The Death of the Airbender

Devin Williams, Bubba Chandler, Payton Tolle, Edward Cabrera

• Devin Williams’ signature changeup looks a lot different than last year (0.2 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 K). As others have pointed out, the pitch is 1.5 mph harder with 5” less drop than it’s had in the past. It went from an outlier negative vertical break pitch to one with a less distinct shape. The simplest way to explain this is that he’s getting too far behind the changeup at release relative to what he’s done in the past. I think this explains the velocity jump and the lack of depth on the pitch.

  • The odd thing to me is that his arm angle or release height hasn’t changed at all. And while he’s more “behind” his changeup, he’s more on the side of his four-seam fastball, meaning he’s cutting that pitch more than he did last year. It’s subtle, but his four-seam spin efficiency is down 4 percentage points. The pitch has 1” more vertical break and 1” less arm-side movement. Williams is normally so pronated through his changeup that cutting the ball more—as he's doing with his fastball—would mean getting behind the pitch and making it more efficient in spin.

  • My take is that the timing of pronation in his throw is different than prior years. He’s cutting the ball slightly more, for some reason, and it’s having an outsized effect on his changeup, given how oddly the pitch is thrown. This is what everybody is really saying when they say his changeup has less “gyro.” Fixable? Sure, especially given his proximity to being normal and lack of a major surgery for us to believe his throw changed. I’ll admit that I’m unsure how easy it is to change something like pronation/supination in season. Or whether you just work around it (bring back the slider and cutter?). I’ll admit I’m not confident in him right now, but he still projects as a top-10 reliever rest of season.