Brent Suter on Turning a Corner with a Pedestrian Fastball

Brent Suter succeeds in atypical fashion. The Milwaukee Brewers rookie throws his four-seam fastball roughly 70% of the time, and not because he lights up radar guns with it. He doesn’t. Suter’s (ahem) heater averages 86.3 mph, which is comfortably near the bottom of our velocity chart.

Nonetheless, batters have a hard time hitting it. As Jeff Zimmerman pointed out in a recent RotoGraphs piece, Suter gets a lot of swings and misses with his signature pitch despite its unhurried path to the plate. More importantly, he gets a lot of outs. In 76.2 innings this season, the deceptive southpaw has a 3.29 ERA.

Along with being sneaky fast, he is also smart. The Brewers drafted Suter out of Harvard, where he earned a degree in environmental science and public policy.

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Suter on how he gets hitters out: “I pitch a lot with my fastball. I trust it. It has a little bit of late-cut movement to it, plus I have kind of a hunched-over delivery, so I hide the ball a little longer and get some good extension on it. I feel like my fastball kind of plays. It gets on guys a little earlier than they expect.

“My four-seam naturally cuts. It’s not a cutter, but pretty much wherever I throw it, it will cut glove side, even if I’m throwing it arm side. I try to use that to my advantage, especially front-dooring to lefties.

“Basically, my offspeed is… it depends on what’s working that day. Last time out, my changeup was really working well — I was able to throw it in any count — so that was kind of our go-to pitch. Other times my breaking ball will be more of a go-to, and the changeup will be more of a different-look pitch.

“Overall, I try to mix it up, trust my stuff, and throw strikes. That’s kind of my game plan: work quick, throw strikes, attack the zone. I try to change quadrants.”

On his deceptive delivery: “I’m hunched over, and so I’m over, over, over, and then my hips kind of come in through late while my shoulders are still kind of closed. That makes for a side-type weight shift. I’m kind of… I don’t want to say rotational, but I come through the ball at more of an angle. That causes my ball to cut, and makes me a little bit more deceptive. Hitters say my delivery is funky. I’ve heard people go, ‘It’s a weird look; he’s tough to pick up, kind of weird timing.’ Those are good things to hear as a pitcher.

“I threw a little harder in college, but my ball was straighter. I actually tried to… a couple of times, in the minor leagues, I straightened up my mechanics — my hips were nicely aligned — and I was throwing harder. I could get it up to 92-93, but it was as straight as an arrow, so I was getting whacked. We reverted back to the more-hunched-over delivery, with different timing and more movement on the ball, and I started missing barrels again.”

On not pitching like he has below-average velocity: “I pitch as if I have decent velocity. Because I have that cut to my ball, often times righties are fouling it off, over our dugout, because it’s getting in on them. I’m able to attack inside. I’m not throwing under the speed limit in a way that everyone is out in front on my fastball. What’s actually happening is that the ball gets on them quicker than they expected it would when they were stepping into the box.

“The way I see it, I’m not pitching as if I was Jamie Moyer or some of the other guys who always had hitters out in front, kind of leaning over to create weak contact. I try to get on guys and jam them and attack late up in the zone, getting elevated fastball swings and misses, kind of sneaking up on them.”

On turning a corner: “Early in 2015, one of my buddies [Tyler Wagner] helped me out with the mental approach. In 2014, I had some good outings and some bad outings, and I would wear them emotionally. I was exhausted by the end of the season, because I’d been stressing out too much. He taught me some meditation stuff and some visualization stuff, and how to kind of just let the present moment be. It was, ‘Don’t worry about past or future outings, just focus on this present moment, this present pitch.’ Doing that really helped me turn a corner.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve had a physical turning point. I’ve just kind of honed everything. I’ve gotten better at what I’m good at, over the years, but I haven’t had a big jump in terms of stuff or crispness or anything like that. Not yet. It would be great if that happened someday.”

On going from late-round pick to the big leagues: “I was a senior sign [in 2012], so I was just hoping to get picked up by somebody, whether it was in the draft or as a free agent. I had my degree, but I wanted an opportunity to get paid to play baseball. I was super grateful to get that chance. My family was, too. It was, ‘Hey, go out there and give it your all and see where it takes you.’ It’s obviously been quite the journey.

“It’s tough as a 31st rounder — the odds obviously aren’t with you — so getting here is something to be proud of. There have been a lot of fortunate circumstances along the way. I’ve kind of been the guy who had the raffle ticket — my name was in the hat when something happened up at the next level and someone was going to be promoted. I seemed to keep getting those shots, and then I pitched well enough to stay there until my name was back in a hat. I was able to climb the ladder.”