Lucas Giolito's Velocity. Zack Littell's New Sinker

Lucas Giolito, Zack Littell, Touki Toussaint, Bobby Miller

• Angels Lucas Giolito showed some encouraging signs in yesterday’s outing. He’s getting shredded in the media for performing poorly since being acquired, but he yesterday he had his best fastball shape of the year per Driveline Baseball’s Stuff+ model. Velo was a season-high 94.8 mph, vertical break of 19” was his highest since May 25. Driveline Stuff+ at a 160, FanGraphs Stuff at 102. His slider velo also ticked up to 86 mph (his hardest slider of the season) compared to the 84 mph it lingered around at the beginning of the year. Driveline Stuff+ grade of 132 there, FanGraphs at 101. No notable extension or release height changes, usage looks comparable as well. There might be an attempt here to get his changeup out of the zone more to either-handedness, as it appears like his concentration of the pitch has shifted more down away from lefties and down to righties. 🤷‍♂️

• Rays Zack Littell has a new sinker. He added the pitch back on August 4, looks like it’s exclusively a right-handed hitter weapon. The pitch has 15” vertical break (carry/ride) and 14” arm-side movement. FanGraphs Stuff+ is at a 21, Driveline Baseball is at a 58 (both are not a fan). Location has been inside to righties, some down. The pitch has surpassed his splitter in usage over his past 3 starts. FanGraphs Stuff+ is at a 21, Driveline Baseball is at a 58. Doesn’t grade out well, but it appears to be in his repertoire as a way to set up other pitches, keep righties off the plate. He’s also cut back on slider usage to righties, going from 41% to 30% (could be a matchups thing). Kind of wild the Rays made a league-average starter, over his last 4 starts at least, out of nothing when the Twins and Giants struggled to do so. ☀️

• White Sox Touki Toussaint has a new slider. He broke the pitch out for the first time on August 3, but threw it a season-high 8 times versus the Cubs yesterday. The pitch is 87 mph with 0” vertical break and 6” sweep on average. FanGraphs Stuff+ has it as a 100, Driveline Baseball at 125. It’s almost exclusively a right-handed weapon for him, he’s thrown one to a left-handed hitter and it resulted in a home run (Ian Happ). Location is down-away to righties, more of a chase pitch than something he can throw for strikes? Not sure he needs that given that righties are the handedness he has struggled to limit damage against but has generated swing-miss against. But also tough to complain about adding an objectively good breaking ball to a pitcher’s mix. 💫

• Dodgers Bobby Miller has simplified his repertoire over his last two starts. Four-seam usage is up from 21% to 34% versus right-handed hitters. Slider usage up slightly versus righties as he’s backed off his peripheral curveball, sweeper and changeup. To lefties, he’s on a similar trend. Four-seam usage there is up from 42% to 47%, while curveball usage jumped from 32% to 38%. He’s backed off his peripheral sinker, slider and changeup to lefties as well versus lefties. Approach here seems to be a simplification of approach and reliance on his four-seam, which is both his best non-slider pitch and the fastball he locates the best. Results have been good versus two teams that are around the middle of the pack in terms of offensive performance versus right-handed pitching (ARI better than MIL). 💨