Logan Gilbert Tweaks. Grayson Rodriguez New Slider?
Logan Gilbert, Grayson Rodriguez, Hunter Brown, Michael Soroka
Still no Stuff+. Hopefully, we’ll be back up and running there soon.
Mariners Logan Gilbert made multiple changes. New cutter is 91 mph with 11” vertical, 5” glove side. “Yankee cutter” shape. More velo, less drop and more sweep than the average cutter. New curveball? 3 mph harder, 8” less vertical break, 2” more sweep. Looks more sweeper than curve now. Splitter is 3 mph slower, 300 less rpm (rpm and velo often connected), 3” less arm-side. True gyro split, a la Hurston Waldrep. Release height down 4”, extension up 4”. Arm angle down from 65° last year to 59° in this outing.
I think there’s a subtle throw change here connecting some of these pitch movement differences, evidenced by the extension and release changes. Seems like he’s lost some arm-side on everything and picked up a small amount of glove side, which makes sense with a lower arm angle and release height (also often connected), harder to be north-south, over-the-top as arm lowers. 🔱
Orioles Grayson Rodriguez made a slider tweak. The pitch he threw yesterday, tagged as a cutter, was 87-88 mph with 2” vertical break, 6” sweep. This is more slider to me than cutter because of the drop. It’s harder than the slider he threw after being recalled last season by about 4 mph. And it has a lot more drop than the cutter he threw early last season. It’s either an entirely new pitch or the slider grip he had last season that he’s throwing much harder. He gave up a homer on it to Taylor Ward, I wonder if it’s still a work in progress. 🍊
Astros Hunter Brown tweaked his cutter and added a new slider. New cutter is similar shape to Logan Gilbert’s, Yankee Cutter variety. 12” vertical break, 6” glove side at 92 mph. More velo, less drop, more sweep than the average cutter. New bullet slider is 86 mph, 0” vertical break, 4” sweep. His release height was also up 4”, extension down slightly. More over-the-top here. Arm angle up from 69° to 73°. This pulled his fastball up to 18.8” vertical break from 16.6” last season and cut off 3” arm-side movement. Cutting the pitch a bit more to get more carry. Stuff+ grade should be better. ⭐️
White Sox Michael Soroka’s changeup and sinker are dropping more. Sinker went from 11” vertical break last year to 8” this year. Changeup went from 14” last year to 8” this year. Less vertical break means more drop. Velocity, release height and extension all the same year-over-year, so the movement change isn’t a byproduct of a different throw. Perhaps it’s more a change in orientation to lay into seam effects? 🧦