Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Takeya Nakamura is atypical among NPB hitters. The 40-year-old Seibu Lions infielder not only has 478 career home runs — ninth-most in Japan’s top league — he has fanned 2,118 times. Ingloriously, that is the highest strikeout total in Japanese baseball history.

How is the Adam Dunn-like slugger looked upon in a baseball culture that favors contact over power? I asked that question to Toronto Blue Jays southpaw Yusei Kikuchi, who played alongside Nakamura with the Seibu Lions for eight seasons.

“He’s a former teammate of mine and I really respect him as a player and a human being,” said Kikuchi through translator Yusuke Oshima. “There aren’t a lot of hitters with pop over there. I think those kind of players should be more respected in Japan, because it’s natural for home run hitters to strike out a lot. It’s a tradeoff. He’s said that he’s not worried about it. People should be more open-minded when it comes to those things.”

Kikuchi added that there aren’t a lot of hitters like Nakamura in Japan because “coaches over there tend to frown upon striking out a lot.” Moreover, the statistical categories that are valued most are hits, batting average, runs scored, and RBIs. Pitchers are viewed in a traditionally-similar manner. Much as it once was stateside, wins are what matter most. Read the rest of this entry »

There were a few good reasons for me to catch up with Tanner Houck this past week. One is that he has arguably been the best starting pitcher in baseball over the first half of the season. Along with a 2.18 ERA and a 2.20 FIP, the 27-year-old Boston Red Sox right-hander boasts the highest WAR (3.6) among big league hurlers. Another is that I’ve been due to ask him about the pitch he relies on most. Per Statcast, Houck has thrown 41.8% sliders, 30.8% sinkers, 24.8% splitters, and 2.6% cutters.

Back in 2019, when he was pitching in Double-A, Houck was featured here at FanGraphs in an interview that focused on his sinker. Two years later, a second interview explored a developing splitter that, as my colleague Kyle Kishimoto detailed just over a month ago, has become an especially effective weapon. Which brings us to the here and now. Interested in both how Houck’s slider has evolved and how it plays within his three-pitch arsenal, I approached him to get some answers.

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David Laurila: How does the slider you’re currently throwing differ from the one you had last year?

Tanner Houck: “It’s a different grip, technically. Last year, I was running up the horseshoe a little too much and not getting as much side-to-side action. This year there is a focus of creating more east-to-west, side-to-side movement with the pitch, as well as on prioritizing throwing it more in bigger situations. It’s my best pitch by far, so I’m leveraging it whenever I can in those big moments.” Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Schneemann’s claim to fame is having played six positions in his first six MLB games — reportedly no player had done so in over 100 years — but a peculiar versatility record hasn’t been the 27-year-old infielder/outfielder’s only noteworthy accomplishment since he debuted on June 2nd. A surprise contributor to a surprisingly-stellar Cleveland Guardians club, Schneemann has slashed .297/.422/.568 with two home runs and a 182 wRC+ over 45 plate appearances.

To say that the Brigham Young University product has come out of nowhere may not be wholly accurate, but at the same time, he kind of has. A 33rd-round pick in the 2018 draft, Schneemann was an unranked prospect throughout his seven minor league seasons, and his numbers — at least prior to this year’s .294/.428/.556 with 10 home runs in Triple-A — were never anything to write home about.

Intrigued by his transformative emergence, I asked the San Diego native about the adjustments he’s made to get to where he is now.

“They were gradual,” Schneemann told me earlier this week prior to a game at Cleveland’s Progressive Field. “I started making the ones that are important to me in the offseason after 2022. I had some success in 2023 (a 102 wRC+ and 13 home runs at Triple-A Columbus), and built off of those adjustments prior to this season. I’ve seen better results this year, as well.” Read the rest of this entry »

Triston Casas — as evidenced by his Talks Hitting interview last summer — has a thoughtful approach to his craft. The 24-year-old Boston Red Sox slugger, who is currently on the injured list with torn rib cartilage, is not afraid to be himself, as many fans experienced during his in-game interview with ESPN on Sunday Night Baseball on Father’s Day. Call him quirky or what you will, but when it comes to damaging baseballs, Casas knows his stuff. Over 687 career plate appearances, he has 35 home runs and a 128 wRC+.

Casas talked about his preparation process prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

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David Laurila: How do you train for hitting?

Triston Casas: “When you say hitting, I’m assuming that you mean striking the ball. There is so much that goes into the striking of the baseball. There are a lot of moving parts mechanically [and] mentally that culminate into the perfect storm of creating that compression between the barrel of the bat and the ball. How do I train that? It has a lot to do with my weight room routine. I try to think of the swing as my most athletic move. I don’t want it to be mechanical, rigid, or thought about. I just want it to be fluid. Effortless.”

Laurila: And reactional, I would assume…

Casas: “For sure. If you think about how difficult it is to hit a baseball… I mean, the plate is seven balls wide and, generously, about 10 balls high. You’ve got to cover a range of about 30 miles an hour, between 70 and 100 — that’s typically the normal range of speeds — and then there is a pitch that moves to every direction at the bottom side of a clock. So, you multiply 30 times 70 times about six, generously — maybe seven or eight — and it is a lot of possibilities. Not to mention that every single pitcher is a different height. They all have different dimensions in terms of their wingspans. They all get out to a different extension point or release height.

“There can be two 80 mph curveballs that… I mean, I can go look back at my at-bats and there can be two 80-mph curveballs right down the middle, and they’re still not the same pitch. They’re coming from different release heights. The rpms are different. The metrics on them are all different. So, it’s not just as easy as ‘Oh, let me look at two swings side by side of the same exact pitch,’ because conditions might be different. Defensive positioning might be different. My setup should have been different. And my thought process, my approach… all those things factor into how I stand in the box, and the in-at-bat adjustments that I’m making throughout the season.

“Training hitting is about an innate ability to just go out there and compete. In my opinion, there aren’t a lot of mechanical drills that you can do. Yeah, there are certain cues that you can give yourself mentally to try to get yourself in a good position, or put yourself in a good powerful contact position — the balanced one. There are definitely a lot of characteristics that great hitters have in common, but ultimately it’s about being able to make a decision after the ball is released. That’s one of the things I talk about a lot with the hitters here. Trying to be anticipative and beat the ball to a spot is not a good recipe for success. Yeah, it might create a result, but it’s one that’s falsified. It’s happy-go-lucky. But to create a long sustainable amount of success, I feel like there has to be a reactionary, involuntary, timed… a war, almost. It’s a war in your body and in your mind.

“That’s how I train hitting, by not overcomplicating the mechanics. It’s about understanding that, for me, it’s a lot about having feel within the box. It’s about going out there trying to execute a game plan.”

Laurila: With no two pitches being exactly the same in mind, do you train with a Trajekt? That individualizes a pitcher’s velocity, movement, and slot. Correct?

Casas: “Yes, they are individualizing the release points, and all that, but it’s not simulating how the pitcher tips the curveball. Even though it’s a projection of a pitcher, every pitcher out there on the mound — whether they think it or not, or whether anybody else does — tips the pitch, because they have to do something differently to throw a curveball than a fastball. Within that pitch, or him coming down the mound, there is an adjustment that he has to make to take off the velocity and add spin. A Trajekt doesn’t necessarily project that.

“I do see how the Trajekt can benefit some hitters. I actually do like to use the Trajekt — I can’t speak for anybody else — but it’s mostly just for the timing of his motion. It’s a little bit better of a gauge than to just do it off of video from the back, per se. Getting his timing off just scouting-report videos would be a little tough. Getting a projected image, so that I can kind of sync in my dance with the pitcher, is where I can see the Trajekt to be most beneficial.

“In terms of trying to develop a game plan because of his plot chart, and his pitch characteristics, and the metrics of his slider — or breaking balls compared to one another — it’s not that accurate to where I can really be, ‘Yeah, that looks exactly like it does out there.’ That said, the Trajekt is a great tool. I’ve been using it a lot in my rehabilitation process, just in terms of tracking and trying to stay sharp with my reaction times.

“It’s something that I want to incorporate into my game-day routine. I haven’t done so up to now, I’ve just taken a few swings off a regular machine and then let it rip come game time.”

Laurila: Why haven’t you used it for game-day prep up to this point?

Casas: “It’s something I had never really done before this level, so I tried to not overcomplicate things and add to something that I didn’t feel needed adjusting in my routine.”

Laurila: Do the Red Sox have Trajekt in the minors?

Casas: “They have it now in Triple-A, but when I was in Triple-A in 2022 they did not. Then, last year, in 2023, they were still fine-tuning it. I haven’t found a way to buy into it yet, but I’m really starting to like it. Even if it’s just for something as simple as tracking, or even bunting, just trying to get that reaction time back in my favor.”

Laurila: What do you mean by bunting?

Csasas: “Literally standing in there and tracking the ball all the way to the barrel and trying to manipulate the contact point to whichever side of the field I want. Bunting is such a powerful tool and skill to display out there. But just to be able to do it in a controlled environment… like, the Trajekt is still tough. I feel like it can help you slow down the ball, which is everything in hitting — being able to try to make a 98-mph fastball look like an 88-mph fastball. That’s what great hitters do. They have quiet heads and balanced positions. They make the game look slower than than it actually is.”

Laurila: Training for high velocity, say an Ohtani fastball, can only help…

Casas: “I’ve asked for exaggerated characteristics on the Trajekt, because I want it to seem a little unrealistic. Some people like it a little more toned down, because they want to feel confident going into the game. I prefer my practice to be a little more challenging. I’ve asked for verticals of 27-28. I’ve asked for horizontals that are unrealistic. I like the challenge. So yeah, I could definitely see myself using it more.”

Laurila: Is there anything else, preparation-wise, that we should be touching on? I know that you’re big on meditation and visualization…

Casas: “Of course. They’re such a big part of my routine. You can make anything look like you want to in your head. Whoever I’m facing that day, or for the at-bat, I can adjust anything that I want. If I close my eyes and imagine a pitcher vividly enough, I can make his characteristics jump off the page. I can make his breaking ball so sharp. I can make his two-seam run from my mid-back to the inside corner. I can picture his pitches doing what they do.

“Even when I do my tracking in the bullpen… the eyes are such an underrated part of the body and part of training. There are muscles within eyes that are underdeveloped if you don’t really progress them. The eyes are the most important thing in hitting. Anybody will tell you that. It’s such an undertrained tool. The eyes and ability to have depth perception — it’s such an underappreciated, under-talked-about skill to be able to look at the space in front of the ball. It’s not just looking at the ball. It’s being able to anticipate the ball’s movement, the rotation, based off whatever tips the pitcher may be allowing you to have. That all goes into my process and preparation.”

Of all 193 relief pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched this season, exactly three have thrown four distinct types of fastballs a minimum of 20 times each: Reed Garrett, Chris Martin, and Cole Sands. They all have one non-fastball offering, but none of them throw it more than a quarter of the time. Justin Choi wrote recently about the strategic options available to pitchers with more than one fastball, but four? Four whole fastballs? These guys feel like doomsday preppers getting ready for some apocalyptic scenario where money is now worthless and fastballs are the new currency.

But anytime a new strategy pops up in baseball, it’s worth checking to see if the outliers are onto something others should attempt, or if their “one weird trick” to pitching works only for them. Shoot, maybe it doesn’t even work for them all that well. Regardless, we’re gonna get to the bottom of what’s going on with these pitchers and all the fastballs they’re hoarding.

Reed Garrett

Garrett has thrown 34.2 innings for the Mets so far this season, posting a 3.12 ERA and a 3.17 FIP. He’s struck out 37% of the batters he’s faced and walked 12%. His performance this year has earned him an ERA- of 81, firmly better than average. What the averages aren’t telling you is that Garrett started the season with a 0.57 ERA in March and April, a ridiculous run that earned him a full breakdown on his evolution from last season by Ben Clemens on April 23. But that April ERA had to buy new pants after swelling to 6.08 in May. His performance has regressed somewhat in June, settling somewhere between those extremes. The current version of Garrett is probably more representative of what the Mets should expect from him moving forward.

The table below shows a breakdown of Garrett’s pitch repertoire with the usage and a few metrics for evaluating each offering (run value per 100 pitches thrown, xwOBA, Stuff+, and Location+). The two most common fastball types (four-seamers, sinkers) that most pitchers feature at the center of their arsenals are the pitches he throws the least. But the metrics linked to Garrett’s outcomes — either actual outcomes (RV100) or expectations based on the characteristics of the outcomes (xwOBA) — agree with his decision to de-emphasizing those pitches. They like Garrett’s four-seamer the least, even though it has his highest velocity and second best Stuff+. The pitch’s Location+ score reveals its critical flaw: a lack of command. Stuff+, RV100, and xwOBA agree that his sweeper and splitter are his two best pitches. Based on usage, Garrett agrees with that assessment.

His pitches mostly hover around league average in terms of individual characteristics, but the sweeper and splitter are both a tick or two harder than average and generate a bit more spin leading to more horizontal break, which is likely why Stuff+ likes them more than the rest of Garrett’s arsenal.

He makes the most of middling pitches by playing them off one another. The sweeper and cutter mirror the spin direction of the sinker and the splitter. As a result the pitches look similar out of the hand but fork in four different directions as they approach the plate to keep the hitter guessing (see movement plot below). So even if hitters guess the horizontal direction correctly, they’ve still got two similarly spinning pitches that fan out vertically as they approach the plate.

Garrett deploys all of his pitches no matter the handedness of the hitter, but he does vary the flavor of his approach. To lefties, Garrett likes to fill the zone with his cutter and dangle the splitter down and away when looking for a chase. To righties, he keeps the hitter off balance by throwing the sweeper to a variety of locations, but then comes down and inside at varying speeds with the splitter and the sinker.

The flowchart below gives us an idea of Garrett’s sequencing habits. He tends to start hitters with a cutter or sweeper. Once ahead in the count, he’s more likely to play around on the periphery of the zone with his sweeper and splitter, whereas while behind in the count he rolls with the four-seamer and cutter as more zone-friendly options. The wOBA values for plate appearances passing through each given count indicate the approach works well in early counts and with two strikes, but not as well when the count forces him back into the zone, in part because his four-seam command limits his ability to actually hit the zone with that pitch when circumstances demand it.

Here’s a representative example of how hitters respond to Garrett’s two-strike splitter.

Looking at swing metrics by pitch type, each pitch adds a valuable tool to his kit. The splitter is Garrett’s best combo play for inducing swings (56% swing rate) without courting disaster. The pitch owns his best swinging-strike rate (30%) and second lowest hard-hit rate (20%) when batters do connect. He gets batters to swing at 74% of the sinkers he throws in the zone, he uses the sweeper to induce weak contact (17% hard-hit rate), and turns to the cutter to mix things up. The four-seamer is the weak link in the chain so long as it keeps taking the scenic route to the catcher’s mitt.

Chris Martin

Martin has thrown 21.1 innings for the Red Sox in 2024, logging a 4.22 ERA with a 3.90 FIP. He’s struck out 28.2% of the batters he’s faced while walking just 2.4% of them. He has been on the IL since June 5 while proactively seeking help with anxiety.

Again, we’ll start with a synopsis of each pitch he throws according to the value metrics. Stuff+, RV100, and xwOBA all like his splitter best. The pitch is very similar to Garrett’s splitter from a velo/movement/spin perspective, but he doesn’t throw it nearly as much. His four-seamer is his next best pitch by RV100 and xwOBA, but fourth best by Stuff+. However, he locates it well enough to still get results. Martin’s cutter is his consensus third-best pitch, striking a balance between stuff and command to get the job done. Like Garrett, Martin’s non-fastball pitch is a sweeper, but unlike Garrett, he throws it so infrequently that it’s hardly worth discussing.

His pitch characteristics all hover around average, thrown maybe a tick or two harder, but with slightly less spin and therefore less movement. What helps overcome somewhat middling profiles is a distinct release point created by his long levers. Though his delivery is composed of a pretty standard three-quarters-ish arm slot, the arm attached to his 6’8” frame allows him to release the ball several inches higher and farther to his right than other pitchers throwing from a similar slot.

Rather than mirroring the spin on his offerings like Garrett, Martin takes a different approach to cultivating deceit. The puzzle for his hitters is more akin to spotting the difference between two nearly identical photos. All of Martin’s pitches spin in a similar direction, and his four-seamer, sinker, and cutter do so at almost the same spin rates. Where they differ is in the amount of active spin, or the amount of spin contributing to the pitch’s movement. The four-seamer, as one might expect, has the most active spin and the most rise. The sinker has a little less active spin and creates more horizontal break and more drop. The cutter drops in a comparable fashion to the sinker, but refuses to follow his fellow fastballs and break toward the third base side. Then there’s the splitter that spins at a much slower rate and with less active spin, which translates to roughly the same amount of horizontal movement as his four-seamer, but with even more drop than the sinker. Yet another carbon copy, but with a small but crucial edit.

Martin uses the same theory to guide his approach to both righties and lefties: Fill the zone with the primary fastball(s), use one of the secondary fastballs as a threat inside, and pepper the bottom of the zone with splitters. Against right-handers the four-seamer and cutter are the pitches he consistently throws to all parts of the zone and the sinker backs the hitter off the inner half of the plate. Against left-handers, Martin stays away from the sinker, so the cutter becomes the weapon he aims inside, while the four-seamer and the splitter maintain their existing roles.

The job of each fastball is further etched in stone by Martin’s sequencing, visualized below. He starts an overwhelming majority of hitters with the four-seamer or cutter and sticks to those zone-friendly pitches if he falls behind in the count. But if he gets ahead, Martin starts mixing in the splitter and sinker. His results tend to be better if he gets to those splitter/sinker counts, but it’s unclear whether that’s because of the effectiveness of those pitches or because he gets too predictable in unfavorable counts.

The swing metrics indicate Martin’s cutter is his best option for getting swings (55% swing rate) that lead to either strikes (13% swinging-strike rate) or weak contact (27% hard-hit rate). The splitter is his overall best bet for a swinging strike (19%), but when hitters do make contact, it yields the highest hard-hit rate (70%). The sinker is most effective when thrown in the zone because it has the lowest out-of-zone swing rate (18%) and in-zone contact rate (78%) compared to Martin’s other offerings. And avoiding contact is key, since the sinker has the second highest hard-hit rate (67%) of the bunch.

Cole Sands

Sands has pitched 32 innings for the Twins this season. Those innings have amounted to a 4.22 ERA and a 3.30 FIP. His strikeout rate sits at 28% and his walk rate is a measly 3%. Sands’ season trajectory mimics Garrett’s: on a rocket to the moon in April, a crash landing in May, and now back up and cruising at altitude in June. At his peak, Sands was striking out Shohei Ohtani on three pitches, and Minnesota was considering stretching him out to start while managing injuries in the rotation; now he’s settled into a multi-inning relief role.

Digging into Sands’ repertoire via the pitch evaluation metrics, his cutter, curveball, and splitter all clock in right around average according to Stuff+, but RV100 favors the four-seamer and hates the curve and split. Comparing the curveball’s xwOBA (.305) to its wOBA (.372) suggests the pitch’s actual outcomes have been a bit unlucky compared to what’s expected based on the batted ball characteristics, which in turn is likely deflating its RV100. Meanwhile the four-seamer and sinker both have better wOBAs when compared to their xwOBAs, suggesting some good luck has swung their way and their RV100s might be a little full of themselves. Luck doesn’t explain the metrics’ diverging opinions on the splitter, suggesting something is amiss with Sands’ execution. Hopefully, this contradiction will untangle itself as we proceed.

In terms of the movement profile broken down in the table below, Sands, like Garrett, mirrors the spin of his breaking ball relative to the four-seamer, sinker, and splitter in an attempt to disguise their true identities until it’s too late for the hitter to react. And concealing those identities is necessary because, as with the other two pitchers, Sands’ pitch characteristics are far more average than overpowering. The furthest he deviates from average is with his extension, but unfortunately he deviates in the wrong direction. His 5.8-foot extension puts Sands roughly six to eight inches below league average. Releasing the ball farther from home plate gives the hitter more of a chance to identify the pitch’s trajectory, which likely explains the lower Stuff+ scores relative to what Garrett and Martin receive for comparable pitches. And while we’re talking pitch trajectory, the extra couple inches of drop on his splitter relative to an average right-handed offering of the pitch might be too much of a good thing; at times it dives too far, too quickly to really tempt hitters.

How the pitches move relative to one another is basically a hybrid of what we’ve seen so far from Garrett and Martin. The fastballs land on the movement plot in roughly the same orientation as the other two, aside from being stretched more vertically. Sands’ curveball operates similarly to Garrett’s sweeper, just with more drop.

Like Martin, Sands doesn’t throw his sinker to lefties, but beyond that omission, Sands attacks hitters in the exact same manner regardless of handedness. He aims to fill up the zone with his four-seamer, works arm side with the cutter and sinker, and keeps the ball down and/or to the glove side with the splitter and curve.

Sands mostly sticks to the standard sequencing playbook, but he’ll reach for any of his non-splitter offerings to begin a plate appearance. If he gets ahead, expect a heavy mix of splitters and curveballs; if he falls behind, expect him to thrown mostly cutters and four-seamers. His adequate command keeps him competitive, since even after falling behind, the average outcomes remain respectable and in line with the more favorable counts.

The swing metrics suggest Sands’ cutter is his best option for inducing weak contact (51% swing rate, 32% hard-hit rate), the four-seamer has the lowest in-zone contact rate (80%) to pair with the second highest in-zone swing rate (71%), and the curveball is best for forcing swings out of the zone (35%) that lead to either a strike (14% swinging-strike rate) or weak contact (25% hard-hit rate).

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With the four-fastball approach to relief pitching now fully dissected on the lab table before us, I can’t truly say we’ve discovered the next big thing that pitchers everywhere will be rushing to replicate. Though Garrett, Martin, and Sands are the only three relievers doing this out of almost 200, their approach is not as novel as those numbers suggest. What they’re actually doing is leaning on all of the classic pitching fundamentals: changing the hitter’s eye level, attacking the zone to get ahead in the count and then make the hitter chase, varying speeds, varying locations, keeping the hitter off balance. Most relievers execute these fundamentals using one or two overpowering pitches, or in lieu of dominant stuff, they cobble together a few crafty junk pitches. Garrett, Martin, and Sands pitch as if they were junkballers, but instead of throwing knuckleballs or Bugs Bunny changeups, they take their collection of middling fastballs and deploy them as junkballs. They mix and match movement profiles and velocities so hitters can’t sit on certain pitches or locations. They do all the same stuff every pitcher does; they just dress it up a little different. Which in and of itself is novel enough to still be impactful. After all, 10 Things I Hate About You is a singularly great movie, but it’s also a classic Shakespeare play, just dressed up a little differently.

Matt Tuiasosopo has fond memories of his 2013 season with the Detroit Tigers. An October swing of the bat is responsible for one of the few unpleasant memories. Now the third base coach for the Atlanta Braves, Tuiasosopo was watching from the bench when David Ortiz blasted an eighth-inning, game-tying grand slam, a play that saw Torii Hunter tumble into Fenway Park’s home bullpen in a futile attempt to snare the drive. It was the signature moment of an epic ALCS Game 2 that the Red Sox went on to win, and a catalyst to their eventual capturing of the series.

What was it like to be on the wrong side of such a memorable event, and how does he look back at it now that a decade’s worth of water has passed under the bridge? I asked Tuiasosopo those questions when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.

“That was an intense moment, “ recalled Tuiasosopo, who while not on Detroit’s ALCS active roster was in uniform for the games. “The whole stadium was going nuts. It was really loud. Of course, my first concern was Torii, because he flew over that wall. When he got up, it was ‘Thankfully he’s okay.’ I mean, there were a lot of different emotions.

“It obviously wasn’t fun,” continued Tuiasosopo. “At the same time, as a baseball fan it was, ‘Big Papi against one of our best relievers — Joaquín Benoit was big for us that season — and there was also everything that happened for the city of Boston [the Marathon bombing] that year. The moment was special, even though it sucked on our end.” Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday’s column led with Detroit Tigers infielder/outfielder Matt Vierling reflecting on his days as a two-way player in high school and at the University of Notre Dame. This week’s leads with a former two-way player whose career path took a different turn. A native of Saginaw, Michigan who played shortstop and served as a closer at the University of Nebraska, Spencer Schwellenbach is currently a member of the Atlanta Braves starting rotation.

His big-league debut came sooner than expected. The 24-year-old right-hander was drafted in 2021 — Atlanta selected him in the second round — but because of Tommy John surgery he didn’t take the mound until last year. At the time of his May 29 call-up, Schwellenbach had just 110 minor-league innings under his belt. Moreover, he hadn’t thrown a pitch above the Double-A level.

His two-step call-up is something he’ll never forget.

“They actually told me I was going to Triple-A,” said Schwellenbach. “I showed up in Gwinnett, threw a bullpen, and after I got done they asked if I was all packed up to go to Virginia. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got all my stuff here.’ They were like, ‘Well, unpack your stuff, you’re throwing in Atlanta on Wednesday.’ I was so taken off guard that I didn’t know what to say. It was like, ‘holy crap.’ I called my parents, my fiancee, my brothers, my sister. It was awesome.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Portland Sea Dogs roster includes three Top 100 prospects, but neither Roman Anthony (15), Marcelo Mayer (42), nor Kyle Teel (83) has been the Double-A affiliate’s best player so far this season. That distinction belongs to a 23-year-old, shortstop-turned-left-fielder whom the Boston Red Sox drafted 69th overall in 2019 out of the Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy. Along with playing stellar defense at a new position, Matthew Lugo is slashing .306/.404/.653 with 10 home runs and an Eastern League-best 191 wRC+.

Markedly-improved plate discipline has played a big role in his breakout. Last year, Lugo logged a 5.9% walk rate and a 27.6% strikeout rate. This year those numbers are 13.4% and 22.5%.

The key to his newfound ability to dominate the strike zone?

“Timing,” explained Lugo, who takes his cuts from the right side. “Last year, I had a lot of movement with my hands, which made me inconsistent being on time with the pitcher. My hands were very low, and then when I got to the launch position they were very high; there was a lot of distance for my hands to go through. This year, I’m closer to my launch position before I swing. I also had a [bat] wiggle and this year I just get to my spot with no wiggle. I’m getting into my spot early and have more time to see the pitch, so I’m making better swing decisions.”

The decision to move Lugo off of his natural position and into an outfield corner wasn’t based on defensive shortcomings, but rather on the arrival of Mayer. The high-ceiling shortstop was promoted to Portland last year on Memorial Day weekend, and given his first-round pedigree, he wasn’t going to be the one moving. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the year of the splitter. In 2024, 3.1% of all big league pitches thrown have been splitters compared to 2.2% in 2023, a year-over-year increase of 41%. Aficionados of the split-fingered fastball include former NPB stars like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga, longtime MLB users like Joe Ryan and Fernando Cruz, and an assorted collection of hurlers who’ve added a new splitter or featured one much more prominently in their arsenal this year. And few starters have scaled up their splitter usage more than the man atop the pitcher WAR leaderboard: Tanner Houck.

Houck has thrown a splitter his entire time in the majors, but he’s taken it to a new level this year by doubling its usage. Among qualified starters, Houck throws the sixth-highest percentage of splitters, while his splitter’s 110 Pitching+ ranks fifth, ahead of Ryan and Imanaga. The rise of Houck’s splitter, combined with the arsenal tweaks he’s made to throw it more, have transformed him from a mixed-role swingman to slam-dunk frontline starter.

Houck has spent most of his big league career straddling the line between starter and reliever. He pitched mainly as a starter during his 2021 rookie season, but never completed the sixth inning in any of his starts. His sophomore campaign saw him make multi-inning appearances out of the bullpen. Back in the rotation last year, he posted an ERA above five and struggled to get outs as his pitches lost their bite later in starts.

Aside from stamina, Houck’s delivery served as a hurdle to his abilities as a starter. While a handful of starters fire from low arm slots, Houck is one of the only true sidearmers currently in a big league rotation. He doesn’t have an outlier release point thanks to his tall stature and mechanics that carry him toward the first base side, but his arm angle is certainly the lowest among starters. Houck’s delivery provides a great viewing angle for left-handed hitters, who comprise the majority of his competition as opponents stack platoon bats against him.

In 2023, lefties slashed .271/.356/.502 against Houck, roughly the equivalent of having to face Rafael Devers for the entire season. But through his first 10 starts of this year, he’s held them to a line so poor I can’t find a qualified hitter whose numbers I can compare with it. Neutralizing the platoon advantage is a huge deal for a pitcher with his arm angle, and much of this impressive feat has to do with his splitter.

Let’s take a look at what Houck’s approach to pitching looked like before ramping up the use of his splitter. Like most low-slot pitchers, his two primary offerings are a sinker and slider, taking advantage of the east-west movement his arm action produces. Both these pitches are chart-topping in terms of movement, dropping more than average due to their lack of backspin, and his slider breaks to the left even more than most sweepers (though Statcast doesn’t classify it as one).

While these two pitches made right-handed hitters absolutely futile against Houck, sinkers and sweeping sliders tend to generate large platoon splits, compounding with the advantage lefties gain from seeing the ball clearly out of his hand. Houck’s slider drops so much that lefties can’t do much with it, but his sinker moves directly into the path of their barrels, eager to get hammered. In the past, Houck primarily used four-seamers and cutters as his hard offerings against lefty opponents, hoping the rising action would be enough to miss bats. But these pitches still had too much arm-side movement and didn’t generate upward Magnus force, instead staying on plane with lefty swings.

Houck’s approach to lefties wasn’t working, and he needed a change. In came the splitter. What was once a distant fourth offering became his offspeed weapon. He tinkered with its shape, adding nearly four inches of drop to make it more distinct from his sinker. He tightened up its command, finishing down in the zone more consistently and spiking fewer in the dirt. The end result of these adjustments is a lethal pitch that has been a key contributor to Houck’s success.

Houck’s splitter leads his arsenal in both swinging strike rate and putaway rate, indicating it’s already his go-to weapon in two-strike counts. And while it’s been successful at missing bats, the results it generates when batters put it in play may be even more impressive. His split has the lowest launch angle allowed of any individual pitch from a starter; it’s one of just a dozen with a negative average launch angle. After years of allowing lefties to crush the ball in the air, he’s inducing a higher groundball rate against lefties than righties in 2024. These underlying changes have manifested in big time results – lefties have just a .038 ISO against Houck this season and have yet to homer, and Statcast metrics like barrel rate confirm this is no fluke.

The emergence of Houck’s splitter has also cut down his walk rate significantly, as he’s jumped from the 42nd to the 88th percentile in avoiding free passes. Previously, Houck often nibbled around the zone against lefties, afraid of what they could do to his fastball and cutter. Now armed with a pitch that limits damage, he’s fearlessly attacking the strike zone, improving his splitter zone rate by 14 percentage points and his overall zone rate by nearly five.

The effectiveness of his splitter has also made Houck’s sinker a more effective strike stealer because hitters watch it go by expecting it to drop beneath the zone. Houck currently ranks second to Seth Lugo in called strike rate, getting ahead of hitters before disposing of them with the slider and splitter. His improved control of the count is a big reason why he ranks fourth in K-BB% increase relative to 2023.

What impresses me most about Houck’s splitter is the sheer frequency with which he deploys it against lefties, especially at the expense of his fastballs. He’s throwing significantly fewer cutters and has shelved the four-seamer entirely. After unsuccessfully throwing the kitchen sink against opposite-handed opponents, he’s essentially become a two-pitch pitcher against lefties, throwing either a slider or splitter nearly three-quarters of the time.

It’s not often that you see a pitcher use two different non-fastballs as their primary offerings, but this strategy has paid off – not just for Houck but also for the Red Sox as a whole. Last month, Chris Gilligan wrote about Boston’s staff leading the leaguewide shift away from the fastball, pointing out Houck’s four-seamer had a horizontal movement profile ripe for hitters to feast on. Just a couple decades ago, a starting pitcher who almost exclusively relied on sliders and splitters against left-handed hitters would have been unthinkable, but the secondaries-first approach is now a strategy that entire teams are embracing with tremendous results.

Houck’s run as the top-performing pitcher in the majors probably won’t last — he has an unsustainably low 2.6% HR/FB rate — but the excellence of his splitter has certainly put a massive up arrow on his future projection. Just a couple years ago, it would’ve been difficult to envision that the sidewinding swingman who couldn’t handle lefties would become an excellent starter who consistently works into the seventh inning. But with a surprisingly simple fix, Houck has made it happen.