Jack Flaherty's Slider Usage. Bryce Miller's Splitter. Jordan Wicks Fastball
Jack Flaherty, Bryce Miller, Jordan Wicks, Michael King, Brady Singer, Erik Fedde, Clarke Schmidt, Garrett Whitlock
Tigers Jack Flaherty threw a ton of sliders. 52% slider to right-handed hitters is the most he’s thrown to righties since April 12, 2023. He also threw 35% slider to lefties, which is double his 2023 average of 18%. Seems like he scrapped his cutter. Nothing else looks different. Tigers plan: rip the slider more? 🐅
Mariners Bryce Miller’s new splitter looks great. -1” vertical break, 8” arm-side at 84 mph. Threw it 22% in the outing. His fastball usage was just 39%, lower than the 49% it hung around late last season. 🔱
Cubs Jordan Wicks with a dramatic fastball improvement. 1 mph harder, 2” more vertical break than last season, and the most surprising part is that his release height was down 2-3” in the outing. He also doubled the sweep on his slider, from 8” on average last season to 16” yesterday (only 4 thrown). 🐻
Both are things to keep an eye on. We usually see vertical break increases when release height increases. More over-the-top means more backspin to carry the ball vertically as opposed to a lower slot where some of that spin becomes sidespin. So to see a 2” vertical break jump with a lower release is unusual. I have to be skeptical it sticks, but he was elevating the pitch a lot more than usual. VAA went from -5.2° to -4.3°, a substantial difference affected by the increase in ride and the location change.
Padres Michael King has a new slider. 87 mph, 3” vertical break, 4” sweep. Pretty standard gyro slider shape to bridge between his sinker and slider. He threw 7 of 8 to lefties, 5 of those 7 when he was even in counts, appears to be a non-fastball strike pitch. 🍳
I know it was a rough outing, but I like the new slider for King. He threw a lot of sinker to lefties when he was even in counts last season and allowed a lot of damage on it. Presumably, this new slider will be a pitch he can strike consistently and give up less damage than his sinker in those same counts. He threw 5 pitches >7% to lefties in this outing.
Royals Brady Singer is throwing some four-seam fastballs to lefties. Statcast is grouping these all as sinkers, but there are two shapes at 92-93 mph. A four-seam with 14.5” vertical break, 6” arm-side, and his usual sinker with 9” vertical break, 13” arm-side. 👑
Both fastballs are below-average pitches per Stuff+, but at least there is some attempt to get off being a 2-pitch guy. He did not have this much differentiation in fastball shapes between handedness last season.
White Sox Erik Fedde has a new sweeper. It’s 84 mph with 7” vertical break and 8” sweep. That’s less drop and less sweep than the average sweeper, but about 3 mph harder. No-doubt improvement over his 2022 curveball. 🧦
Fedde is also throwing a new splitter. It doesn’t look dramatically different in shape from his 2022 changeup, but it’s 2 mph harder with that same shape, so the grade is good. FanGraphs Stuff+ of ___.
Yankees Clarke Schmidt’s velo is up. +2 mph on both his sinker and cutter. His cutter had 2” more vertical break, which is often tied to velo increases. Will velo jump stick? 🗽
Red Sox Garrett Whitlock added a pair of breaking balls to combat lefties. More here. 🌀