Logan Webb Has Leveled Up. JP Sears Unexpected Surge

Logan Webb, JP Sears, Reese Olson

• Giants Logan Webb is generating more swing-miss this season. His strikeout rate is up from 21% last season to 29%, swinging-strike rate is up from 9.5% to 12%. The K bump isn’t focused on a specific handedness. He’s generating more miss versus both lefties and righties. His larger approach change has come against lefties. His changeup usage is down from 34% in the final two months of last season to 19%, sweeper is up to 30% usage. The cutter he debuted late last season is up to 18% usage this year. He’s made numerous location changes as well. Sinker usage to lefties is more inside (see below), cutter is now mostly up-away, and his sweepers are largely down-in as opposed to more backdoor. 📈

  • I’d theorize that the cutter he added is helping the sweeper play up. The sweeper’s dominance is driving a lot of the swing-miss increase to lefties. The swinging-strike rate on that pitch jumped from 7% to 15% this season. Perhaps the sweeper location adjustment to be more chase-oriented (down-in) is helping as well. Webb also has a 35% whiff rate in two-strike situations to lefties, a massive leap from just 22% last year. This is driven by all of the above and more elevated four-seamers.

  • A lot of what Webb is doing looks sustainable, even if the strikeout rate ticks back to ~27% or so. And he’s running into poor BABIP luck. He’s notoriously one of the toughest pitchers to barrel, and he’s now missing bats. My gut tells me this is a Cy Young contender currently tracking for a 6-fWAR season. Wheels up.

Logan Webb’s sinker location to left-handed hitters (2nd half 2024 vs 2025). Notice how the red concentration is mostly focused on the inner third of the planet compared to mixed locations in the second half of last season.

Logan Webb’s Pitch Grips (2025)

• Athletics JP Sears changed his lefty approach and has mostly ditched his sinker. He’s on an insanely good run to start the season—7 starts, 40 IP, 32 K, 2.93 ERA, 3.36 FIP in a stadium that’s playing as the second friendliest to hitters in MLB. His changeup usage is up to 22% to righties in his last 3 starts (grip below). It was just 12% in his first four starts of the season. He’s also cut his sinker to righties from 8% down to ~1%. It’s tough to figure out how he went from a 4.97 FIP against righties last season to a 3.33 this season, apart from cutting his sinker out and adding in a downer bullet slider. But both of those pitches are sub-10% usage. The downer bullet slider I wrote about here, and it’s worth noting that it’s his biggest swing-miss and chase weapon to righties this season. 👍

  • His lefty approach has become kind of hilarious. Last season, he threw 21% sinker, 20% four-seam and ~60% sweeper. This season, he’s throwing… 75% sweeper and zoning it 57% of the time. So far, it’s working, but it’s worth monitoring the underlying contact quality. Sears also holds the highest sweeper zone rate among qualified pitchers this season at 62%, the only pitcher in MLB over 60%. We’ll see how long he keeps it up, I’m not sold on this being a mid-3s ERA lefty.

JP Sears’ Changeup grip (2025)

• Tigers Reese Olson has added a new four-seam location to left-handed hitters. He threw the pitch mostly away last season. This year, most four-seamers to lefties he’s thrown have been up to up-in (see below). This has pushed the zone rate on the pitch up from 50% to 65%, and his swinging-strike rate versus lefties on the four-seam has almost doubled from 5% to 9%. Couple this with a pullback in usage (38% down to 30%), and he’s managed to cut a full run off his FIP versus lefties this season. He now sits on a 3.03 ERA with a 2.88 FIP after going 5.2 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 8 K against the Angels in his 7th outing. 🐅

  • Last year, he allowed a few barrels on four-seamers away that were just barely in the zone. I wonder if the emphasis to put the pitch more inside this season was a clever way to try and prevent those outer-third four-seam barrels from sprouting back up. It seemed to work for his first 6 outings, but Nolan Schanuel barreled a dotted fastball away yesterday, so all is not perfect. That’s probably too picky, however. This appears to be a great adjustment overall. I think he has a clear shot at a 3-fWAR season if he can get to 130+ IP.