Luis Severino and Defining the Debut Adrenaline Effect
The first inning of a debut is a sweaty time. Just look at Henry Owens as he stepped to the mound for the first time in the big leagues this past week. Your heart strains for him — not only in sympathy, but also because it’s just so obvious that his blood is racing through his veins and his vision is blurry. You can almost feel it just watching him.
You can see plainly that that the major league debut was full of butterflies for Owens. And so it was for Luis Severino. Just in a different way than most.
We don’t have the debut date for every pitcher in the PITCHf/x era, but we do have 303 pitchers listed. The average debut starter started the game off with 1.3 mph better velocity than he showed in the fifth inning of the same game. That’s a full tick more than the average starter has lost, in-game, this season. So your rookie starter comes out pumping about a tick more than you would expect him to show, based probably on adrenaline.
Later in the rookie season, that same starter will be about three-quarters of a mile per hour below his first inning numbers. That’s despite the fact that velocity peaks in August, and most veteran starters ramp up the velocity slowly as the season goes on. So it does look like rookie starters live on adrenaline for that first start.
Maybe Severino won’t have this problem. He started the first inning average 95… and ended with a fifth inning that saw him average 96 on the fastball. He’s a far cry from Brett Cecil, who started his debut with a first inning average of 94 mph and a fifth-inning average of 86 mph. Severino won’t even go the way of Danny Duffy, who dropped from 95 to 90.7 over the course of his first start.
But that doesn’t mean Severino didn’t have the debut reflux. Take a look at the velocities of his various pitches, thanks to BrooksBaseball. He was tight in the first couple innings — on his changeup and slider. Look how he relaxed and showed better stuff in the latter innings.
For Severino, it looks like the nerves manifested in his changeup and slider — they were too hard to begin the game. He lost between a tick and two ticks on both pitches between the first and second innings. And in that way, he was conventional — pitchers lost .8 mph on their changeups from the first inning of their debut to the fifth. Tense up, and it seems your changeup tenses up.
By taking something off of those pitches later in the game, Severino gained movement. Between the first three innings and the last two, he gained almost two inches of drop on the slider in particular.
That’s not typical. Debut starters saw their sliders stay virtually the same between their first innings and fifth innings of their debuts, as well as later in the season — no value was more than .2 inches different, in aggregate.
| 1st in Debut | 5th in Debut | Rookie Season | |
|---|---|---|---|
| League FB velo | 91.6 | 90.4 | 90.9 |
| League CH velo | 82.8 | 82.0 | 82.3 |
| League SL Zmov | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
But Severino’s early inning slider looked more like this:
And his later-inning sliders looked more like this:
It’s almost enough of a difference to ask if they were both actually sliders, but contextual clues say they were. Both of these pitches were thrown with two strikes, both were thrown to right-handed hitters (both times Hanley Ramirez), both were six mph slower than his four-seam, and both broke a little to the glove and down. If that’s his cutter and his cutter is six mph slower than his four-seam and breaks so little, it’s a baby slider without the slider break. The second broke a lot more to the glove and down, and looked like a legitimate breaking pitch, either way.
Early in the debut for Luis Severino, he was missing spots. His changeup was too hard, and his slider wasn’t biting. You might have thought he was gas and gas alone. If you turned the game back on in the fourth and fifth, however, you might have seen him hit the outside corner edge of the strike zone on consecutive 3-2 pitches to strike out Mike Napoli. And you might have seen those better sliders and changeups, too.
That’s because every rookie amps it up for the debut. Most do it on the fastball, and Severino did it on the changeup and slider, but it looks like most rookies can’t avoid feeling the effect of the debut jitters.
Bonus leaderboard: the starters that saw the biggest drop from the first inning of their debut and their rest-of-season fastball velocity.
| Pitcher | First Inning | Fifth Inning | Season | Debut-Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Cecil | 93.6 | 86.0 | 89.9 | 3.7 |
| Wade Miley | 92.2 | 88.2 | 88.9 | 3.3 |
| Jeff Locke | 91.9 | 90.5 | 88.7 | 3.3 |
| Eddie Butler | 95.9 | 93.5 | 92.7 | 3.2 |
| David Purcey | 93.9 | 92.3 | 91.0 | 3.0 |
| Mike Wright | 95.8 | 91.9 | 92.8 | 2.9 |
| Cody Anderson | 95.3 | 92.8 | 92.4 | 2.9 |
| Sean West | 93.5 | 91.1 | 90.8 | 2.7 |
| Ethan Martin | 95.7 | 92.6 | 93.1 | 2.6 |
| Greg Reynolds | 93.0 | 91.7 | 90.5 | 2.4 |
| Drew Hutchison | 93.6 | 91.2 | 91.3 | 2.3 |
| Drew Pomeranz | 91.8 | 88.1 | 89.5 | 2.3 |
| Antonio Bastardo | 93.3 | 91.2 | 91.1 | 2.3 |
| Tyler Matzek | 94.4 | 94.1 | 92.2 | 2.2 |
| Jake Arrieta | 94.8 | 93.5 | 92.6 | 2.2 |
| Chase Anderson | 93.1 | 91.3 | 90.9 | 2.2 |
| Matt Shoemaker | 92.9 | 89.6 | 90.8 | 2.1 |
| Brad Lincoln | 93.7 | 91.1 | 91.6 | 2.1 |
| Hiram Burgos | 89.9 | 87.4 | 87.8 | 2.1 |
| Michael Montgomery | 92.9 | 90.6 | 90.8 | 2.1 |
| Tyler Skaggs | 91.3 | 90.4 | 89.2 | 2.1 |
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Maybe the slider difference is not a debut thing: the Yankees commentators stated that they heard he throws two kinds of sliders from folks on the farm. We’ll see if pitchFX bears that out over the next few starts.
Actually that was on the YES postgame show.
He should stop throwing the first one.
I don’t think this man is going to win any gold gloves…
I remember the first closeup on severino you could see his artery in his neck pumping and the game just started.
Brett Cecil is quite surprising. A 90 mph pitcher comes out firing at 94, then falls all the way to 86. I can only conclude that his pregame ritual that day included a few hits on a crack pipe.
…the rich man’s crack!
Great job with this article, Eno, especially coming up with the idea.
Idea probably better than execution if Severino has two sliders, but it was fun to look at debut velocity guys.
Very creative topic. I’ve been reading a lot of your work lately Eno. Keep up the good work!
Nice article. I watched this start closely so my two cents was:
1. He definitely settled down after the first 3 innings, and his pitch movement was impressive.
2. He threw a couple beautiful ‘rising’ fastballs high in the zone that the hitters could not catch up with. They resembled Mike Fiers’ except with an extra 8-9 m.p.h. I hope these K pitches are part of his game.
3. His strike zone was very small. He got a few calls on the outside edge, but there were at least 4-5 where he threw that high fastball strike and pitch f/x had the entire stinking ball inside the strike zone and that ump was just plain missing them. I can’t tell if this was the old ‘you are a rookie so you get a smaller strike zone than vets’, or just bad calls.
4. This guy has some thick legs, but it’s hard to see how he uses them. He seems to get his elbow in to the cocked position extremely early, and still somehow throws 95+ with what looks like little lower body in it. I want an arm like that!
This is actually why Keith Law is so much lower on Severino than most other scouts. He doesn’t think Severino can maintain control with using so little of his upper body.
Interesting that he said that, it does look pretty obvious though. Assuming he can stay healthy though, wouldn’t you want to keep a guy that has such a good history of control – and 3 pitches – a starter? He defintely has 3 pitches, and it also seems like he has 2 FB grips. Some of his fastballs were breaking in to the RHH, and they had to be fastballs because they were 95, and some of them actually looked like they cut away from the RHH.
*Lower body but yes
That elbow has got some STRESS on it!
Kiley McDaniel said this of Severino, with whom he is very familiar, this offseason:
“His slider is still a third pitch, but it flashes 55 at times. The concern is that he’s throwing one pitch and, in the 2014 outing in the video, the velocity of it ranged from 82-91 mph, looking like a cutter, slider and a hybrid third pitch between them. He “accidentally” threw a 91 mph pure cutter one time in the outing that was plus, further underlining the arm talent but lack of feel for how to consistently spin the above average breaker that he clearly has in there somewhere.”
Basically, dude’s got some major upside with some learning to do before he actualizes it. That’s basically what people have been saying about him all along.
And virtually every other pitching prospect ever.
has anchors for legs and a cannon. I think he’s one of the more interesting prospects out there because of the raw talent. I could see his velocity actually increasing over the next 3-18 months.
The scouting report on Severino was that he had an elite fastball/change combo with a still developing slider. Yet, according to pitch f/x he threw the change only 4% of the time in his debut. It was the slider that looked absolutely filthy once he settled in. Great mix of horizarional movement with a late vertical drop.
If he has already mastered the slider compared to a few months ago then Severino seriously is a just a right handed version (and shorter) of Chris Sale. Both hide the ball extremely well due to their unique mechanics which some experts have worried puts too much strain on the arm. Both have a trio of plus plus pitches in their fastball, change, and slider. Only difference is that Severino throws a harder, more traditional slider while Sale’s is more of a curve.
I 100% realize it’s insane to compare anyone to the likes of Chris Sale after a single start in the big leagues, believe me. But, sometimes that is all it takes to realize the guy you’re watching is going to be special. I got that feeling immediately with Harvey and Syndergaard. Everyone knew Kershaw was going to be special from pitch one. After the first inning, almost all Yankees fans I know instantly saw why Cashman made him 100% untouchable.
Other “special” pitchers that were obvious HoF’ers from pitch 1:
Rick Ankiel
Jon Rauch
Mark Prior
Edwin Jackson
Homer Bailey
Phil Hughes
Joba Chamberlain
Matt Moore
Pour one out for Prior.
He said special, not HoF.
Right. “Special” actually implies elite Hall of Famer.
…what on earth are you talking about?
I find it interesting no one is quite sure what he’s throwing. It could be an inconsistent slider, or it could very well be a cutter he’s mixing in that others have mistaken for a slider. The Yankees I hear do like to teach cutters to their young pitchers, which is the exact opposite of the Orioles who demand their pitchers stop throwing them, even when they have (or had) a good one like Bundy.
His breaking pitches seemed to be much more effective after the first two innings. That might have been caused by standard nerves for a kid making his MLB start, or maybe he requires an inning or two to hit his stride because of his unorthodox delivery. It was a solid debut. If this is all he is, he’ll be tough. If he’s what he was his last three innings, AL hitters will be in for a tough time.
Let’s just hope his arm stays in one piece. I imagine most of us are getting tired of seeing Tommy John affect so many talented pitchers.
The kid definitely has talent. But between the lack of lower body involvement, fast ball velocity, and his age being at the height of the injury nexus its 50/50 if he avoids surgery over the next year. I cant get too excited about any young pitcher, they break so easily
Not sure if it would be possible to do an advanced sort of “play index” lookup on 1st start effectiveness for power guys who throw 94-95+ and then finesse or sinker guys. Anecdotally, the former seem to perform better with the extra juice than the latter. Would probably have to be a leg work lookup instead of play index 😉
Sev. Also benifited from home field advantage. The ump was very liberal in his strike zone to him. That old yannkee bias strikes again.
That’s dumb. You’re dumb.
I think it is so cool that you used data analysis to show the human element.
For some of these guys, the velo drop presaged a conversion to the bullpen, and other guys may have been showing early signs of arm problems (maybe lots of loose bodies floating in the elbow), but this is true of so many young pitchers you would need to do a more controlled analysis to verify.
Not losing velo is a good thing, for sure.