Hurston Waldrep's Debut. What's Wrong With Bailey Ober?
Hurston Waldrep, Bailey Ober, Mitch Spence
Braves Hurston Waldrep’s debut looks worse on paper than in reality. One 3-run HR with another 3 ER on a double allowed by the reliever who followed him. He’s a 3-pitch guy—fastball, slider, splitter. His fastball has 15” vertical break and 5” arm-side from a 6.4’ release at 96 mph. Classic cut-ride pitch, with lower vertical break than average and less arm-side than average for his release. I’ve said before that it’s his weakest pitch despite the velocity and he doesn’t command it well enough to overcome that. FanGraphs Stuff+ of 75, which feels low given above-average velocity. 🎉
His slider and splitter are great. Slider is 87 mph with 2” vertical break and 1” sweep, true bullet slider. FanGraphs Stuff+ of 111 (above average). Splitter is a near-unicorn pitch. It’s 86 mph, 2” vertical break with 9” arm-side, less arm-side than your average splitter and such low spin (<800rpm) that it creates variance in shape (take a look at this video). FanGraphs stuff+ of 90, which we all know is incorrect. The pitch had a 41% swing-miss in the minors and a 43% swing-miss yesterday. I like Waldrep a lot. There have been some command improvements from last year and he has two plus secondaries. My worry is that he can’t get the fastball below 40% usage because he doesn’t strike anything else consistently. That might be the sticking point in this first MLB test. He has a curveball in his back pocket, but I don’t know if that solves his problems. Maybe a sinker for righties would help?
Twins Bailey Ober continues to have a very odd season. 8 ER in his first start followed by a 2.16 ERA/2.12 FIP over his next 7. And now his last 5 starts have been poor—7.60 ERA with a 7+ FIP. His issues stem from a rough stretch versus right-handed hitters. His xSLG jumped from .379 to .677. His swing miss is stable. He’s allowing a lot of damage on his fastball and cutter. The fastball is probably the biggest concern, as his swing-miss has disappeared at the top of the zone, especially away from righties over these last 5 starts. 😵💫
This is a perplexing case of struggle. My angle right now is that he’s become too predictable. Adding the cutter helped disguise the slider away, so now he has two speeds and movement patterns on the outer third, but anything harder than ~86 is up and away with minimal variation. This feels like a situation where I’d suggest some kind of sinker for righties to mix something hard moving in to protect everything on the outer third (I’m on a roll with suggesting sinkers today). An alternative is that with his command, maybe he can vary the fastball location, even if it’s just between up-away and up-in. It feels like once again this season, he’s underperforming his peripherals.
Athletics Mitch Spence holds a 3.12 ERA/2.96 FIP in his 5 starts since moving to the rotation. His mix reminds me of the Clarke Schmidt, Graham Ashcraft archetype—cutter as his primary fastball with a sinker that doesn’t run a lot and two breaking balls (please add a curveball, Mr. Ashcraft). FanGraphs Stuff+ likes his slider (122), doesn’t mind his cutter (93) and curve (99), but dislikes his sinker (43). Because he uses his slider as a primary pitch (40%) and he can zone it, the overall profile seems to be working. 🧐
There isn’t a lot of swing-miss here but he’s doing a great job of limiting hard contact. My only worry with this profile is the same that transpired with Ashcraft: the cutter doesn’t generate swing-miss and runs into bad variance. Schmidt seems to have figured this out by elevating the pitch a ton before his injury. The Reds sent Ashcraft to Triple-A. The Athletics have been a pleasant surprise with their rotation, Spence and Joey Estes are respectable starters.