Crochet Breakout. Ragans' Fastball. Bieber's Tweaks
Cole Ragans, Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Shane Bieber, Corbin Burnes, Brayan Bello, Logan Webb
We often see pitcher’s velo spike slightly in their first start of the season. I’ll be keeping an eye on who holds their velocity increase. No Stuff+ yet, I’ll update this post when I see it.
Royals Cole Ragans added some life to his fastball. He averaged 18.5” vertical break yesterday. He averaged 16.1” last season. The added “ride” comes at the same velo and release height. Orientation tweak giving him this added ride? Driveline Stuff+ went from 147 last year to 183. 👑
He threw 4 fastballs with more vertical break than anything he threw last season. Feels like more than just natural variance here. Rarely do we see 2” added carry without a change in release height. Worth noting that his vertical break fell to 17.5” in his final inning of work, so maybe some slight inflation early in the outing. Even if he’s only up 1-1.5” over a larger sample, it’s still a big plus.
Tigers Tarik Skubal improved his fastball. +1 mph, 1.5” more vertical break from a release height 2-3” higher than last season with 1-2” more extension. Driveline Stuff+ rose from 112 to 170. 🐅
Skubal’s fastball improvement is similar to Ragans’, but Skubal appears to have made some mechanical adjustments to raise his arm slot. It’s not surprising to see an increase in vertical break with a rise in vertical release. It’s easier to get behind the ball and create carry. How Ragans increased his vertical break is more of a mystery.
White Sox Garrett Crochet looked amazing. New cutter is 94 mph with 8” vertical break and 2” sweep, comps to Jose Alvarado’s. Driveline Stuff+ of 123. Fastball +1 mph compared to last year, and held it through the outing. Awesome strike and zone rates on it. May have made a changeup tweak. Spin was down 200 rpm, dropping 2” more, running arm side 2” more. Driveline Stuff+ rose from 38 to 69. Breakout SP candidate. 📈
Guardians Shane Bieber’s fastball velocity was up 1 mph compared to last season. Small velo dip in 4th before bouncing back in 5th, 6th. Driveline Stuff+ from 87 to 120. His curveball (currently tagged as his slider) was 1.5 mph harder. It’s also much more vertical. 7” less sweep compared to last year. Changeup +2 mph with 1” less vertical break (dropping more) and 2” more arm-side run, down 200 rpm. Driveline Stuff+ from 103 to 121. All positive changes. 👴
Orioles Corbin Burnes went back to his old slider. 87 mph with 8” sweep, in line with his April-July slider last season. From the All-Star break onward last year, he threw a sweeper (84 mph 16” sweep). No sweeper yesterday. 🍭
Red Sox Brayan Bello tweaked his slider. Key difference is that it’s harder. +2 mph compared to Aug/Sep last season. Harder often means more vertical break (dropping less) and less sweep, which we see here. Driveline Stuff+ rose from 148 to 168. 🧦
Bello had a death ball last season that was 85 mph with -6” vertical break. He changed that into more of a sweeper as the season progressed, pushing it out to 8” sweep at 87-88 in the final month. This slider appears to be a harder iteration of that sweeper. He gave up a double to Julio Rodriguez on one of these new sliders and generated two whiffs. Still feels like a work in progress to me, there was variance in the offering.
Giants Logan Webb averaged 19” arm-side run on his sinker, the highest average run he’s had on his sinker in a game in his career (min 20 thrown) and 3” higher than his average last season. His sweeper also had 4” more sweep than it averaged last season. Driveline Stuff+ on the sweeper went from 171 to 194. The most east-west starter gets even more east-west. ↔️