This recent tweet from Daren Willman caught my eye:

#Rangers Kohei Arihara threw 7! different pitches in the first inning. pic.twitter.com/X86J6NpvFH

— Daren Willman (@darenw) April 20, 2021

Partially it was because I was already intrigued by Kohei Arihara, but the pure absurdity of this fact stands out, too. He threw seven different kinds of pitches in his most recent start against the Angels. Seven! In one inning! The only other player to accomplish this feat in 2020 was Arihara’s countryman Yu Darvish, who coincidently did so in seven different innings last season. Since 2008 (the first season with public PITCHf/x data), there have been 909 instances of a pitcher throwing at least seven different pitch types in a single inning. When you think about how many innings of regular season baseball have been played since 2008, you can appreciate how rare this type of occurrence is.

If you are not familiar with Arihara yet, let me fill you in. The right-hander came over from NPB after playing six years for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He was posted going into his age-28 season and signed a two-year deal with the Rangers for a total of $7.44 million, $1.24 million of which was the posting fee awarded to his now-former club. At the time of signing, this seemed to be a very good deal for Texas. Arihara lacks the explosive fastball and mind-bending breaking pitches frontline starters in MLB today; his strikeout rate his final season in Japan was 19.4%. But his repertoire was deep. Eric Longenhagen wrote up a scouting report back in December outlining his pitch mix and fastball velocity, comparing him to other high-profile players from NPB. Eric concluded that Arihara profiled as a back-of-the-rotation type, placing a 40 FV on him. Getting a guy who can fill the back of a rotation for about $3.7 million per year (when accounting for the posting fee) seems like a solid deal to me. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Padres stockpiled starting pitching and mapped out their season, they probably didn’t count on Ryan Weathers playing the stopper. Yet in a rotation with a former Cy Young winner, a four-time All-Star, and the author of the season’s first no-hitter, it was the 21-year-old southpaw — the majors’ youngest starting pitcher — who helped the Pad Squad turn the page on a 2-7 slide, a three-game losing streak, and some sobering injury news with 5.2 innings of one-hit shutout ball against the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine on Thursday night, part of a 3-2 win.

Making just the second start of his career, and matched up against Walker Buehler for the second time in six days, Weathers kept the Dodgers off balance with an effectively wild four-seam fastball/slider combo, mixing in the occasional sinker and changeup. While his low-spin four-seamer averaged a comparatively modest 93.7 mph and topped out at 95.9 mph, its exceptional horizontal movement helped him rack up 15 called strikes and four whiffs for a 41% CSW on that pitch, and an overall 33% CSW for the night.

Weathers threw 39 pitches in the first two innings, walking leadoff hitter Mookie Betts and plunking Max Muncy to start the second, but striking out Corey Seager, Sheldon Neuse, and Luke Raley along the way. The lone hit he gave up a sharp single to Buehler to start the third inning, but he got his pitch count in order by using just eight pitches to retire Betts, Seager, and Turner to begin his second time through the order, kicking off a run of 11 straight Dodgers he retired before departing in the sixth with a 2-0 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

The quality of Dustin May’s raw stuff is undeniable. He throws his sinker with the highest average velocity of any starter in the majors and it’s ridiculous tailing action makes it one of the most GIF-able pitches in baseball. During each of his starts, Twitter is flooded with GIFs like this one.

Dustin May, Filthy Two Seamers.

Get out of my head, Joe Davis! (but, yeah, you're right ?) ? pic.twitter.com/gw5ZV2bxGk

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 15, 2021

It’s not just May’s sinker that stands out. His entire arsenal is composed of pitches with elite characteristics. Here’s a look at May’s repertoire and each pitch’s percentile ranks when compared with their respective pitch types:

May’s velocity on each of his pitches obviously stands out; he’s among the league leaders in average velocity on all four of his pitches. On three of his offerings, he has elite movement in one direction or the other. It’s a truly impressive arsenal without peer in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend’s series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres did not disappoint. It had all the energy and elements of a postseason series in April. Fernando Tatis Jr. returned from the IL to launch a home run off of Walker Buehler. Mookie Betts ended the second game in dramatic fashion with an incredible diving catch. Tempers flared in the opening game when Jorge Mateo was hit by a Dennis Santana pitch in the 10th inning. There was a little bit of everything. In so many ways, it was like a playoff series. Players and coaches on both sides held nothing back.

In the series finale, with the game tied and the Dodgers going for the sweep, something odd happened. Santana took the mound in a high-leverage situation even though Corey Knebel and Kenley Jansen were both available and had not pitched the day before. With the score tied at two, one runner aboard, and just one out, he was responsible for keeping the Padres off the board. Santana, an inexperienced middle reliever who barely made the roster, could not live up to the pressure of the moment. The Padres would go on to score three runs in the inning and win the game 5-2. The point here is not to tear down Santana. It’s that despite the intensity of a series between two teams battling for the division, sound early-season bullpen management overruled using the most proven late-inning relief options.

After the game, Dave Roberts was asked why he had Santana in the game in a high leverage situation. He responded saying, “obviously every game’s important but the health of our relievers is more important.” Injuries to pitchers are common throughout the season and the risk of injury is even greater in the first month, so Roberts’ concern is warranted and well-informed. Over the course of the three-game series between the Dodgers and Padres, a total of 19 relief pitchers were used (yes, I’m including Jake Cronenworth) accounting for 27 total appearances. Considering the caliber of starting pitching included the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Trevor Bauer, Yu Darvish, and Blake Snell, it’s a bit surprising that so much help was needed to finish off these games. (Okay, maybe not when it comes to Snell.) Read the rest of this entry »

There are two hitters I would like to introduce. The first, Player A, has been described in terms of the classic trio of statistics: average, on-base percentage, and slugging. The second, Player B, has been described in terms of modern metrics like Exit Velocity and Barrel rate. Take a look at their numbers and try to see who’s better:

Player A: .081/.205/.162

Player B: 95.4 mph Exit Velocity, 63.6% Hard-Hit rate, 27.3% Barrel rate

Not much of a competition, right? Without additional context, you probably chose Player B in a heartbeat. Player A’s appalling triple-slash makes him a DFA candidate. Player B, on the other hand, looks like a hitting genius! Those numbers and rates would place him well above the 95th percentile of all major leaguers. The twist, of course, is that these two hitters are in fact the same person: Matt Carpenter, veteran infielder for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Traditional and modern metrics do disagree at times, but the disparity between them is seldom this wide. Through 18 games, Carpenter’s efforts to clobber the ball have not translated into actual results, much to the chagrin of Cardinals fans. There’s having a stretch of bad luck, then there’s hitting below .100. Is there something else we’re missing? Read the rest of this entry »

There are two things that jump out to me about Freddy Peralta’s start to the 2021 season. The first is that the man once known as Fastball Freddy is throwing said fastball at a career-low rate. The second is that he’s added some new moves into his windup that may be increasing his deception. Amidst all that change are some underlying command issues that suggest he still has things to work on.

Let’s start with his windup, which I’ve become absolutely fixated on. It’s not at all the windup I remembered him having, and I’m mesmerized by it.

Like an alarm clock going from a restful existence into a blaring beep that jiggles itself off the nightstand, Peralta has added some chaos to his delivery. What once was a fairly normal over-the-head windup and cross-body release has gotten more complicated. The leg kicks up higher, his feet are more caffeinated, and he starts in a more hunched position as if to make his over-the-head motion easier to attain. His new windup is nearly a half a second faster from start to release. And did I mention his feet? His feet!

Read the rest of this entry »

Ross Stripling was featured here at FanGraphs last week, with the article focusing on Clayton Kershaw. Stripling shared how his former Los Angeles Dodgers teammate influenced his own career, as well as some of the things that make Kershaw elite. The Hall-of-Fame-bound southpaw’s innate ability to manipulate a baseball was part of that conversation, which took place prior to the start of the season.

Not included in that earlier piece was what Stripling — now a member of the Toronto Blue Jays — told me about how he manipulates one of his own pitches. The 31-year-old right-hander’s signature offering is a classic 12-6 curveball, which is among baseball’s best when he’s on top of his game. Here, in Q&A format, is that part of our multi-subject exchange.

———

David Laurila: You have a pretty good curveball yourself. How would you describe it?

Ross Stripling: “It’s a spiked curveball, and I don’t waver on the grip. I’ve never actually learned if it’s considered a knuckle curve or not, but I put my knuckle on the ball. Most people will put just their fingertip on the ball and call that a spiked curveball. I curl my finger, and put my whole top knuckle on the baseball. I also grip it as hard as I can. From there, I just rip it. Read the rest of this entry »

With apologies to Jacob deGrom, no pitcher in baseball is as hot as Corbin Burnes right now. Through four starts, the Brewers’ 26-year-old righty has allowed just one run and eight hits, and has yet to walk a single batter in 24.1 innings, that while striking out an eye-opening 40 hitters. His outings have quickly become appointment viewing — not too shabby for a pitcher with just 17 big league starts under his belt — and he’s already carved himself a small niche in the record books.

Burnes didn’t exactly come from nowhere — he was a Top 100 Prospect here and elsewhere three years ago — but his setbacks have made his rise to dominance all the more dramatic. Between pitching in a small market and thriving under pandemic conditions, he’s flown a bit beneath the radar until now, though a guy carrying a 0.37 ERA and 0.68 FIP can do that for only so long. The short version of his tale is that the 2016 fourth-round pick out of St. Mary’s College made a solid debut out of the Brewers’ bullpen in ’18, but his attempt to get a foothold in the rotation went disastrously the following year, as he was pummeled for 21 runs in 17.2 innings over four March and April turns. In between detours to Triple-A and the Injured List, he made 28 more appearances out of the bullpen but was lit for an 8.82 ERA and 6.09 FIP in 49 total innings.

Last year, however, he ditched a too-straight four-seam fastball that in 2019 had averaged 95.2 mph but had been lit for a .425 batting average and .823 slugging percentage, a malady Ben Clemens detailed during his examination of Burnes’ expanding repertoire as part of our Thursday Burnesday package. In its place, Burnes opted for a sinker/cutter combination that was utterly filthy, with the former averaging 96.0 mph and the latter 93.1. Both had elite spin rates, a common thread across Burnes’ arsenal. Via The Ringer’s Michael Baumann, “Out of 209 pitchers with enough playing time to qualify for the Baseball Savant leaderboard last year, Burnes had the third-fastest-spinning slider and cutter… the second-fastest-spinning sinker, and the eighth-fastest-spinning curveball.” Read the rest of this entry »

This picture of Mookie Betts looks like something out of a postseason highlight reel. It looks, in fact, very much like a picture of Mookie Betts from last October, when he made a number of game- and series-saving catches en route to the Dodgers’ World Series championship. It isn’t: it’s from April 17, last weekend, when the Padres hosted the Dodgers for a three-game set. The catch Betts was celebrating did, indeed, save the game — but it wasn’t a game that meant the difference between living and dying. It was a game that meant the difference between being 11-2 or 10-3.

Even though it might not have been life-or-death, the first meeting between the Dodgers and Padres since they squared off in the NLDS last year was a wild ride. At no point over the three games did either team have more than a two-run lead during regulation play. There were critical errors and rapidly-changing leads. There were blown saves. There were extra innings and cleared benches. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the Dodgers had taken two of three — but none of the three games had felt like a foregone conclusion. Game 1 saw the teams trade runs before the Padres tied it late, forcing extras; it was won in the 12th, with Joe Musgrove in left, Jake Cronenworth on the mound, and David Price at the plate. Game 2 was a pitchers’ duel, with Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish exchanging zeroes. The deciding run was a bases-loaded walk with two out — drawn by Kershaw himself. In the ninth, the Padres had the tying runs on second and third before Betts came through with a diving catch. And in Game 3, the Dodgers got an early lead off Blake Snell only for the Padres to chip away at their bullpen, eventually scoring three definitive runs in the bottom of the eighth to put the game away.

It was, in short, must-watch baseball — a worthy followup to the twists and turns of the NLDS. Game 2 of that series, in particular, when Cody Bellinger robbed Fernando Tatis Jr. of a would-be go-ahead homer and the Padres loaded the bases against Joe Kelly in the ninth, seems like a direct precursor to what we saw last week. But it’s not just that recent postseason meeting that has contributed to the burgeoning rivalry. There’s been a long history leading up to this point. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Boyd had a tough 2020 campaign. After posting a 3.3 WAR season in 2019, Boyd’s performance cratered last year. His ERA- increased from 97 to 149 and his FIP- 93 to 128. He lost about eight percentage points on his strikeout rate (30.2% to 22.1%) while adding almost two points to his walk rate (6.4% to 8.1%). Boyd was putting close to 10 more batters per 100 faced on the basepaths year over year and the home run troubles he developed in 2019 did not subside.

Through his first four seasons in the majors, Boyd allowed home runs on 12.4% of his fly balls. That figure jumped to 18.2% in 2019 and 19.7% in ’20. Among qualified pitchers, that was third highest in the league, behind Kyle Gibson and Alec Mills. But where Gibson and Mills both posted above average groundball rates (51.5% and 47.3% respectively), Boyd only induced groundballs on 37.2% of his batted balls against. Not only were Boyd’s fly balls leaving the yard at one of the highest rates in the league, he also gave up a lot of them. All these issues culminated in Boyd allowing a .453 wOBAcon and accumulating just 0.1 WAR in 60.1 innings pitched, far off the pace he set in 2019. The former value was by far the worst in the majors in 2020. Indeed, Boyd’s wOBAcon allowed was almost 20 points worse than his next closest peer.

One of the culprits behind his 2020 demise was the degradation of his slider. The pitch was a consistent source of swings and misses in 2019; Boyd threw the slider 22.7% of the time and generated whiffs on 43.6% of swings. He increased its usage to 28.1% in 2020 but the whiff rate tumbled fell to 39.4% — still an impressive figure but given how often he throws the pitch, that is a lot of lost whiffs. He struck out batters with 52.5% of his two-strike sliders in 2020 after 58.5% in ’19, which can be attributed to more sliders finding the middle of the plate last year. Read the rest of this entry »