The Royals Fixed Michael Lorenzen. Jordan Montgomery's New Changeup

Michael Lorenzen, Jordan Montgomery, Justin Wrobleski

• Royals Michael Lorenzen is a new pitcher with the Royals. Lorenzen’s primary non-fastball to righties with the Rangers was a downer slider he threw 20%. It faired well, generating good contact quality but had a below-average swinging strike rate. With the Royals, that pitch is gone. He’s now throwing 15% sweeper, his curveball usage has doubled, and his changeup lept from 12% to 20%. The root of this change is less fastball. Lorenzen’s four-seam and sinker usage to righties has fallen from 60% with the Rangers to 44% with the Royals. These changes have doubled his swinging-strike rate, now sitting around a league average 12%. 📈

  • Versus lefties he’s cut his 2-strike four-seam + sinker usage from 54% to 32%. That’s pushed his swinging strike rate from 13% to 18%. He’s also moved around his fastball location. It’s now sitting down and in more than up. This feels like a terrifying approach to take with a fastball that’s below average in shape, but for now, it’s working. This could be a byproduct of the counts he’s throwing it in. I have no idea what the Rangers were doing with Lorenzen. 54% deep count fastball usage of two pitches that don’t miss bats is a head-scratcher. I guess I understand the slider usage given the results, but the pitch wasn’t better than the sweeper he’s throwing now. Props to the Royals for the low-hanging fruit tweaks.

Michael Lorenzen’s four-seam location to lefties (with the Rangers vs with the Royals).

• Dodgers Justin Wrobleski is back in MLB and leaning on his curveball. When he made 4 MLB starts in July (4.05 ERA, 5.33 FIP), he threw 7% curveball to righties and leaned on his cutter and slider as secondary offerings. In yesterday’s outing, he threw his curveball 29% to righties. This could be matchup-based, but in the two starts he made at Triple-A before getting recalled, he threw his curveball >20%. FanGraphs Stuff+ has the curve at a 91, below average. The pitch has never missed bats, but it’s great at generating ground balls. He’s also been sharper about getting his four-seam up in the zone since his July MLB stint (see heatmaps below). 🤷‍♂️

  • I liked Wrobleski’s cutter, but it got decimated in his small MLB sample. I’m curious to see what the Dodgers do to push more swing-miss against righties. I don’t think it’s coming in the form of his fastball or curveball. He has the command to throw more sinkers and changeups to righties, but both pitches also grade out below average. He’s a tough solve right now. Maybe the Dodgers are comfortable with him being a weak-contact merchant to cover innings with their injuries?

Justin Wrobleski’s four-seam location to righties (July vs August). Notice how the heatmap on the right’s concentration is higher in the zone than on the left.

• DBacks Jordan Montgomery has a new changeup. In June and July, the pitch was 82.7 mph with 12” induced vertical break (iVB) and 9” arm-side movement. In his 3 August starts, the pitch has averaged 83.7 mph with 10” iVB and 12” arm-side movement (more drop, more arm-side movement). Montgomery’s previous changeup was a four-seam-oriented pitch. My guess is that he’s now using a two-seam orientation, which allows the pitch to pick up more horizontal break away from right-handed hitters. 🐍

  • The main issue with his changeup for the majority of this season was a tendency to pull the pitch to his glove side and not keep it fully away from right-handed hitters. You can see in the heatmaps below he’s done a better job in August keeping the pitch away from righties. There hasn’t been a dramatic change in the performance of the pitch, but my best guess is that the contact quality improves the less it leaks over the middle to righties (a pretty obvious assumption).

Jordan Montgomery’s changeup location to righties (June/July vs August). Notice how on the right heatmap there’s less leak of the pitch back to the bottom-middle of the zone.