Is a Sinker Inevitable for Christian Scott? Regression Coming for Triston McKenzie
Christian Scott, Triston McKenzie, Andrew Heaney
If you’re looking for a breakdown on how Paul Skenes approaches hitters, check out my YouTube channel. If you missed the outing and have 2:30 minutes, you can watch every pitch he threw here.
Mets Christian Scott looks great after 2 major league starts (12.2 IP, 14 K, 3 BB, 1 HR). Driveline’s Stuff+ has him with 4 near-average pitches in the 95-105 Stuff+ range, but their Command+ model has him at 110 (above-average command). That, more than his shapes, in my opinion, has allowed him to generate >14% swinging-strike rate on each of his pitches. The thing to watch for here is the four-seam performance. He’s throwing it 41% to righties and 54% to righties, it’s surviving more versus lefties so far, as it did in the minors. 🍎
My concern is that the window for the fastball’s success at the top of the zone is small. Look below at how small the gap is between his location (left) and potential damage (right). This isn’t uncommon for flat-approach fastballs, but he kind of has to get the pitch up-up or away. And he’s jumping his four-seam usage to 70% when he’s behind in the count to righties, which I don’t love. It feels inevitable we’ll see a sinker here eventually against righties. His baseline traits are solid, he was a top 20 pitching prospect for me preseason, and I feel good about that assessment right now.
Guardians Triston McKenzie is succeeding with a sprained UCL. 2.28 ERA to a 3.70 FIP over his last 5 starts. His fastball velocity still hasn’t bounced back. He’s sitting 91 mph and he’s been 92+ for every year of his career prior. He’s neutralized righties in his last 5 starts—15% swinging strike rate with a sub-.250 xSLG. His mix to righties has been the same but this year he’s throwing his fastball and slider both middle this season and it’s somehow working. He was more up with his fastball and away with his slider to righties last season. 🤷♂️
Versus lefties, it’s a different story. He has cut his fastball usage by 10 percentage points and increased both slider and curveball usage. The latter two pitches are performing on par with last year but the fastball is worrisome. .370 xSLG last year is up to .781 this season. It’s likely due to a change in fastball location. Last year he sat away from lefties, this year his fastball is now sitting inside (heatmap below). The fix I see is either a) cut another 10 percentage points of fastball usage or b) revert to his 2023 locations with his curveball and fastball. He gets the Twins and Mets in his next 2 starts, both teams are about average in terms of performance of left-handed hitters against right-handed pitchers. Regression is coming, we’ll see how much.
Rangers Andrew Heaney has a 24:0 K:BB over his last 4 starts—3.00 ERA, 2.78 FIP. Main difference compared to his first 4 starts where he had a 15:7 K:BB is that he’s backed off his curveball, usage down from 9% to 2% versus righties. I don’t think I understood the reason for curveball usage in his mix. The pitch is released almost identically to his slider just ~5 mph slower. The separation in shape between his slider and curve is minimal, and since backing off the curveball, his slider shape has become more consistent. He’s also putting his slider more arm-side to righties (outer-third) in these last 4 starts, which you can see below. The strongest concentration of swing-miss is when this pitch is down-in to righties, so I imagine the focus will be to get the pitch back to that area. Heaney seems to go on these heaters occasionally and this feels like one of those runs. I’d ride it until there are signs it’s falling apart. 🤠
Re: Scott, wasn’t he less effective with the sinker in college ?