I spend the first month or two of the season catching up to the new hot thing going on in the world of pitching.

But I have to level with you: On the whole, things haven’t changed as much this year as I expected. That won’t stop me from walking through what has changed, though, and the first shift to highlight is a subtle one – we’re seeing more bendy sliders and fewer gyro offerings:

Why? Two things are happening. First, sweeping sliders do better against same-handed batters, so pitchers are choosing that as their secondary of choice when they have the platoon advantage. In 2021, 2.6% of pitches that righties threw to righties were sweepers. In 2025, that number has ballooned to 10.7%; it’s 10.9% for lefties against lefties. Usage is less than half as high when opposite-handed batters are at the plate.

Meanwhile, “regular” sliders are on the decline when pitchers have the platoon advantage. That makes good sense – they’re just throwing sweepers instead. And when pitchers aren’t facing same-handed batters, neither slider is particularly great; pitchers are staying away from both, more or less. That means that the traditional, gyro-spin slider is declining in prevalence overall. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, Victor Scott II broke camp with the Cardinals behind an avalanche of buzz. He’d swiped 94 bags in the minors the previous year while playing elite defense in center field and posting a solid batting line. With the new rules providing a tailwind to speedsters, Scott seemed like the next exciting Cardinals position player. But then he hit the major leagues, or rather, didn’t hit in the major leagues. He batted .179/.219/.283 over 50 games of action and ended up down in Triple-A, a level he’d skipped during his meteoric rise, where he also struggled.

This year, Scott is back in the majors, but with considerably less hype surrounding him. However, a month into the season, he looks like a completely different hitter. He’s walking more, striking out less, and hitting for a higher average thanks to more line drives. He’s also living up to his potential on the basepaths and in the field, with a perfect 9-for-9 stolen base record and good defense. Last year’s version of Scott? Unplayable. This year? A fun upgrade on Kevin Kiermaier. Could the new version possibly be here to stay? I dug into the numbers to hazard a guess.

The main thing I’m interested in when it comes to Scott is how he gets on base. That’s what makes him intriguing – once he’s on first, he’s basically on second. Since you can’t steal first, that’s where the pinch point is. And in 2024, pitchers had a simple plan: Attack the zone and dare Scott to do anything about it. That helps explain his 3.9% walk rate – he got to a 1-0 count in about a third of his plate appearances last year. Similarly, he reached two or more balls in a count only about a third of the time.

There are major league players who succeed despite working from behind in the count so frequently, but they tend to have an elite compensatory skill. I’m talking about Luis Arraez’s contact, Jake Burger’s power, Bo Bichette’s feel to hit. Honestly, most hitters who get ahead in the count and walk so rarely just aren’t good. Pitchers don’t let them get into advantageous counts; the group is dotted with low-power defensive specialists who pitchers simply don’t respect.
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Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. Normally, this column is a celebration of the extreme athleticism and talent on display across the majors. This week, though, I found myself drawn to the oddities instead. Unhittable 98-mph splinkers? Boring. Let’s talk about a pitcher who can’t strike anyone out and yet still gets results. Some of the fastest human beings on the planet stealing bases? I’d prefer some slower, larger guys getting in on the act. Brilliant, unbelievable outfield catches? I was more fascinated by a play that didn’t get made. The only thing that hasn’t changed? Mike Trout still isn’t to be trifled with. So thanks to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for his incredible idea for a sports column, and let’s get down to business.

1. In-Game Adjustments
In the 15th year of his career, Mike Trout doesn’t stand out the way he did early on. He’s no longer the fastest and strongest player every time he takes the field; he’s more “slugging corner guy” than “perennial MVP frontrunner” these days. But one thing hasn’t changed: Trout’s wonderful ability to adapt.

Landen Roupp faced the Angels last Saturday, and he leaned on his curveball. He always does, to be fair. It’s one of the best curveballs in baseball, with enormous two-plane break, and he throws it 40% of the time, more than any of his other pitches. In fact, he throws his curveball more often than any other starting pitcher. Trout had never faced Roupp before, and so he struggled to deal with the signature offering.
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Joe Ross had a bummer of a 2024 season – a lower back injury ended his season after only 74 innings. He had a bummer of a start to 2025, too. Opponents were hitting him hard and he couldn’t miss a bat to save his life. But Tuesday night against the Mets, manager Rob Thomson said, Hey Joe, I trust you.

Ross was in the game unexpectedly early after Cristopher Sánchez departed with forearm soreness after only two innings. Ross came in to start the third inning, with the Phillies trailing 2-1. He came out of spring training in a short-relief role, but more recently he’d been used as a long reliever, and this particular situation called for multiple innings. So Ross came in and looked great, the best he has all year. After Pete Alonso greeted him with a single, Ross retired the next six Mets in order, two on strikeouts.

Two innings matched Ross’s longest outing of the year, and his pitch count was already up to a season-high 32. How long would you stick with a reliever who began the day with a 7.45 ERA, a 5.30 FIP, and an 11.1% strikeout rate in a one-run game? At some point, Thomson would have to take him out, and the bottom of the fifth inning seemed like the perfect time. The top of the Mets order was due up, which meant Francisco Lindor. And Francisco Lindor owns Joe Ross.
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This season is the third since the implementation of a spate of significant rule changes across the majors. Along with a pitch clock and limits on defensive positioning, a limit on disengagements (read: pickoff throws plus idle standing around) combined with slightly larger bases gave runners a collective green light. With fewer throws to first, bigger targets to slide into, and more predictable pitcher deliveries thanks to the clock, stealing a base got much easier overnight. In 2022, the last year of the old rules, the majors saw 2,486 steals across the entire season. In 2024, that number surged to 3,617 steals. Even better from an offensive perspective, the stolen base success rate jumped from 75.4% to 79% over that span.

The first year of the new rules was all about experimentation. Some players ran wild – Ronald Acuña Jr. more or less took off every time he could. Meanwhile, the Giants stole just 57 bases as a team, fewer thefts than the previous year, when those steal-boosting rules weren’t yet in effect. None of that seems particularly surprising to me; when new rules of this import are added to the game, every team will scramble to figure out how to change their own behavior to benefit. There were a ton of moving parts, and many teams took a simple approach: keep stealing more and more until it starts to fail.

The 2024 season was the year of the defensive reaction. Teams attempted 209 more steals in 2024 than they did in 2023, but only succeeded on 114 of those extra steals. The aggregate effect was a lower success rate on marginally more attempts. Catcher pop times improved, pitchers threw over more often, and defenses were more attentive to baserunners in general. That brings us to 2025, and in the early going, it looks like the baserunners are continuing to push the envelope:

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