MiLB Pitching Standouts v2
Brandon Young, Owen Murphy, Jonah Tong, Jaden Hamm, Adam Mazur
Stuff+ data for all pitchers below. For a more in-depth reminder on its limitations, check this out, and thanks to Thomas Nestico for the help with the model. Pitch type standard deviation is 12. So a 112 slider is a “plus” MLB slider, better than 85% of major league sliders. Total Stuff+ considers usage and how each of those pitches contributes to run prevention. A 112 overall Stuff+ is an arsenal that prevents runs at a plus rate in MLB, around the 85th percentile.
All data below is through games on May 21. We’re getting bigger samples of things now that we’re almost two months into the season, so I’m more confident than I was in my last post of shapes being predictive of future shapes.
Brandon Young, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
Total Stuff+: 107 | Fastball: 115 | Changeup: 108 | Slider: 96 | Curveball: 100
Overall: Weird combo of height, release and vertical break; great underlying swing-miss
Young has dominated Double-A Bowie through 5 starts, posting a 42% strikeout with just a 4% walk rate. The success stems from a plus four-seam fastball. It’s averaging 93 mph with 20” vertical break and 5” arm-side from a 6.2’ release. His release is higher than the average of 5.8’, but even once you adjust for that release, he’s still carrying the ball ~2” more than average. In trying to figure out how that shape could be chewing up hitters to the tune of a 41% swing-miss rate, almost double that of the usual fastball, I stumbled on his height. Young is 6-foot-6, which I did not expect based on the pitch characteristics presented above. The majority of guys touching 20” vertical from a 6.2’ release (like Jose Urquidy and Trevor Richards) are doing so with higher arm angles from shorter frames. Young is somehow able to do so from a larger frame. He falls off hard towards the first base side after foot plant, which helps to get his shoulder line lower so he can sustain a higher release. This and his extension prevent him from having a 6.6’+ release, an area where it would make his vertical break less impactful. Hitter performance is also telling us it’s a weird look.
His best secondary is a changeup which he’s putting in the zone at a 63% clip. This is very high for a changeup (40% is average). Despite the high zone rate, he’s still generating strong swing-miss and limiting contact quality. His slider grades below average due to the 84 mph velocity it averages without outlier sweep or drop. The pitch looks like the sliders of Dean Kremer and Grayson Rodriguez in shape, just slower (~5” sweep, ~5” vertical break). It has an xwOBA above .420, which is high for a slider. I imagine it’s a righty weapon for him, but still a work in progress based on the results. It’s also the only thing in his mix that’s not in zone over 40%. Cueing this shape harder is common practice in orgs. If it sacrifices drop to push into the 86-87 mph range, where movement becomes less important for a pitch’s success from a Stuff+ perspective, it would be worth it.