Can Sandy Alcantara Be Fixed? Ronel Blanco Rebound
Sandy Alcantara, Matthew Boyd, Ronel Blanco
Marlins Sandy Alcantara has a head-scratching 8.10 ERA with a 5.63 FIP in 8 starts. The velocity is still down 1 mph compared to pre-surgery 2023, but the main issue is left-handed hitters. He has a negative 1.2% K-BB. The Marlins have taken away about 10 percentage points of four-seam and sinker usage in favor of more curveballs and sliders, neither of which are missing bats. His four-seam is used mostly as a middle-to-bottom-of-zone strike-getter. In 2023, it chewed up hitters at the top of the zone (see below). This makes me wonder whether the visual lines his breakers are working off have changed. The changeup still looks great, but he can’t throw it 60% of the time to lefties. Why not get back to elevating the four-seamer? Something has to change versus lefties. 🐠
In all the madness of his struggles, he’s due for some major positive regression versus right-handed hitters. Most of his peripherals look pretty identical to 2023, he’s just not missing as many bats. 7.23 ERA to righties compared to a 3.65 FIP right now. Righty Tim Elko jumped him on a 1-0 curveball yesterday for 3 runs. I’d like to see him claw back some swing-miss, but otherwise, I’m not worried. The lefty problems are more of a head-scratcher. Marlins have pressure to figure this out, or his price has to take a hit come the July trade deadline.
Cubs Matthew Boyd has a 2.78 ERA and 3.76 FIP after going 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 8 K against the Mets. His four-seam is sitting 93.2 mph, up from 91.9 mph last season post Tommy John surgery. It’s the highest average four-seam velo in any season of his career. He doesn’t appear to be throwing his sinker anymore, and the Cubs have added their signature touch by having him throw more four-seam fastballs (49% is his highest mark since 2020). His changeup has gotten clipped in each of his last 2 outings, but it’s been stellar on the season. His 70% strike rate on the pitch against righties is #2 in baseball, sandwiched between Ryan Pepiot and Tarik Skubal. 🐻
He was zoning his slider a ton to start the season, but over his last 4 starts, the pitch has been locked down-away from righties in a similar spot to his changeup. This is a location change compared to last year, where the pitch was mostly thrown down-in (see below). Cubs seem to prefer him working the outer third of the plate with his mix—he’s even using his curveball more as a backdoor pitch to righties this season. Boyd hasn’t eclipsed 80 innings since 2018, but he’s always been money on a per-inning basis. Feels like a ~3.80 ERA guy rest of season. I’m curious to see where his workload sits.
Astros Ronel Blanco goes 8 IP, 3 baserunners, 11 Ks at home versus the Reds after hovering around a 5 ERA/FIP in his first 7 starts of the season. He threw 40% slider in the outing, a season high, and it generated a strong 23% swinging-strike rate. Blanco’s main problem this season has been left-handed hitters (3% K-BB, 11% is average). His four-seam whiffs have disintegrated, mostly because he’s spraying the ball to his arm-side up (see below). This spraying isn’t present versus righties, so it’s an arm-side location issue. Four-seam zone rate is down from 55% to 40% this year. In yesterday’s outing, he used his four-seamer just 21% to lefties, a season low. Instead, he threw his 4 pitches around 25%, and it worked. 🤠
Blanco was out of zone too much for the roulette approach he took yesterday against the Reds to continue long-term, but there’s probably no other way to proceed with how he’s spraying his four-seamer. He’s throwing more curveball to lefties too (13% last year to 21%). The pitch type tag is deceptive because the shape is a sweeper, and the results are poor on both swing-miss and contact quality against lefties. Versus righties, he’s using this shape a lot more than last year (3% to 18%), and it’s working well. Don’t need to force it versus lefties. The hope for him to post another 2-WAR season like last year is to figure out the elevated lefty four-seam location again and push his slider-changeup back up in usage. I’m not sold the lefty curveball makes sense.
