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 — Pete Fairbanks, Jack Flaherty, and Will Smith — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

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Pete Fairbanks, Texas Rangers

“My coach — this was in summer ball when I was 14 or 15 years old — was Matt Whiteside, who I believe pitched for the Rangers back in the day. He showed me a grip and said, ‘Hey, kind of just turn your wrist; turn it on the side when you throw it.’ It’s possible that it was originally taught to me as more of a curveball, but looking back it’s always had slider characteristics to it. Regardless, that was my introduction to a breaking ball.

Pete Fairbanks’ original slider grip.

“The grip was similar to the one I have now, although it has varied over time. My slider has been good and bad. For instance, it was really cutter-y in 2017; it was very flat. It had six-to-eight inches of lift to it, which obviously isn’t what you’re looking for from a slider. You’re trying to get closer to zero. But with the tweaks I’ve made to it this year, it’s really taken off.

“I worked with one of our systems guys, Sam Niedrorf, when I was down in High-A. He was the guy who was feeding me all of my numbers on it, so I could fiddle with it to get it where it needed to be this year. We had a portable TrackMan, and I threw a couple of bullpens in front of that. Read the rest of this entry »

Dakota Hudson is somewhat of a square peg in a round hole. At a time where four-seamers at the belt are de rigueur, the 24-year-old St. Louis Cardinals right-hander likes to live near the knees. Since debuting last season, Hudson has thrown his signature sinker a full 50% of the time. And he’s done so successfully. Hudson has a 3.31 ERA over 119-and-two-thirds career innings.

He hasn’t always relied on the worm-killer responsible for his MLB-best (among qualified pitchers) 60.3% ground-ball rate. As a young pitcher at Mississippi State University, Hudson was primarily four-seamers from straight over the top, and a breaking ball he couldn’t consistently command. Then came his metamorphosis.

“Butch Thompson was my pitching coach at the time,” explained Hudson. “I was 10 or 11 appearances into my sophomore year, and had just gotten through maybe two innings. He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, are you willing to make a change?’Of course I was. So I dropped down.”

The original plan was to drop all the way down to sidearm, but Hudson couldn’t comfortably get that low. He ultimately ended up closer to three-quarters, with a sinker and a cutter/slider becoming his weapons of choice.

The process of finding the most-optimal arm slot was achieved sans a catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul DeJong will represent the St. Louis Cardinals in next week’s All-Star Game. He’ll do so with solid, albeit unspectacular, offensive numbers. The 25-year-old shortstop is slashing .260/.344/.455, with 13 home runs and a 110 wRC+. Thanks in part to plus defense, he leads the Redbirds with 2.9 WAR.

Two years ago, in an interview that ran here at FanGraphs, DeJong discussed the mental side of hitting. This past weekend, the Illinois State University graduate — his degree is in biology — sat down for a far-wider-ranging conversation about his craft.

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David Laurila: How would you describe your hitting approach?

Paul DeJong: “My general approach is to hit something hard through the middle. I’m usually looking for a fastball that I can hit gap-to-gap; not pull, not oppo, but kind of through the middle. That gives me the best chance of adjusting to different speeds and different locations. I’m able to open up, or if I’m late, I still have time to keep it fair.”

Laurila: Something I’ve been asking players about is the idea of an A-swing, and whether hitters have multiple swings.

DeJong: “Hitters absolutely have multiple swings. For instance, if you get fooled on a breaking ball, you’re kind of adjusting your body. But for me, it’s more about keeping my hands back. If you do that, you can drift forward with your body — you’ll be off balance out front — but if your hands are still back, you’re able to deliver the barrel, still put the ball in play hard.”

Laurila: What about on fastballs riding high in the zone? Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals announced Monday afternoon that their closer, Jordan Hicks, has torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The news didn’t immediately come with a prognosis, a course of treatment, or a timetable for his return, some of which we’ll likely find out in the coming days. With a healthy elbow being a highly useful part of the body for a pitcher to have, there certainly isn’t much in the way of optimism that can emerge from this development.

While the news about Hicks has not been highly specific as of yet, I have not seen the word “partial” used to describe the tear. Assuming, for the sake of pessimism, that Hicks’s injury will require Tommy John surgery, the typical recovery time quoted these days is 12-15 months for a pitcher. That quite obviously would put 2019 out of the question and, given that we’re almost into July, would also seriously threaten all of 2020.

A lot of the initial buzz surrounding Hicks’ injury focused on his status as the hardest-throwing pitcher in baseball today, with fingers pointed at his velocity as a key factor in his injury. According to Statcast, of the 100 hardest-thrown pitches in 2019, 94 were thrown by Hicks. The only pitchers to intrude on this list are Tayron Guerrero (Nos. 24, 31, 54, and 70), Aroldis Chapman (No. 87), and Thyago Vieira (No. 61). 45% of all 100 mph pitches this year were thrown by Hicks. The fastball cred is real. Read the rest of this entry »

The use of the infield shift has exponentially grown over the past few years. Teams have employed a defensive shift on more than a quarter of the total pitches thrown this season. That’s by far the highest usage rate in the Statcast era (2015-present). It’s become so prevalent, Major League Baseball is reportedly considering changing the rules of the game to curtail teams from shifting too often.

A common argument that comes up when the rise of defensive shifts is brought up goes like this: “Why doesn’t a batter just bunt against the shift? They’re just giving him an easy single.” Ignoring the incredible difficulty of actually bunting successfully, I’m sure every team in the league would happily allow a bunt single to Joey Gallo if it meant he was giving up an opportunity to hit a double or a dinger.

But what if one of those bunt hits went for extra-bases anyway? Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, the Cardinals battled back from deficits of 6-1 and 8-3 to find themselves trailing by just one run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Yadier Molina had just singled off Mets closer Edwin Diaz. Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty came in off the bench to pinch run. Kolten Wong hit a high blooper that found its way in between second baseman Jeff McNeil and a diving Michael Conforto. Flaherty, showing some of his inexperience on the basepaths, twice looked back at the play instead of focusing on third base coach Pop Warner as he was heading toward third base when the ball hit the ground. He then ran for home.

This is how the play moved forward from there.

We can see Flaherty stumble a bit at third, though that stumble doesn’t look like it made a huge difference as the throw beat Flaherty by about 10 feet. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the decision to send Flaherty ended the baseball game and handed the Mets a victory. As for the decision-making at the time of Warner’s choice to send Flaherty home, that deserves a closer examination.

The first step in looking at the decision to try and tie the game is establishing how much benefit the Cardinals would receive if Flaherty was safe and compare that to the loss if Flaherty was thrown out. We know that getting thrown out ends the game, so the Cardinals win expectancy in that scenario is of course zero. There are two other scenarios, with the first being if Flaherty stays. The Cardinals would then still be down by one run, but they would have runners on second and third base with two outs and Paul Goldschmidt stepping up to the plate. The second scenario is if Flaherty scores the tying run and Paul Goldschmidt steps up to the plate with a runner on second base. Read the rest of this entry »

The combination of power and command has been striking. In 34 innings split between high-A Dunedin and Double-A New Hampshire, Nate Pearson has punched out 52 batters and issued just six walks. His ERA sits comfortably at 1.32. Blessed with a blistering fastball and a carve-‘em-up slider, he’s the top pitching prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays organization.

The 22-year-old right-hander doesn’t possess a long professional resume. Selected 28th overall in the 2017 draft out of Central Florida Community College, Pearson got his feet wet with 20 innings of rookie ball, then began last year on the injured list with an intercostal strain. Upon returning in early May, he was promptly nailed by a come-backer and missed the remainder of the regular season with a fractured ulna.

Pearson recovered in time to make six appearances in the Fall League, an assignment Jeff Ware, Toronto’s minor-league pitching coordinator, called “a big test given that he’d really only pitched in short-season ball.” In terms of reestablishing his high-ceiling credentials, he passed with flying colors.

Standing a sturdy six-foot-six, Pearson looks the part of a power pitcher, and that’s exactly what he is. Asked for a self-scouting report, he led with that exact definition. Read the rest of this entry »

Things haven’t been going the Mariners’ way lately. With Tuesday’s loss to the Yankees, they fell to 19-19, thereby setting a record for the fastest plunge to .500 for a team that started the season 13-2. In the third inning of Thursday night’s contest, second baseman Dee Gordon departed the game after being hit on the right wrist by a J.A. Happ fastball, and after manager Scott Servais pinch-hit for fill-in Dylan Moore in the top of the eighth, he resorted to calling upon first baseman Edwin Encarnacion to shift to second base, a position he’d never played before during his 20-year professional career. When the Yankees’ DJ Lemahieu led off the bottom of the eighth with a 100-mph grounder towards second, the 36-year-old Encarnacion gamely dove for the ball, not only coming up empty but rolling the wrist of his left (glove) hand.

Encarnacion was able to continue, but Gordon is still being evaluated. So much for one wag’s theory that the move would improve the Mariners’ defense, which has been downright dreadful, as I noted in passing during my look at the Nationals’ porous defense and disappointing start. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I made my on-the-record guesses for what would happen with some of April’s underachieving hitters. Now we’ll turn to look at the disappointing pitchers and the potential for more helpings of crow for me to eat come October.

Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox

Last year, through the late-season shoulder problems, I counseled people not to panic so soon on Sale. He’s Chris Freaking Sale after all. When the White Sox put him in the rotation in 2012, there was a lot of doom-and-gloom about how his pitching motion and his frame meant he wouldn’t survive long as a starting pitcher. But from 2012-17, Sale was one of the most durable starters in baseball and now he drinks overflowing pints out of the skulls of those pundits.

But now, I am quite worried, especially in the short-term. He’s shown he can occasionally dial it up as he did in the Yankees matchup, hitting 96-97 through most of the game. But his velocity is generally down, severely so in most games. He went three months without a start below an average of 95 mph last year. This year he’s only had individual pitches passing this mark in a single game (the Yankees one).

If this is the Sale that we have now, I do expect him to adjust in the long-term. But the Sale of 2018 had a highly edited repertoire. He’s essentially a fastball-changeup-slider pitcher who is amazing at changing the look of these pitches. He could throw his fastball anywhere between 88-98 and have it look like five different pitches depending where it was. In 2019, he’s Pavarotti with an octave taken away. His fastball is more one-note and hitters have realized it; of every 10 fastballs that batters swing at, one in 10 of those swings-and-misses from previous years are now being hit.

“But Dan, he’s just being cautious because of his shoulder!” That makes me even more worried if 10 months later, he’s still having to pitch in a way that makes him a less effective pitcher because of a shoulder issue. Elbow problems are bad, but shoulder problems are a whole new level of scary, like going from a haunted house at an elementary school carnival to a Saw movie. I’m hopeful in the long-term, but it’s a problem for Boston getting back into the race. Read the rest of this entry »

When I last checked in on Marcell Ozuna, the Cardinals’ left fielder had just etched himself into blooper reels for an eternity with his epic misplay of a Kiké Hernandez fly ball. Since then, however, Ozuna has atoned for his mistakes with some of the hottest hitting this side of Cody Bellinger. After a disappointing debut season in St. Louis, he’s become a centerpiece of a revamped Cardinals’ lineup that has powered the team to the best record (18-10) in the National League.

The Cardinals acquired Ozuna from the Marlins in exchange for a quartet of prospects on December 14, 2017, just days after their attempt to trade for Ozuna’s teammate, Giancarlo Stanton, fell through. Though he had earned All-Star honors for the first time a year before, Ozuna was coming off a breakout 2017 in which he’d set across-the-board career highs with 37 homers, a .312/.376/.548 line, a 144 wRC+, and 5.1 WAR. He had not only made his second All-Star team, he’d won his first Gold Glove. He looked to be a significant addition to the Cardinals’ lineup, but hit just .260/.308/.337 with three home runs and a 76 wRC+ through the end of May. Ozuna eventually heated up, hitting .290/.334/.482 (120 wRC+) with 20 homers over the remainder of the season, with a wRC+ of 133 or better in three of the final four months. Still, his overall 106 wRC+ and 2.7 WAR represented significant drops from 2017, ones that stuck out like sore thumbs on a team that fell three games short of a Wild Card spot.

To be fair, Ozuna spent much if not all of 2018 battling tendinitis and an impingement in his right shoulder, more or less maintaining his uptick in production in either side of a 10-day stint on the disabled list at the end of August. The injury eroded his arm strength to the point that his outfield throwing speed ranked last according to Statcast, and, by his own account, he struggled to hit pitches on the inside part of the plate. Read the rest of this entry »