Aaron Nola's Location Change. Who is Joey Estes?
Albert Suarez, Aaron Nola, Joey Estes, Aaron Ashby
Orioles Albert Suarez’s fastball location has moved to his arm side. The pitch now sits up-in to righties and up-away from lefties more in his last 3 starts than in his prior 25.1 IP. The change is slightly more dramatic versus left-handed hitters (see heatmap below) than right-handed hitters. He’s still moving the pitch occasionally to his glove side versus lefties as you can see below. I’m a fan of separating fastball locations like this, especially for a pitcher with a relatively reduced repertoire. 🎯
Two subtle usage changes in these last 3 starts of his: Suarez’s curveball usage is up from 2% to 11% to lefties. His cutter usage is up from 30% to 39% versus righties. He’ll likely lose his rotation spot when Dean Kremer returns, but he’s been a stellar fill-in arm for an organization rich with upper-level pitching depth.
Phillies Aaron Nola isn’t backdooring his sinker as much to righties in May. You can see this in the heatmaps below. This coincides with a decrease in sinker usage to both lefties and righties. His lefty sinker usage has decreased from 14% to 9%. His righty sinker usage has decreased from 34% to 25%. There isn’t a clear pitch to either handedness that has increased substantially as a result, everything has ticked up slightly. His sinker to righties hasn’t been as effective down-in as it was backdoor, so I’m curious to see if he moves back to the away location to righties. 👍
Athletics Joey Estes has strung together a solid 5 starts despite the 4.67 ERA (8 ER in HOU dragging him down). I like the structure of his approach. To each handedness, he’s throwing 50%+ four-seam and then mixing in 3 other pitches >10%. To righties, that’s his slider, cutter, and sweeper. To lefties, it’s his changeup along with the cutter and slider. All his non-sweeper pitches grade out below average, mostly due to velocity. 💰
What’s making all this work is a 111 Driveline Command+ on his fastball (plus ability to hit his target, intent considered). I generally don’t love this much fastball usage. It makes sense in his case, especially when it’s not a surefire thing that more below-average breakers, of which he has worse command, would work. The Athletics starters have a 4.38 FIP, which is below average, but not as high as you would’ve guessed before the season. Estes has been a bright spot, even if the ultimate projection here is probably a 4.50 ERA pitcher.
Brewers Aaron Ashby’s release height is up 4” since 2022. He had a 6.4’ release on his sinker in 2022 with 10” vertical break back then. In his return to the mound yesterday after missing 2 months, he was up to 6.7’ with 9” vertical break. Raising release and adding drop isn’t common (lower vertical break number = less resistance to the downward force of gravity = more drop). The release-drop combo continues to make his sinker an interesting pitch. 🤷♂️
Only 3 other pitchers in baseball have release heights above 6.5’ with below 10” vertical break on a sinker: Clay Holmes, Cristopher Sanchez, and Sean Hjelle. Despite the walks and overall underperformance, he’s a really tough pitcher to quit for the upside if it clicks. Driveline Stuff+ of 146 on the sinker is hard to look away from, plus-plus pitch.