Bryce Elder was thriving when he was featured here at FanGraphs in July 2023. Then in his first full season with the Atlanta Braves, the now 27-year-old right-hander was 8-2 with a 3.18 ERA, and he’d recently been named an NL All-Star. Killing worms was his M.O. Relying heavily on a sinker, Elder boasted a 53.6% groundball rate, which ranked fifth best among qualified pitchers.

Then things slowly started going south. From August 2023 through last season, Elder was on the winning end of just 14 decisions while putting up a 5.53 ERA over 48 starts comprising 259 innings. The University of Texas product had gone from a burgeoning frontline starter to profiling as more of a back-of-the-rotation arm.

Adversity has a way of begetting change, and much for that reason, Elder is no longer the same pitcher who struggled to record outs. The transformation has taken a bit of time — Rome wasn’t built in a day — but his current-season results are certainly pleasing to the eye. Over 14 starts, Elder has a record of 5-3 to go with a 2.66 ERA and a 3.46 FIP over 84 2/3 innings. Notably, his 45.0% groundball rate is the lowest of his career.

Elder discussed his evolution — one that has essentially brought him full circle in terms of success — when the Braves visited Fenway Park late last month.

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David Laurila: It’s been three years since we first spoke. What has changed?

Bryce Elder: “A lot has changed. When we talked in 2023, I’d been on a roll; I’d had a good first half. But then the second half was pretty rough. It wasn’t all rough, but the numbers weren’t all that great. I was kind of like, ‘I’m tired of sucking, tired of not being very good, so I’m going to try to make some changes. I’d never worked on mechanics too much, and I’d never been a big, like, stuff chaser, but I got tired of dying on the hill of complete execution.

“I never thought I’d be saying that, even a year ago. But what I figured out is that if I could make my stuff a little better, that would only help. And then, if I was moving a little better on the mound, my execution was going to be just as good as it’s ever been, if not better. So, I think I’ve had a little tick up in stuff, as well as in my execution.”

Laurila: How did you go about accomplishing that? Read the rest of this entry »

You might not have noticed, but Rico Garcia has been one of the best relievers in baseball this season. Over 30 appearances, the 32-year-old Baltimore Orioles right-hander has a 1.29 ERA, a 3.25 FIP, and a 31% strikeout rate. Moreover, he has allowed just nine hits in 28 innings of work and boasts a record of 3-1 with four saves.

If you don’t follow the Orioles, you can be excused for not being familiar with Garcia. Claimed off waivers from the New York Mets last August, Garcia came into the current campaign having thrown just 70 big league innings since debuting in 2019, and he’d done so while pitching for seven different teams. Truly a journeyman, the 30th-round pick in the 2016 draft out of Hawaii Pacific University possessed a ledger that included one win, four losses, zero saves, and a 5.27 ERA.

What is behind his breakthrough? Based on conversations with both Garcia and Orioles pitching coach Drew French, that is a question without a simple answer. While the righty has never been better, it isn’t as though he has seen his velocity suddenly skyrocket, introduced a nasty new pitch, or discovered a secret formula. Read the rest of this entry »

Jesús Luzardo has been pitching better than you might think. The 28-year-old Philadelphia Phillies left-hander is an uninspiring 4-4 with a 4.56 ERA over 13 starts covering 73 innings, but his surface stats only tell part of the story. Luzardo has a 3.40 FIP — it was a sparkling 2.77 prior to his most recent outing — while his 26.7% hard-hit percentage ranks second lowest among qualified pitchers. Moreover, he misses his fair share of bats. His 25.6% strikeout rate ranks in the 73rd percentile, while his 30.7% whiff rate is in the 86th. Good fortune simply hasn’t been on his side. At .343, Luzardo has the highest BABIP among qualified pitchers.

The lefty’s lack of luck isn’t what I wanted to talk to him about when the Phillies visited Boston in mid-May. Rather, I was interested in how he has evolved as a pitcher since we first spoke nine years ago. At the time, Luzardo was a 19-year-old Oakland Athletics prospect who was playing for the New York-Penn League’s Vermont Lake Monsters. A lot of water having gone under the bridge, change was inevitable.

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David Laurila: We talked back in 2017 when you were getting your feet wet in short-season ball. Just how much have you changed as a pitcher since that time?

Jesús Luzardo: “I have a little bit different repertoire now. I’ve added some pitches. I’ve fine-tuned my mechanics. Along the way, I’ve just matured as a pitcher. I mean, I feel like I still have a long way to go, that I can get even better. I haven’t reached my full maturity as a pitcher. But I’m definitely a lot more polished. I know more about myself, what makes me me.” Read the rest of this entry »

Shane Baz features a five-pitch mix: a four-seam fastball and a knuckle curve being the most prominent in terms of usage. The Baltimore Orioles right-hander also throws a cutter, a curveball, and a changeup. And then there is the offering that reluctantly remains in his back pocket. Baz would love to one day unleash his knuckleball on major-league hitters.

“I threw one when I was a kid, up until I was probably 13 or 14,” explained Baz, who was a big Tim Wakefield fan while growing up in Tomball, Texas. “It was my only off-speed pitch up until then — I was just fastball/knuckleball — so I’ve got a lot of experience with it. I actually try to throw it in every bullpen [session]. I’ll definitely get it into a game, eventually. I just have to convince [pitching coach Drew] French to let me throw it. Maybe next spring training I’ll be able to mix some in and show him what it looks like in a game. I mean, it’s pretty good.”

Baz went on to say that that he threw his pet pitch with a three-finger grip — “fingers on the horseshoe, right by the label” — in his younger days, but once his hands got bigger he went to “the traditional two-finger knuckleball.” And while he basically stopped throwing it in games once he matured and developed more pitches, he’s never lost his affinity for baseball’s butterfly.

At 96.1 mph, Baz’s four-seamer is above average for velocity, but while extra oomph is advantageous for heaters, that isn’t the case for low-spin floaters.

“I can get it up to about 80, but those aren’t as good,” Baz said. “I think it’s best when it’s like 70 to 75. That’s when I have the best control of it and can keep the spin really low. When I’m trying to throw it hard, it starts spinning more and not having as much knuckle effect.”

His overall understanding of the pitch is impressive, and that includes spin properties. Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Dodd throws a sinker that doesn’t sink. Nor does it have much horizontal movement. For all intents and purposes, it isn’t a sinker at all. Despite it being classified as such, the pitch is functionally a four-seamer delivered with a two-seam grip.

Labels aside, it works just fine. The 27-year-old southpaw has thrown his signature offering 87 times (59.6% usage) this season to the tune of a .158 batting average allowed and a 26.3% strikeout rate while making seven appearances out of the Atlanta Braves bullpen. Limited to 10 2/3 big league innings due to an earlier stint on the IL for thoracic spine inflammation, Dodd has fanned a dozen batters, allowed seven hits, and issued just one free pass.

I learned about his atypical “sinker” when the Braves visited Fenway Park late last month. All I knew prior to our conversation was that Dodd’s player page showed him having transitioned away from a four-seamer, and that doing so was yielding good results. Interested in the reason behind the switch — ditto the process behind it — I began by asking him if what I’d seen was accurate. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Bell has hit 200 home runs since reaching the majors in 2016, with 198 of them coming in the regular season and the other two coming in October. Which of them is the most memorable? I asked the Minnesota Twins first baseman/DH that question prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

“The first one [on July 9, 2016] is probably my favorite,” replied Bell, who spent his first five seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. “The grand slam. It was my second day in the big leagues, and I’d gotten a hit the night before, pinch-hitting, so I was batting 1.000. Bases loaded, Adam Warren [on the mound], a Cubs-Pirates rivalry game at PNC on a Saturday night. The place was packed. The ball leaves my bat and I know that it’s gone. My parents were there, too — I gave them the ball — so that one was definitely special. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

A first home run, be it a grand slam or a solo shot, is going to be a favorite for most players. But there will be others that stand out as well, and in Bell’s case, a few of them are Statcast outliers. We’ll get to those in a moment. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Stanley was C.J. Nitkowsk’s biggest nemesis. In seven career plate appearances versus the now-Atlanta Braves broadcaster, Stanley homered twice, hammered a double, and walked four times. That added up to a 4.333 OPS. Of the 592 batters Nitkowski faced over 10 big-league seasons, no one was more injurious to his stat sheet.

Somewhat surprisingly, the pair of gophers — one at Tiger Stadium in 1996, the other at Fenway Park in 2000 — aren’t what the southpaw most remembers about his matchups with the slugging catcher/first baseman. What stands out is the two-bagger.

“I have a story about Mike Stanley,” explained Nitkowski, who made 336 MLB appearances, 213 of them with Detroit, while pitching for eight teams from 1995-2005. “As a kid who grew up in New York and was a Yankees fan, I always knew who he was. He was a Yankee when I was in high school. When I got drafted and went down to Orlando for my first spring training [with the Cincinnati Reds in 1995] — I went early to get out of the cold — I was working out with Chad Mottola, who is now the hitting coach for the Rays. He was my first roommate in professional baseball.

“Chad lived down there,” continued Nitkowski. “Mike Stanley happened to live in the same neighborhood, and they worked out together once in awhile, so I met him. I was 21 or 22 years old, so it was a big deal. You meet a big-leaguer and are trying to play it cool — you’re a professional now — but it was Mike Stanley. That’s cool. I thought it was kind of a big deal. I got to know him a little bit.”

Fast forward to August 12, 2000. Stanley was playing for the Oakland Athletics, while Nitkowski was pitching in relief for the Tigers. A request was made in the dugout during the sixth inning. Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Strider had a fascinating first inning at Fenway Park on Tuesday. The Atlanta Braves right-hander threw 10 pitches in the frame, and it took him just five to retire the final three batters he faced. The first two batters were another story entirely. Jarren Duran walloped the second of Strider’s offerings over the right field fence, and Ceddanne Rafaela followed by depositing his fifth bullet over the Green Monster. The Red Sox led 2-0 before he had recorded an out.

What was that inning like for Strider? Wanting to find out, I approached him the next day to see if he’d be amenable to a pitch-by-pitch revisiting of what had happened. We’d had such a conversation back in his rookie season, albeit under far different circumstances: He’d fanned the side on 11 pitches in his lone inning of work.

Strider was happy to oblige, so I began by asking him if his game plan differed from 11 days prior, when he’d started against the Red Sox in Atlanta.

“There was some variation,” the righty replied. “I walked Duran to lead off the game in the previous outing, and I felt like some of that was a game-plan thing where we wanted to go with the heater; the walk was a lot of arm-side heaters. For my stuff, and kind of my mechanics, we wanted to target the glove side and get ahead [on Tuesday]. And I did, although I kind of pulled it down a little bit more than we were trying to do. Then we went back to it, as was the plan, and I kind of threw it in the same spot. The down-and-in heater to lefties isn’t a spot where you want to go, especially when they’re sitting heater. Maybe he pops it up or grounds out. Maybe he takes it again. Instead, he hit a homer. Big league hitters do that.”

The three pitches he threw to Rafaela were all elevated. Read the rest of this entry »

Austin Martin appears to be coming into his own. Playing in what is shaping up to be his first full major league season, the 27-year-old Minnesota Twins outfielder is slashing .289/.396/.394 with a pair of home runs and a 130 wRC+ over 169 plate appearances. His track record coming into the campaign was somewhat spotty. Hampered by injuries — hamstring and oblique strains among them — he’d played in just 143 big league games, 93 as a rookie in 2024, and 50 last year. Moreover, while his .698 OPS and 101 wRC+ were credible, they fell short of what is expected from a player with his pedigree. Martin was drafted fifth overall in 2020 by the Toronto Blue Jays out of Vanderbilt University.

Uneven performances down on the farm are also part of his backstory. Trying to be something he’s not is one of the reasons why. Acquired by the Twins in the 2021 trade deadline deal that sent José Berríos to Toronto, Martin attempted to hit for more power than what his natural skillset suggests he should. Subsequently returning to his roots has helped fuel his long-awaited breakthrough.

“Being healthy is part of it, but more than anything, I reverted back to the player I was in college,” explained Martin, who was an OBP machine (.474) over his three seasons as a Commodore. “When I got to professional baseball, I started trying to play the numbers game instead of playing the game itself. I got too far away from myself in terms of trying to pull the ball in the air, doing more damage, getting higher [exit] velocities. That’s never been the type of player I am. I’m just a baseball player. I don’t do anything that will jump at you. I’m more of a consistency, play-the-game-the-right-way sort of guy.”

I asked the DeLand, Florida native if the attempts to up his pop were largely org-driven, or more something that he aspired to do on his own. Read the rest of this entry »

Erik Tolman has a remarkable backstory. Currently playing for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, the 26-year-old left-hander threw to one of baseball’s most prolific pitchers as a prep, and that is a comparatively insignificant part of his past. His level of perseverance is nothing short of remarkable. Tolman has overcome debilitating injuries on his journey to the doorstep of the big leagues.

His travails began in 2021, the year the Washington Nationals drafted him in the 14th round out of Arizona State University. He had the first of two Tommy John surgeries, costing him all but three games in his final collegiate campaign — and his bad fortune was only just beginning.

“I tore my UCL again at the end of my rehab,” Tolman explained. “Fourteen months after having surgery, in my last live ABs, I felt my elbow go again. It was a sad moment, honestly. But I talked to my family, and I believed in myself — I thought I could still be a big-leaguer — so I kept at it. Unfortunately, on my fifth start back, in August 2023, I dislocated my knee. That made for a whole new mountain that I’ve had to climb.

“The injuries have driven me to have a work ethic, and a mental fortitude, of just going balls to the wall,” he added. “I figured I could either struggle coming back from the injuries, playing baseball, or struggle out in the real world. At the end of the day, we’re the ones responsible for our lives and careers. If you get hurt, are you going to cave, or are you going to overcome?”

Tolman did far more than simply dislocate a knee after returning from the second TJ. What happened was not only catastrophic: it was hard to fathom. Read the rest of this entry »