Author Archive: David Laurila

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Tony Barnette, Ryne Stanek, and Nick Tropeano — on how they learned and developed their split-finger fastballs.

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Tony Barnette, Chicago Cubs

“When I was in Japan, I had a changeup as a starter. It was getting hit. Working on it in bullpens, I remember a couple of Japanese coaches, through a translator, asking me, ‘Why do you throw that pitch?’ I told them that I needed something off-speed, something to use away to lefties. They were like, ‘You’re right, you do. But that’s not it. It’s awful. You need to get rid of it.’

“A lot of guys in Japan throw a split, so they got me on that. I started playing with different grips, and found one that worked for me. If you look at a baseball, the seams are crazy. They go all over. Basically, you split your fingers and find seams. You find seams that fit your hand. Then, one day you have that ‘aha’ moment where it’s ‘Oh my god, this works.’ From there, you working on it more. Read the rest of this entry »

The majority of Mike Scioscia’s coaches accompanied him out the door when the Angels made a managerial change after last season. Their replacements came both from other organizations — pitching coach Doug White (Astros) being notable — and from internal promotions.

I’m not privy to the conversations GM Billy Eppler and/or new manager Brad Ausmus had with the outgoing staff members, but they likely uttered some form of “We’ve decided to go in another direction” when passing out the pink slips.

According to Eppler, the revamping of the staff wasn’t reflective of a philosophical shift. The decisions were driven by a desire to travel north in the standings.

“I wouldn’t say that anything changed,” Eppler told me recently. “When we came over here in 2015, we implemented philosophies throughout the organization — how we’re valuing players, how we want to coach players, and so forth. Nothing new was implemented this year.”

The characteristics Eppler is looking for — not just on the coaching staff, but throughout the organization — can be encapsulated in a single, hyphenated sentence: Read the rest of this entry »

Rowan Wick has a short, quick arm and plus velocity. He also has a good backstory. The 26-year-old right-hander didn’t begin pitching until 2015, three years after he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. Four years and two organizations later, he’s currently competing for a spot in the Cubs bullpen. Chicago’s North Side club acquired Wick from San Diego over the offseason in exchange for Jason Vosler.

A lack of power isn’t why he failed to make the grade as a position player. The problem was contact. In 2014, Wick swatted 20 home runs in just 298 plate appearances between short-season State College and Low-A Peoria, but he also fanned 94 times. He then ventured even further into blind-squirrel territory the following year. Prior to being converted, Wick went down by way of the K a staggering 50 times in just 133 plate appearances.

Midway through May of that 2015 season, Wick was informed that he would henceforth be standing on a bump. Given his travails with the stick, he was in no position to argue.

“When they told me I was going to pitch, it was kind of, ‘OK, this is my last shot,’” Wick recalled thinking. “At that point, you’ve got to buy in, right? I’d started as a catcher, then went to the outfield, and now I was a pitcher. After that, you really can’t make any more moves. It was either pitch or go home.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Freeland isn’t satisfied with last year’s breakout season. That’s bad news for opposing hitters. The 25-year-old Colorado Rockies southpaw is coming off a 2018 campaign where he finished fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting after going 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA and a 3.67 FIP. His 202.1 innings pitched — a workhorse total by today’s standards — were fifth-most in the senior circuit.

Continuing to get better is every player’s goal, so while Freeland isn’t looking to reinvent himself — that would be senseless— he does have a few new tricks up his sleeve. While his repertoire will remain static, where his talented left arm aims those offerings will have more variance than in the past.

“I’ve been working on new locations for pitches, kind of different ways to attack hitters,” explained Freeland. “I’m working on getting comfortable throwing left-on-left changeups, and on throwing a two-seamer inside to righties — that front hip shot. Throwing those two pitches will expand my arsenal a little more.”

The Denver native spoke primarily of his same-sided approach when describing the planned changes: “If you look at video from last year, you’re going to see a heavy amount of fastballs and sliders down and away to lefties. That’s the book on me. We feel that giving them another look won’t allow them to sit on that so much.” Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Bud Black, Zach Davies, and Robbie Ray — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Bud Black, Colorado Rockies [manager]

“In the early 1980s, I was with the Royals in West Palm Beach. It was spring training, and Tom House was writing a book. He wanted to highlight my curveball. There were guys he highlighted on the fastball; there were guys he highlighted on the slider. I was one of the guys he highlighted on the curveball. Because he thought that I had a good one … that heightened my awareness of how I threw it. It kind of threw me back to my youth, and what I was taught about a proper curveball. The true curveball, with overspin, 12-6. The old-school drop. Read the rest of this entry »

Brock Burke was a relatively obscure pitcher in the Tampa Bay Rays organization when I first wrote about him in 2017. He was performing well at the time — a 1.23 ERA through nine starts — but context was a mitigating factor. A blip on most prospect radar, he was facing Midwest League hitters in his third full professional season.

He’s no longer quite so obscure. Nor is he Tampa Bay property. In December, the Texas Rangers acquired the 22-year-old southpaw in the three-team trade that sent former top prospect Jurickson Profar to Oakland. His appeal to the AL West cellar dwellers was understandable. Burke fashioned a 1.95 ERA, and fanned 71 batters in 55-and-a-third innings, after earning a second-half promotion to Double-A Montgomery.

I recently asked Texas GM Jon Daniels about the deal that brought Burke to the Lone Star State.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations about Profar over the years,” Daniels told me. “This winter, after a number of talks, we defined what we were looking for. Our priority was to get a young starter who was at the upper levels, and [Burke’s] had a lot of things we liked. His trajectory is really interesting — from Colorado, not a ton of development at a young age. Sometimes guys from those cold-weather states need a little time to lay a foundation.”

Daniels brought up Tyler Phillips — “He really burst onto the scene with us last year” — as another close-to-home example. A 21-year-old right-hander from New Jersey, Phillips emerged as one of the Rangers’ better pitching prospects with a stellar season in the South Atlantic League.

Where Burke’s professional development has taken place worked in his favor. Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Oberg had a breakout season in 2018. The 28-year-old right-hander came out of the Colorado bullpen 56 times and put up a 2.45 ERA and a 2.87 FIP. Working primarily in a set-up role — 45 of his appearances were in the seventh or eighth inning — he was on the winning side of all but one of his nine decisions.

His signature pitch is a slider. Oberg threw the late-breaker 37.4% of the time last year, often flummoxing opposing hitters who mistakenly read fastball out of his hand. According to the University of Connecticut product, that has been the key to his success. Oberg’s slider has emerged as a lethal weapon not just because he’s learned to manipulate it better — he’s also improved his fastball command.

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Oberg on learning his slider: “I was introduced to a slider in 2014, when I was in Double-A. I’d always been more of a curveball guy. At an earlier age, I guess it was easier to spin the ball that way, versus being very fine with a slider. It took a few years of maturing to get it to the point where it is now.

“As it was progressing, I started realizing that my slider and curveball were kind of morphing into each other a little bit. As a result, we ended up putting the curveball on the shelf and focusing solely on the slider. This was two seasons ago.

“In theory, you throw [sliders and curveballs] differently. There are different arm motions, different hand placements on the ball. With different finger placements, there isn’t as much confusion. That’s a problem I was having. The grips on my slider and my curveball were very similar. There wasn’t enough distinction between the two pitches in my hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Ty Buttrey has come a long way since being selected by the Red Sox in the fourth round of the 2012 draft out of a Charlotte, North Carolina high school. Following six often-tumultuous seasons in the minors, the 25-year-old turned a developmental corner last year and made his MLB debut in August. He did so with the Los Angeles Angels, who acquired him in the trade deadline deal that sent Ian Kinsler to Boston.

His future is bright. As Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote in yesterday’s Angels Top Prospect list, Buttrey will likely be a significant part of the team’s bullpen this season. He logged four saves in last year’s 16-game, 16.1-inning cameo, and could very well earn the closer’s job.

His biggest strides have been mental. The power arm has always been there — Buttrey’s fastball sits in the mid-90s, and he’s reached triple digits — but as he readily admits, his mindset wasn’t where it needed to be. Rather than staying true to what came naturally, the 6-foot-6 righty too often found himself trying to fix things that weren’t necessarily broken. In short, he became a tinkerer.

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Buttrey on finding himself as a pitcher: “Starting out, I was listening to too many people, versus going out there and doing what makes me who I am, doing what got me drafted. There was a lot of noise that I wasn’t able to block out. I was trying to do so many things, just to make people happy. The next thing you know, I’d gotten really mechanical. I lost some ground on who I was as a pitcher.

“All coaches have things they preach, and some things work for players and others don’t. I’m not saying any of it was bad, or ill-intended, but if you listen to too many people, everything just kind of clouds over. You’re hearing, ‘Hey, stay taller on your back side,’ or ‘Let’s change this grip on this pitch,’ or it could be ‘Let’s get your front side at a different angle.’ Everyone is telling you something. Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Hanewich opened a lot of eyes last year in his first full professional season. Thanks largely to a take-notice fastball, the 24-year-old right-hander logged a 2.61 ERA, and fanned 74 batters in 69 relief innings, between Low-A Burlington and Hi-A Inland Empire. The Los Angeles Angels took Hanewich in the ninth round of the 2017 draft out of Stanford University, where he graduated with an engineering degree.

Command is his biggest question mark. Hanewich issued six free passes every nine innings last season, and his walk rate as a collegian wasn’t anything to write home about either. A max-effort delivery is part of the reason, and therein lies a conundrum. Hanewich believes that his delivery — a byproduct of a summer spent with a former Cy Young Award winner — is partially responsible for his plus velocity.

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Hanewich on his heater: “I have a heavy fastball. That’s what everybody who catches me calls it. It feels like a bowling ball as opposed to, say, a Whiffle ball. I think it has to do with spin rate. My spin rate is anywhere between 2,300 and 2,400, which is above major league average.

“Another thing that makes my fastball different is my motion. I get very good extension. It’s somewhere between seven and eight feet, which is way above average. The way I throw, the ball jumps on the hitter — there’s more life to it because of the extension. The plate is sixty feet six inches from the mound, so a pitcher with a six-foot extension is throwing 54 feet six inches from where the ball is being released. There’s a thing called perceived velocity. The ball looks like it’s coming in faster than what it actually is. My perceived velocity is a plus, and the fact that I throw hard to begin with is obviously a factor as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three San Diego Padres pitchers — Joey Lucchesi, Logan Allen, and Chris Paddack — on how they learned and developed their change-of-pace pitches.

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Joey Lucchesi, San Diego Padres (The Churve)

“I started off in a community college throwing a circle change. It was a regular changeup. Then I started throwing harder. I got stronger and my hands got bigger. As I went on to [Southeast Missouri State], I started developing it in a way that it moved differently. I hold it like a circle change, but it spins out like a slider and kind of drops like a curveball.

“Once I got to the minors, Eric Lauer and I played catch every day. We decided to give it its own name. It wasn’t like a regular changeup, so we called it ‘The Churve.’ I’ve stuck with that name for three years now. Read the rest of this entry »