Collette Calls: Unintended Benefits

This is not another article wondering about what is happening with offense around the league or speculating if something is up with the baseball. Frankly, I have said my piece, and it's time to move forward. However, Eno Sarris and Jayson Stark published an outstanding, comprehensive look on the matter recently. I strongly encourage you to read their work. My focus now is who is benefitting from the changes in the game, and I want to start with a particular focus on pitching.

This is stated in the aforementioned article from Sarris and Stark, but it bears repeating: hitting is hard! To lift a quote from George Springer contained within the article:

"The pitchers are so much better," the Blue Jays' George Springer said. "Spin is at its all-time high. Velocity is at an all-time high. They're throwing over 100 (mph), with 60 percent sliders. There's never an 'AB' when you're like, 'I'm cool. This guy throws 92. I'm good.' They just throw good pitches and really really good pitches now."

That's backed up with words from Nolan Arenado:

"I'm just amazed now," said the Cardinals' Nolan Arenado, "by how guys that you've faced in the past, who would challenge you a certain way, don't do that anymore. You face them now, and all of a sudden, they have more (velocity) in there. Or they have different types of pitches now. … Pitching right now is just out of control."

Earlier this week in the Joe Sheehan Newsletter Slack Channel (seriously, go subscribe to his incredible newsletter), a few of us were discussing what pitchers are the the poster children for how the new baseball behaviors are helping certain pitchers more than others. I posited MacKenzie Gore since his fastball is staying in the yard this year much better than it did last year, while others mentioned Tanner Houck and Bailey Falter. I decided to pull a query from BaseballSavant. As W. Edwards Deming famously said, "In God we trust. All others must bring data," because one of those names wasn't even on the list, and just one of them is even in the top 10.

Below is the table of pitchers with the biggest change in the slugging percentage off their fastball types from data pulled at BaseballSavant. The fastball group includes only four-seamers, sinkers and cutters:

I am not going to look at all 25 of these names, but I would like to look down to at least Houck to see how these pitchers are faring this season when throwing the same pitches which betrayed them in 2023. 

Alek Manoah

Manoah's elbow gave out before we got a chance to see what could happen with him in 2024. He pitched in just five games before his season-ending injury, with varying results. His season debut against Washington was more of the same from last year, but he then threw two seven-inning gems against Minnesota and Tampa Bay. He had a lapse against Detroit in his penultimate outing before leaving in the second inning of what was a great start against Chicago. He did allow four homers in 24.1 innings, but none of them came off his fastballs, something that was a big problem last season season when he was pitching in too many predictable counts. 

Grayson Rodriguez

Rodriguez struggled with home runs last year, particularly early in the season when the rookie surrendered 13 homers in 45.1 innings before being sent to Triple-A Norfolk. Rodriguez came back after the break and has allowed 10 homers over his last 147 innings. Dave Adler of MLB.com does an excellent job breaking down what Rodriguez has done with his fastballs in this recent piece, and it also speaks to something covered in the Sarris/Stark piece: having two fastballs is the new cheat code for pitchers. Rodriguez is letting the four-seamer ride high in the zone and using a new sinker down in the zone, forcing hitters to discern not only velocity but also location.

Trevor Williams

If I had to guess, this was the discussion between Williams and Washington pitching coach Jim Hickey: "Your fastball is not good. Stop throwing it so often. Everyone is throwing a sweeper, so start throwing some of those and let's see what happens." The sweeper is now Willams's secondary offering and the league cannot hit it, posting a .107 against the pitch with a 46 percent whiff rate. Williams uses the new offering to give him five different pitch types he throws to each batter to keep them guessing, allowing his previously poor fastball to serve as his primary putaway pitch and one which opponents have hit out of the park just once, compared to 21 times last season. 

Luis Severino

This is not as simple as Severino taking the subway from The Bronx to Queens and calling it a day. The Mets have encouraged Severino to implement more sinkers than he threw as a Yankee while also adding a sweeper to his repertoire and dialing everything else back. The retooled Severino has quickly made his 2023 season look like a distant memory as he looks to pitch his way to a multi-year deal as a free agent this winter. 

Hunter Greene

Hunter's fastball is still his moneymaker, but now that he's paired his fastball up with an effective splitter as his change of speed rather than a poorly performing changeup, his heater is generating better outcomes. Greene had allowed 29 homers off his fastball over the previous two seasons, but has allowed just four homers off the pitch so far this season while using his fastball more frequently than he has in previous years.

Luke Weaver

How does this happen? Weaver was the lowest of leverage pitchers in 2023. Opposing batters teed off on him. He's now become one of the more dominant middle relievers in baseball. He has simplified his repertoire down to his riding fastball, changeup and cutter, a pitch which has gone from an afterthought to his preferred secondary offering. It's amazing to watch a guy who pitched to a 6.50 ERA over the previous two seasons come out and dominate the way he has for the Yankees this season.

Miles Mikolas

Mikolas has recently turned around a tough season with five consecutive quality starts and has a favorable schedule ahead of him the next couple of weeks. His fastball is certainly doing better this season despite little change to its behaviors or even his overall repertoire. The problem for Mikolas has been his breaking stuff, particularly his slider, which has been hit hard despite serving as his primary pitch. 

Kyle Bradish

Bradish was able to make three more starts than Manoah befor succumbing to the same injury and procedure, but fantasy managers had to like what they saw while Bradish was on the bump. He adjusted his fastball approach to convert the sinker into his primary fastball and trusted the defense behind him to get the outs when the pitch was put into play. His four-seamer was too hittable in previous seasons, but he still needs to throw it to change eye levels. Dialing back his four-seam usage nine percentage points while ramping up his sinker usage nearly 20 percentage points is the magic sauce for him.

Tanner Houck

I would have to imagine the conversation with Houck this winter was simple. "Your four-seamer is not good, so throw it away. Your sinker and slider are good enough as a reliever, but you need more than that as a starter, so we want you to lean into your splitter as it's a good swing-and-miss pitch." Houck's splitter has lost some of it's 40% whiffiness from last season, but the league is hitting .185 off the same offering they hit .310 against last season. Houck doesn't throw anything straight, almost as if he is throwing Wiffle balls to the plate. The league has squared him up for a home run just twice all season compared 14 times last year.

It turns out there is not one poster child for the unintended benefits of a deader baseball as much as there are many. Pitchers are pitching with more confidence in their fastballs knowing the ball isn't traveling as far this season, or they're pitching with the confidence of repertoire adjustments allowing their fastballs to behave better than they did in 2023. The list of pitchers covered above range from potential aces to afterthoughts back in March, yet most have exceeded expectations this season thanks to improvements in their old number ones.