Sunday Notes: Cam Schlittler Shelved His Splitter (Yet Is Surviving Just Fine)

Cam Schlittler was on the doorstep of the big leagues when he led Sunday Notes on the penultimate day of June. Just 10 days later, the 24-year-old right-hander took the mound at Yankee Stadium against the Seattle Mariners and earned a win in his MLB debut. He’s been a presence in New York’s rotation ever since. In 11 starts for the pinstripers, Schlittler has a 3-3 record to go with a 3.05 ERA and a 3.73 FIP over 56 solid innings.

The 98-mph cut-ride fastball that Schlittler addressed in the article has been his most prominent pitch. Thrown at a 56.2% clip, it has elicited a .202 BAA and just a .298 slug. Augmenting the high-octane heater are a quartet of secondaries — none of which is the offering he planned to add to his arsenal this season.

“When I talked to you in the spring, I was working on a splitter,” Schlittler told me at Fenway Park on Friday. “But I just couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t want to go into the season competing with something I wasn’t really comfortable throwing, so I stopped throwing it.”

The 2022 seventh-round pick Northeastern University product began this season in Double-A, where he attacked hitters with the aforementioned fastball, a sweeper, and a curveball. He introduced a cutter — “metrically, it’s kind of in-between a slider and a cutter” — in his final start before being promoted to Triple-A in early June. He’s since added a two-seamer, giving him a pitch he can use to bore in on righties.

Which brings us back to the shelved splitter. Why does the young hurler feel that he wasn’t able to master the pitch?

“I naturally supinate, so it was really hard for me to pronate that pitch down,” replied Schlittler, who entered the season No. 5 on our 2025 Yankees Top Prospects list with a 45 FV. “And everyone is different, right? How they throw the ball, their arm slot, how their hand generated seam-orientation. There’s a lot that goes into what you can manipulate. When we get to the offseason, I’ll definitely work on it, but for now it’s not really an option. I can get by without a changeup, but next year it would probably make my life easier having one.”

Schlittler added that what he works on over the winter could be a changeup, but it could also be a splitter or “a variant of a splitter.” He told me that he hasn’t yet tried a kick change.

Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake is fully on board with the rookie’s revisiting a splitter and/or change once the season is over. He was likewise on board with its being put on the back burner for the campaign at hand.

“He came into camp working on it, but it was inconsistent,” Blake told me. “He lacked the feel for it in [spring training] games. He was spiking it a lot. It was popping out of his hand. And then in his first Double-A start, it just didn’t seem like it was coming along, so he shelved it. It’s something we’ll revisit this offseason. It would definitely help round out his arsenal. In the meantime we’ll just work on refining what he already does at a high level.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Manny Ramirez went 32 for 79 against Andy Pettitte.

Mo Vaughn went 30 for 66 against David Wells.

Dwight Evans went 22 for 66 against Ron Guidry.

David Ortiz went 16 for 39 against Chien-Ming Wang.

Nomar Garciaparra went 13 for 28 against Ramiro Mendoza.

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Lucas Giolito was at a low point in his career when I talked to him in September 2023. Then with the Cleveland Guardians, who had recently claimed him off waivers, the right-hander was struggling mightily. Come season’s end, Giolito had a record of 8-15 to go with a 4.88 ERA and a 5.27 FIP while taking the mound for three different teams. Once a rock-solid starter for the Chicago White Sox, he was facing an uncertain future.

I recently reminded the 31-year-old hurler of the conversation we’d had two years ago. Just how concerned was he about his career at that time?

“My short-term confidence was down,” admitted Giolito, who is now with the Boston Red Sox. “I was dealing with all sorts of stuff. I was obviously very displeased with how I was throwing the ball, and bouncing around with different teams. I was right ahead of free agency and was putting way too much pressure on myself in that aspect.

“I did maintain my ‘I’m going to figure this out,’” he continued. “It was just a matter of when. That’s the one thing: If you want to stay in this league, you have to maintain that confidence in yourself for the long term. I was lucky enough to be able to do that. I believed in myself, no matter what I was going through.”

Giolito signed with the Red Sox prior to last season, only to miss the entire year following elbow surgery. Back to full health — and back to being a quality big-league starter — Giolito is 10-4 with a 3.31 ERA over 136 innings.

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A quiz:

Seven active franchises count 1901 as their first MLB season. In alphabetical order by current team name, they are the Athletics, the Guardians, the Orioles, the Red Sox, the Tigers, the Twins, and the White Sox. Of them, the Red Sox have recorded the most wins. Which of the franchises has the fewest wins since 1901?

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NEWS NOTES

The finalists for SABR’s 2025 Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award (Women in Baseball) were announced earlier this week. More information can be found here.

Brian Dayett, an outfielder who played for the New York Yankees in 1983 and 1984, and for the Chicago Cubs from 1985-1987, died earlier this week at age 68. The New London, Connecticut native logged 110 hits in MLB, and another 140 while in NPB while playing for the Nippon-Ham Fighters from 1988-1991.

Jim Marshall, a first baseman/outfielder who played for five teams from 1958-1962, died earlier this week at age 94. The Danville, Illinois native saw much of his action with the Chicago Cubs in 1959, logging 74 of his 206 hits and 11 of his 29 home runs. He later managed the Cubs and the Oakland Athletics.

Tom Patton, a catcher who played in one game for the Baltimore Orioles in 1957, died earlier this week at age 90. A native of Honey Brook, Pennsylvania, Patton reached on an error and grounded out in his two times at the plate, both against Chicago White Sox seven-time All-Star Billy Pierce. Patton also threw out Hall of Famer Larry Doby attempting to steal.

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The answer to the quiz is the Orioles franchise, with 9,189 wins (versus 10,163 losses). Prior to moving to Baltimore in 1954, they competed in the junior circuit as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901, and as the St. Louis Browns from 1902-1953. The franchise with the second-fewest wins (9,324) is the Twins, who began as the Washington Senators and moved to Minnesota in 1961.

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Craig Counsell was recently asked about the leadership qualities that Carlos Santana and Justin Turner bring to the Chicago Cubs, and his response elicited a followup question from yours truly — one that yielded an answer I wasn’t expecting.

“Players like Carlos and Justin have just experienced so much,” the veteran of 11 managerial seasons told reporters. “I think you’re at a stage of your career where [you can] impart that knowledge to the younger players. You enjoy doing it, and I think both guys very much enjoy doing it. They want to do it, because it was done for them.”

Counsell was a big-league infielder from 1995-2011. Which older players played that role for him?

“I couldn’t even list the number of people I took something from,” Counsell said to my question. “It was a lot. And the cool thing for me is… actually, when I got older, I learned a lot from Prince Fielder. So it can go both ways. It can go both ways for someone like Justin. He can learn from Pete [Crow-Armstrong], too. But I was a huge fan of watching Prince Fielder work, and deal with everything that went around his career, trying to be great.”

Counsell played for the Milwaukee Brewers from 2007-2011 in his age 36-40 seasons. Fielder was with the Brewers in his age 23-27 season over that span.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

NPB’s Central League will adopt the designated hitter rule beginning in 2027. NPB’s Pacific League has had the DH since 1975, two years after the rule was put into place in MLB’s American League.

The Hanshin Tigers clinched the Central League pennant on September 7, besting by one day the 1990 Yomiuri Giants record for NPB’s earliest clincher. The Tigers are 79-48 and have scored the most, and allowed the fewest, runs in the circuit.

Jeong Choi became the first player in KBO history to to hit at least 20 home runs in 10 consecutive seasons. The 38-year-old SSG Landers third baseman has 515 homers over 21 seasons, including a career-best 46 in 2017.

Lewin Díaz leads the KBO in both home runs (45) and RBIs (134), each by a wide margin. The 28-year-old Samsung Lions first baseman — a Miami Marlin from 2020-2022 — has a 153 wRC+ over 575 plate appearances.

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Matt Shaw sat atop our 2025 Chicago Cubs Top Prospect list when it was released prior to the season, and his bat was a big reason why. Eric Longenhagen called the 23-year-old baseman as “an enormously entertaining hitter,” going on to describe a “closed stance, closed stride, with hands that load very low — except with a huge leg kick.”

The 2023 first-round pick looks different now.

“I’ve changed a lot,” said Shaw who grew up in Western Massachusetts before playing collegiately at the University of Maryland. “I don’t have a leg kick anymore. I used to be closed and now I’m open; I opened up just to give myself more time. I think the swing itself is pretty direct and compact. It’s a pretty simple swing — not a lot going on, not a big move or anything like that — so the changes I made were really in the set-up.”

“With one of the changes, to be more open, I was praying while hitting off the tee.” continued Shaw, who made the adjustments during a mid-April-to-Mid-May stint in Triple-A. “I’m a religious guy. I was like, ‘If I hit that ball to the back of the cage, I’m going to have an open stance.’ I did it twice in a row. I was like, ‘I’m going to do an open stance.’ There was no in-depth thought that went into it. It was just that it felt good, so I rolled with it. I trust in my faith a lot. Because the moment originated from faith, it was easy to say, ‘This is what’s meant to be.’”

Shaw is slashing .222/.289/.381 with 11 home runs and an 88 wRC+ over 391 plate appearances on the season. He has a 93 wRC+ and 10 of his home runs since returning to the majors with his revamped setup.

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FARM NOTES

Brandan Bidois has thrown 18 consecutive hitless innings over his last 11 relief appearances. Currently with Triple-A Indianapolis, the 24-year-old right-hander from Brisbane, Australia has a 0.78 ERA, a 2.40 ERA, and a 30.6% strikeout rate across three levels. Bidois is No. 46 with a 35+ FV in our updated Pittsburgh Pirates rankings.

The Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes (Colorado Rockies) scored at least once in every inning while outscoring the El Paso Chihuahuas 21-10 on Wednesday. Sam Hilliard went 4-for-6 with a pair of home runs, and Aaron Schunk 5-for-6 with one home run, for the winning side.

Ryan Ward leads the minors with 118 RBIs. The 27-year-old outfielder in the Los Angeles Dodgers system has 33 home runs and a 133 wRC+ to go with a .291/.382/.555 slash line for the Triple-A Oklahoma City Comets.

Pablo Nunez has drawn 41 walks and fanned just six times in 157 Dominican Summer League plate appearances. The 18-year-old left-handed-hitting outfielder in the Cincinnati Reds organization is slashing .327/.542/.413 with a 170 wRC+.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

The most losses the New York Yankees have had in a single season since 1912 (they were then known as the Highlanders) is 95. Arguably, the most obscure player on the 1990 squad that holds that dubious distinction was Steve Adkins. A southpaw who saw action in five games — his only MLB appearances — Adkins went 1-2 with a 6.38 ERA while tossing 24 innings.

His debut, which came on September 12, was nonetheless noteworthy. Adkins is one of 25 players in big-league history to make his debut as a starter and not give up a hit (only six of the 25 went at least five innings). He is also one of just six starting pitchers to not give up a hit while being tagged with a loss in his debut (and the only one since 1916).

Atkins walked eight of the 11 batters he faced, was charged with three runs, and took the loss as the Yankees fell to the Texas Rangers 5-4.

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What is the worst pitch you’ve thrown so far this season? I’ve asked that question to a handful of pitchers over the past month, Tanner Bibee being the most recent.

“A few come to mind,” the Cleveland Guardians right-hander told me. “One was a changeup to [the Angels’] Luis Rengifo in my second start of the year. I had two strikes on him, threw it right down the middle, and he was all over it [for a home run]. When they get you with two strikes, that’s when it really hurts. Whenever I think ‘bad pitch’ it’s usually bad execution, and that’s what that pitch was.

“Another one that comes to mind is a pitch to Taylor Trammell, in Houston [on July 7]. It was a 1-0 sinker. I was trying to go front door, but it went up and away and he hit a three-run homer, oppo. I think I’ve only faced him twice, so I’m not super sure if that’s a pitch he handles really well, but a right-handed sinker to a left-handed batter can be a dangerous pitch. Had I executed it, it was probably going to be a good pitch — it was probably going to result in a jam shot — but I didn’t execute. It went right into his bat path, and turned into three runs.”

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein wrote about how the Toronto Blue Jays are riding old pitchers into the MLB postseason.

Is 22-year-old southpaw Jonathan Santucci the Mets’ next big pitching prospect? Jorge Eckardt offered his thoughts at Metsmerized Online.

Colorado Rockies rookie right-hander Chase Dollander is likely out for the rest of the season due to a a left patella tendon strain. Kevin Henry has the story at The Denver Gazette.

Former MLB pitcher D.J. Carrasco is working to develop a bright future for Native American baseball players. Ken Rosenthal wrote about his efforts for The Athletic.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

The New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers rank one-two among MLB teams in runs scored, with 770 and 760 respectively. Brewers batters have hit the most singles (906) of any team. The Yankees (746) have hit the third-fewest singles.

Chicago Cubs pitchers have issued 373 walks, the fewest of any team. They have logged 1,133 strikeouts, fourth fewest of any team.

The San Diego Padres have had 12 first-round picks in the past nine seasons. They have taken a high school player with each of them.

Matt Olson has played in every game (634 to date) since joining the Atlanta Braves prior to the 2022 season. The next highest games played totals over that span belong to three current members of the New York Mets: Pete Alonso (625), Francisco Lindor (620), and Juan Soto (619).

Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews homered in the same game 76 times, the most of any two teammates. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig homered in the same game 75 times.

On yesterday’s date in 1936, 17-year-old Cleveland Indians rookie Bob Feller fanned a then-AL-record 17 batters in a 5-2 win over the Philadelphia Athletics. The right-hander, who had yet to graduate from high school, allowed two hits and issued nine free passes in his complete-game effort.

On today’s date in 1986, San Francisco Giants third baseman Bob Brenly was charged with four errors, contributing to six unearned runs scored by the Atlanta Braves. The Giants won the game 7-6, with Brenly’s second home run of the game coming in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Players born on today’s date include Eddie Rommel, whose July 10, 1932 stat line is one of the most remarkable ever for a reliever. The right-hander entered the game in the second inning, then proceeded to throw 17 innings, allowing 29 hits, 14 runs, and nine walks, with seven strikeouts. Moreover, he got the win as the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians 18-17 in 18 innings. All told, Rommel went 171-119 with a 121 ERA+ for the A’s from 1920-1932.

Also born on today’s date was Tom Hughes, whose big-league career comprised two starts for the St. Louis Cardinals — the first of them on his 25th birthday — with both coming against the Chicago Cubs in 1959. One of 81 MLB players born in Panama, the right-hander was the losing pitcher in each of his outings, allowing a combined nine runs over four innings. Ernie Banks was his nemesis. The Hall of Famer went 3-for-3 with a homer, a triple, and a run-scoring single versus Hughes.