Corbin Burnes is Back. Dustin May's Strikeout Rate Explosion
Corbin Burnes, Dustin May, Aaron Civale
Dbacks Corbin Burnes looks locked in after a rocky April. His strikeout minus walk rate is up to 20% in May, more than double the April number and much more in line with his career average. Most of his tweaks appear to be subtle. There’s a small kick up in his sinker usage, from 20% in April to 27% in May, most of that coming when he’s behind in the count. The location of the pitch is more middle-in than down as well. One bigger change is his cutter location to left-handed hitters. His cutter was centralized in the zone last year. In April, it was mostly arm-side away to lefties, and in May, he’s been aggressive inside with the pitch (see below). 🐍
The modified cutter location improved his contact quality and pushed up his ground-ball rate to lefties, but the bigger impact appears to be on his curveball and changeup. He’s added nearly 20 percentage points of whiff to each offering and his overall chase is up from 29% to 41% in May. It was probably premature to overreact to the poor April. I don’t think the stuff is as good as it was in the past, but he’s still a mid-3s ERA pitcher at worst.
Dodgers Dustin May is playing with his cutter. He used the pitch 20% to lefties yesterday, a season high by a substantial amount. The pitch was also 2 mph harder than April, sitting 92.5 mph in his last two outings. It had 4” more vertical break (less drop) and 2” less glove-side movement than earlier this year. This could be a new orientation (I can’t confirm via pictures) or an intent change that’s pushed the velocity up and changed the shape slightly. Regardless, the rebirth of this pitch has created a new lefty approach. He’s moved his sinker to the outer third of the plate in his last 2 outings (see below), and this cutter has taken its spot on the inside portion of the zone. His four-seamer has dipped from 29% usage against lefties in April to just 10% over his last 3 starts as well. ✂️
The more perplexing thing about May is the dramatic increase in his strikeout rate. He’s K’d 25 batters in his last 15 innings, compared to just around a strikeout per inning in his prior 5 starts. His K-BB% against righties has skyrocketed from 2% in April to 24% in May, even though his 2-strike whiffs to righties haven’t increased. There’s virtually nothing different about his righty approach. He’s still ripping heavy sinker-sweeper. While I like the lefty approach tweak, I’m left scratching my head on the overall jump in strikeout rate. I said I would take the over on his 3.60 projected ERA back in April, I’ll stick with that angle, but I’ll be monitoring whether the strikeout rate bump sustains and there’s more chance it’s a mid-3s arm.
Brewers Aaron Civale has a new cutter shape. The pitch is added 1 mph (now 89 mph) and 5” vertical break (less drop) along with 1” more glove-side movement compared to 2024. This could be partially tied to the location of the offering, which has been up in the zone more to righties than it was last year, but his lefty location looks the same. FanGraphs Stuff+ pushed the grade of the pitch down from 102 last year to 85 this year. This doesn’t feel completely intentional to me, but rather a byproduct of being “behind” the pitch more at release than in past years. The swinging-strike rate on the cutter is up about 3 percentage points against either handedness of hitter, suggesting something about the more lifted shape is working. We’ll see if it sticks. 🍺
Civale hasn’t thrown his sweeper yet either. This was a pitch he used ~12% last year to righties. He instead pushed nearly all of that sweeper usage to his shorter slider, which he’s now throwing ~20%. Versus lefties, the small chunk of sweeper usage he had has been moved to his four-seam fastball. And his four-seamer has been his most-used pitch in two-strike counts. Civale is projected pretty negatively (~4.40 ERA) rest of season, which feels bearish.
Could the May thing be due to outside factors? Like Chase’s dome helped increase break and Cleveland’s wind helped as well? Plus the angels just being bad