Matt Strahm Destroyed the Market. Now He’s Smashing Expectations

If Matt Strahm wasn’t on your radar before this season, I can’t blame you. The left-hander put up increasingly worse results during his four years with the Padres, culminating in a 2021 season lost to injury. He bounced back the following year as a solid middle reliever for the Red Sox, but even so, he was hardly a free agent to watch this winter. He only made headlines because the two-year, $15 million deal he signed with the Phillies was more lucrative than anyone expected for him; an unnamed executive claimed that the contract “destroyed the market” for left-handed relievers.

A few years back, though, Strahm was a top-100 prospect and the most promising name in the Royals’ system. He earned his first feature here at FanGraphs in August 2016 in a piece that called him “a new relief weapon.” He was marvelous that season, posting a 1.23 ERA and 2.06 FIP across 22 innings for the reigning world champs. A year later, he earned another look from the FanGraphs staff, this time as the headlining return in the Trevor Cahill trade between the Royals and Padres. The summer after that, Strahm was once again the star of a FanGraphs story, this one about his work as an opener. Travis Sawchik looked at Strahm’s success and wondered if “Hader Lite” was an appropriate nickname. That’s high praise, indeed.

All this to say, Strahm isn’t just some guy, no matter how much his new nickname (Pastrami, i.e. “Pa-strahm-i”) makes him sound like the manager of an old-time Brooklyn deli or a kid from The Little Rascals. At the same time, he hasn’t been particularly relevant for several years, and as he entered his age-31 season, you might have thought the former top prospect was done making headlines.

Six games into his Phillies career, Strahm demands attention. He ranks 10th among National League pitchers (min. 20 IP) with a 2.31 ERA and among the top 10 in all the major ERA estimators: FIP, xFIP, xERA, and SIERA. The only other NL pitchers who can say the same are Spencer Strider, Zac Gallen, and Max Fried — arguably the early-season frontrunners for the National League Cy Young.

Strahm is one of eight NL starters to have struck out more than ten batters in a game this year; that star-studded list also includes Strider, Gallen, Zack Wheeler, and Logan Webb. All the more impressive, Strahm issued just two free passes in that contest, and he accomplished the feat in fewer than six innings pitched. Eleven of his 16 outs were Ks; more than half the batters he faced walked back to the dugout, hanging their heads in shame. Sure, that outing came against a dreadful Rockies lineup, but dominating bad teams is what good pitchers do, and more to the point, the Rockies, for all their faults, have put the ball in play at a league-average rate.

As I am required to admit by law, six games and 23.1 innings is a tiny sample. Still, Strahm must be doing something right to wind up in the same company as Strider, Gallen, and Fried. It’s hard to hoodwink all the advanced metrics at once, and you can’t fake a double-digit strikeout game. So after years of laying low, Strahm is once again calling for a FanGraphs feature. How is he pulling it off?

When the Phillies signed Strahm in December, I wrote about his diverse array of pitches, an usual trait for a bullpen arm. He was the only left-handed reliever last season (min. 40 IP) to throw five different pitches at least 9% of the time. I theorized that Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham would work with Strahm to adjust his arsenal, focusing on his best pitches rather than throwing the kitchen sink. That has already happened to some extent, with Strahm ditching his least effective offering (a changeup) and adding four inches of horizontal movement to his breaking ball, turning it from a curveball into a slider, according to Baseball Savant. Different sources have different ideas about how to label his breaking ball(s) — Strahm has called himself “a slurvy guy” — but the key takeaway here is that the pitch is moving more than it did before.

Dropping the changeup has helped; opposing hitters posted a .558 wOBA against the pitch from 2020 to ’22. Meanwhile, Strahm’s new and improved breaking ball is working wonders. Last year, his “curveball” had a 22.7% whiff rate, 18.9% put-away rate, and .245 xwOBA. This year, his “slider” has a 46.4% whiff rate, 40% put-away rate, and .181 xwOBA. That’s a major improvement. At the same time, it’s hard to tell why his breaking ball has been so successful. Adding some extra break is great, but there isn’t anything remarkable about the velocity or movement profile of the pitch. Moreover, neither of the pitch quality models available at FanGraphs (Stuff+ and PitchingBot) has been impressed with the stuff or location of (what they classify as) his slider:

In fact, neither Stuff+ nor PitchingBot thinks much of Strahm’s stuff or command in general. His Stuff+ is average, his Location+ is just above average, and his PitchingBot stuff and command are both at a 45 on the 20–80 scale:

But here’s the kicker: Strahm’s overall PitchingBot numbers are remarkable. He leads all NL pitchers (min. 20 IP) with a 63 overall score. His PitchingBot expected ERA is 2.72 — yet another ERA estimator that ranks Strahm among the best in the game.

So how does he have such great PitchingBot numbers despite mediocre stuff and command? It’s all about context. Strahm has been throwing the right pitches in the right moments, and it’s paying off big time.

The three categories of variables that PitchingBot uses to measure pitch quality are stuff (velocity, spin rate, etc.), location (pitch height, horizontal position at the plate), and context (pitcher/batter handedness, strike zone height, count). Therefore, if Strahm isn’t succeeding with stuff or location, he must be doing an excellent job selecting his pitches. That makes sense, as he doesn’t blow the ball past hitters with high velocity or deceptive stuff, nor does he thrive on soft contact; his fastball velocity ranks in the 23rd percentile, and his average exit velocity is in the 12th. Instead, he’s running a 95th-percentile strikeout rate because he knows when to use each of his pitches. The whole of his arsenal is greater than the sum of its parts.

Indeed, I think it all comes back to the diversity of Strahm’s pitch mix. While he no longer throws his changeup, he still has four weapons he can use in almost any spot and has used all four (to varying degrees) against both right- and left-handed hitters. He has thrown each one as the first pitch of an at-bat and each as the last. He has used them all when he is ahead in the count, and he’s used them all when he’s behind. This isn’t to say he’s using his pitches willy-nilly, but when a pitcher is comfortable throwing any of his pitches at any time, he can pick the best one to use in any given situation. For example, his go-to fastball against righties is his four-seam, and his go-to against lefties is his sinker. But he’s not afraid to mix that up: He has induced three swinging strikeouts using his sinker against right-handed hitters and two called strikeouts using his four-seam against lefties.

What’s more, Strahm throws all of his pitches in multiple locations and doesn’t rely on hitting one particular spot. As an example, he can throw his breaking ball right over the plate or use it to jam right-handed hitters on the inside corner:

He has used his breaking ball as an excellent put-away pitch but hasn’t been afraid to use it in difficult situations, throwing four sliders in 3–2 counts and earning three strikeouts.

Strahm has always been a cerebral pitcher, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that he’s succeeding thanks to smart sequencing and pitch selection. This offseason, for instance, he explained to our David Laurila that he approaches left- and right-handed hitters differently depending on which arm they throw with. “If he’s right-handed with a dominant right hand, a fastball up he can probably get to. If he’s left-handed with a dominant left hand, same thing. Conversely, Rafael Devers is really good against the breaking ball down, because he gets to drop his right hand — his dominant hand — on the pitch. And where does he struggle? Fastball up.”

The downside to such a scholarly approach is that it’s something opposing teams can figure out; catching on to a pitcher’s sequence is easier than catching up to his blistering fastball. Consequently, I’m doubtful Strahm will continue pitching this well all season. I also think this explains why the Phillies have prevented him from pitching deeper into games. You might assume he’d be allowed to build up his pitch count, but manager Rob Thomson pulled him after 5.1 scoreless innings and only 60 pitches in his most recent outing against Seattle, directly after he retired the nine-hole hitter for a second time; presumably, he didn’t want Strahm facing the Mariners’ order a third time through.

As a matter of fact, the Phillies are still planning to return him to the bullpen despite his success as a starter. When Ranger Suárez comes off the IL, he is expected to take Strahm’s spot in the rotation, even though Strahm has outperformed fifth starter Bailey Falter. The Phillies, it seems, think Strahm is better in short bursts, before opponents have the chance to figure out his moves.

It’s a shame Strahm won’t get to continue starting — if there’s any chance he can keep this up, I want to see him try — but all things considered, he’s more likely to succeed as a reliever. Historically, his velocity has been higher out of the bullpen, and an uptick in his stuff will only help him to keep hitters on their toes. But while he won’t compete with Strider, Gallen, and Fried in the Cy Young race much longer, that doesn’t mean he won’t extend his breakout performance. After all, a guy doesn’t need to become an ace to exceed expectations; Strahm has already done so just by serving as a capable starter over the first month of the season. Whatever he does next is simply icing on the two-year, $15 million cake. Destroying the market never felt so good.