Jose Urquidy Might Have an Adjustment to Make

Editor’s note: Michael has previously written at Pitcher List and Baseball Prospectus, as well as his own site, Pitcher Giffer, and serves as the site manager for Bucs Dugout. You may also have seen his nifty pitch GIFs at ESPN. He’ll be contributing to FanGraphs a few times a week. We’re excited to welcome him.

Down two games to one to the Washington Nationals, with their season potentially hanging in the balance, the Houston Astros turned to rookie pitcher Jose Urquidy in Game 4 in an attempt to pull the World Series even. Not much was known or expected from the 24-year-old righty who made his post-All-Star break major league debut in July. To say Urquidy rose to the occasion on Saturday is a bit of an understatement. He kept the Nationals offense in check, throwing five innings with no runs allowed on two hits, no walks, and four strikeouts.

Urquidy spent one month with the team, was sent back down to the minor leagues in August, then returned in September. He continued to strike out hitters at a high rate, minimized his walks, and was able to deflate his ERA by four runs. He made two starts in four appearances, pitching a total of 11 innings, and allowed just one earned run off of four hits and two walks with a 2.76 FIP.

Could Urquidy develop into a front-line starter for the Astros in 2020? It’s possible, but he has an adjustment (or two) that will need to be made if he hopes to maintain his efficiency long term.

Urquidy was a relatively unheralded prospect; he currently sits at 19th in the Astros system on THE BOARD. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel described him as having plus command, describing him at the time of their report as a “spot-starter type” but also noting there is a “chance that he actually has 7 command and is something more than that.” (That command is especially important given the diversity of arm slots from which he throws his pitches, but more on that in a moment.) With his future value rated at 40, it’s hard to imagine the rookie having the kind of outing he did on Saturday. Sure, you can point to the results of his seven starts and two relief appearances in 2019. During that stretch of 41 innings, Urquidi posted a 3.68 FIP, a 24% strikeout rate, and 4.2% walk rate. While that sounds great, it’s hardly enough data to infer future performance.

Below are the three main pitches Urquidy relies on– the fastball, changeup, and slider. He produces good movement, but notice how the fastball and changeup (sitting in the middle) arm slots are fairly close, but the slider is not:

A more drastic example appears below (with the curveball included):

Allow Brooks Baseball to show how disjointed they actually are, with Urquidy’s regular and postseason release points:

Looking more closely at Urquidy’s October plot, you’ll see that there is a fairly drastic change between his four-seam and slider arm slots as they become a bit more vertical with the changeup shifting slightly away from the four-seam slot. Again, we are dealing with some small samples, so Urquidy could just be tinkering with release points.

The overarching concern with Urquidy is the fact that those distinct release points could become a liability. As you’ve seen thus far in the playoffs, Urquidy has been pretty successful, but keep in mind he never faced the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, or the Washington Nationals during the regular season.

In his three October appearances, Urquidy has held hitters to a .278 wOBA, with an xwOBA of .352. That .074 disparity could be due to some luck but his BABIP (.318) doesn’t indicate anything obvious; the Astros are fourth overall in team DRS, though they do a bit worse by UZR (eighth). That spread could be the result of hitters having caught on to the arm slot clues but just not being able to put the ball in the right place. Even if they’re still somewhat oblivious, I’d venture to guess that eventually major league hitters will be able to identify what Urquidy is throwing based on where he’s releasing the ball.

Making adjustments to his slider arm slot is going to take some work and it’s more than just changing the angle from which the ball is released. Should Urquidy lift the arm slot for his slider, which in this case would be roughly an inch both horizontally and vertically, he would be looking at redesigning the pitch.

In the regular and postseason combined, Urquidy has thrown his slider with an estimated spin tilt average of 10:45. Coupled with his average velocity (83 mph) and spin rate (2581 rpm), its shape creates about 31 inches of drop (with gravity) and slid close to four inches horizontally during the regular season.

Here’s an example. Notice Urquidy’s average slider movement during the regular season, thrown under an average spin tilt of 11:00:

Now, here it is during the playoffs, thrown under an average spin tilt of 9:15:

Urquidy appears to have created two different pitch shapes with about an inch of adjustment to both his release points and shifted his axis in the neighborhood of 40-degrees vertically. The end result was maybe five inches of extra movement to Urquidy’s glove side.

However, the slider adjustment came along with his changeup and four-seam both moving to become a bit more overhanded. As mentioned, Urquidy would need to move his slider up in order to avoid continuing to tip the hitter off as to what is coming. Obviously, this would entail greater adjustment to his spin axis to compensate for the new location if he hopes to produce the kind of movement his slider is already capable of.

If Urquidy has difficulty adjusting his release point on the slider, there are other things that he can do to help keep hitters off-balance on his breaking pitch. Changing spin rate and/or velocity can be just as effective as moving arm slots. Two pitches thrown from the same arm slot can produce two different shapes if, say, their respective spin rates change somewhat drastically, say 100 rpm or more. However, changing spin rate can be much harder than it sounds.

Here we have two sliders, within 1 mph of each other, with over 100 rpm difference and maybe 5-10 degrees of axis contrast.

An easier route may be to change velocities, which can also impact movement when the spin rate isn’t compensated for. The trouble with the slider, in particular, is that, when thrown too hard and not ratioed with the proper spin rate, we are essentially looking at a batting practice fastball, the kind any hitter worth their salt would demolish.

Urquidy has demonstrated on the biggest stage possible that he’s got the potential to be a really good starter for the Astros. One thing working in his favor is the guidance of Astros pitching coach Brent Strom, and a baseball operations group that has shown itself adept at helping pitchers improve in precisely the way Urquidy likely needs to in order to take a step forward. Yet his slider release point will likely have to be addressed in the offseason because over time, hitters will likely be able to identify when the breaking pitch is coming.