Emmanuel Clase Changed His Cutter Location? Logan Henderson's MLB Debut

Emmanuel Clase, Logan Henderson, Ryan Pepiot

• Guardians Emmanuel Clase moved his cutter location to righties. Last season, the pitch was consistently inner-third to righties, front-door. He’s mostly targeting it down-away this season, with the occasional flip to his 2024 inside locations (see below). His cutter results looks fantastic compared to last year—swinging-strike rate ballooned from 14% to 22%, swing rate is up 8 percentage points, chase rate is up 10 percentage points. It’s funny that now with this new outer-third location, the two barrels he’s allowed to righties this year on the pitch have been with inside targets … that he’s missed back over the plate. ✂️

  • I wonder whether his switch to down-away righty cutters has jumbled his arm-side command of the pitch to righties? Overall, despite the rough start, I think the outlook is very positive. He may jump his strikeout rate this year considerably, driven by this righty cutter tweak. But maybe the righty barrels jump up as well? We’ll see how his arm-side command of the cutter trends after focusing so much on the pitch to his glove-side this year.

Emmanuel Clase’s cutter location to righties. Notice how much more consistently this season he’s throwing the pitch away from right-handed hitters, marked by the red concentration moving to the outer-third of the plate.

• Brewers Logan Henderson with a stellar debut (6 IP, 3 H, ER, BB, 9 K). 93% of the pitches he threw were either a four-seam or changeup. In the minors, he mixed in cutters to lefties and bullet sliders to righties, both 15-20% to the respective handedness. Henderson has just under an average arm angle (~35°), but because he’s 6-foot, his release height is ~6” lower than average at 5.4’. I think this is the central trait that helps his stuff play up. It creates a flatter-than-average approach angle for his four-seamer into the zone (-4.3° VAA where ~4.7° is average). I’ll update with his pitch-height adjusted VAA when I see it publicly available. 🍺

  • Perhaps it’s not the approach angle of his fastball that ties it all together, but the interplay of his four-seam and changeup? The latter is ~11 mph slower than his four-seam with 12” less vertical break and 8” more arm-side movement. Relative to the average changeup, Henderson’s has a larger velocity differential with similar vertical and horizontal separation. The bullet slider he’s throwing this year is new compared to last year. It wasn’t doing a great job missing bats in the minors, but the shape the same velocity as his slider last season with 10” less vertical break (more drop, nice combo). With most of these high-spin-efficiency righties, their breaking ball shape and righty effectiveness are in the spotlight. Henderson doesn’t have above-average velocity, which puts pressure on his command to help that pitch survive. I’m intrigued, with some caution. Curious to see another few starts and how he fares versus righties if he has to veer from heavy four-seam and changeup usage.

• Rays Ryan Pepiot had a decent bounce-back start after a couple of mediocre outings (6 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, BB, 7 K). I wrote about how he cut back on his four-seam usage to righties 2 weeks ago, but I didn’t notice his cutter shape is different. The pitch is 1 mph harder with 4” more vertical break and 4” less arm-side movement. It’s become more of a true backspun cutter, almost bleeding into his four-seamer. Location of the offering has been much tighter up-and-inside (see below). Unsure if it’s a new grip or the location/intent has changed the shape. Pepiot is using the cutter 26% behind in the count to lefties, up from 17% last year. Given the small sample cutter results look good, I wonder if he pushes that usage up higher to help take away the potential for lefty barrels off his four-seamer. That was an issue last year and persists this season. ☀️

  • Pepiot is a “good stuff, in zone” guy, which is to say, I think he’ll occasionally be a casualty of the Rays’ one-target approach because of his lack of finite command. He’s allowed 4 lefty barrels in his last 2 starts, 3 of which were center-cut fastballs and another was a changeup miss up into the heart of the zone. He’s playing the numbers game that when these middle misses happen, they don’t always get bridged. FanGraphs Location+ has him above-average (106) likely because he’s aggressive in the zone with his secondaries, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is connected to his perennially above-average barrel rates for a pitcher with ~4 ERA projection. His next levels are connected to this cutter and his slider to righties.

Ryan Pepiot’s cutter location to lefties. Notice how the highest concentration (red) has shifted up and inside to lefties compared to last year.