Bryan Woo's New Cutter. Cristian Javier's Downfall
Bryan Woo, Cristian Javier, Gavin Williams
Mariners Bryan Woo has a new cutter. He debuted it on June 27 and it sat 87 mph with 7” vertical break (lift) and 1” cut, Driveline’s Baseball’s basic Stuff+ model gave it an 88. In yesterday’s outing, he threw it more than any non-fastball of his and the shape had more drop and more cut. Yesterday’s shape had 4” vertical break (less lift) at 88 mph with 4” glove-side movement (more cut). Generally, we see cutter velocity decrease as drop and cut increase, but Woo seems to have found a nice balance where he’s throwing it harder with more drop and cut. FanGraphs Stuff+ has the pitch at a 103 if he can maintain the shape, better than the prior shape.
Woo was impressive against a Giants lineup that has dominated from the left side of the plate all season, even as he’s allowed a .794 SLG against lefties and just a .116 SLG against righties. The cutter seemed to primarily work down in the zone, he had a couple poor misses, but the shape he had yesterday I think would bode well for improved performance against left-handed hitting if he can maintain it. 🏔️
Astros Cristian Javier continues to struggle. The drop in his Stuff+ from 120 last year to 94 this year comes from a combination of factors: release point marginally up, velocity down 1.5 mph, and vertical break (carry) down about 1”. Slider Stuff+ down from 119 to 104 due to a loss of 2” sweep and potentially some interactions characteristics with his fastball. When I’ve written about him in the past, I’ve maintained confidence that despite the lack of whiffs, he was still grading out above average in Driveline Baseball’s Stuff+ model on his fastball (120). Now, that confidence seems to be misplaced given the 18 earned runs in his last 3 starts.
Two things stand out to me recently that may have led to this sharp decline in results. First is that he’s progressively lost arm-side movement on his four-seam as the season has gone on. Averaging between 6-7” in April to 5-6” in May to just 3-4” in his last 3 starts. Perhaps I should have been more worried about this progressive cutting. He’s also had more variance in his extension of late than earlier in the season. Yesterday was his highest extension of the season and ironically his fastball vertical break was at its highest since May 5. FanGraphs Stuff+ rebounded to 104, but that clearly didn’t help. 📉
Guardians Gavin Williams has had an interesting start to his career. Yesterday in particular, he had a velo drop on his slider, as the pitch went from 84 mph in his first 2 starts to 82 mph yesterday. FanGraphs Stuff+ was never a fan of the pitch, giving it an 87, but it fell to a 57 yesterday. That gyro/bullet shape needs to be hard (85 mph+) for models to like it. But as I noted in my breakdown of his stuff before he debuted, I believe that pitch is more a barrel misser than a bat misser, evidenced by the below-average whiff rate at 25% (32% is average) and strong underlying contact quality at Triple-A.
Overall in the majors, he’s not missing a ton of bats, all of his pitches have below-average whiff rates, and he’s run into some unusual home-run problems despite a below-average overall barrel rate. Think we need more of a sample here to figure out what he’s going to be long-term, but I think there’s a base for a ~3.50 ERA arm despite the lack of whiffs. 💂