All-Star Conversations: Logan Webb, MacKenzie Gore, Andrew Abbott

Logan Webb, MacKenzie Gore, Andrew Abbott

Small break for me from pitcher notes the last few days as I locked in for draft coverage. I've aggregated all the names I got to speak on during MLB Network’s draft broadcast on Day 1 here, in case you didn’t lock in for the first three rounds.

I also had a chance to bounce around to a few different pitchers during All-Star Media Day on Monday. It was a particularly chaotic experience compared to last year. There are endless “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” questions. Below are three transcriptions from a few conversations I had…

Andrew Abbott

Lance: You land crossfire in your delivery, when did that start?

Abbott: It started in college, I was a reliever, and I was all the way on the first base side landing and throwing across. I kind of just made do with what I had, it was natural.

Lance: Is there something about how your body moves that allows you to still carry a fastball? I feel like most crossfire guys are sinkerballers.

Abbott: I think it has something to do with my arm angle, I’m not really an analytical person, I’m more of a traditional guy, but I think it’s just a byproduct of where I’m at when I do land, how high my arm kicks up … I also raised my arm angle this season, so maybe that has some effect? I’ve always been able to spin the ball well, so being truly behind the ball at release let’s it have enough carry that it plays.

Lance: When you’ve talked to hitters, what do they say about the visual you crate as a pitcher?

Abbott: They say it kind of jumps, you don’t see it and then all the sudden it’s like there. You know I don’t really have the Justin Verlander ride… but you work with what you have. Hitters just say it’s deceptive, and I think that’s maybe because of the crossfire and the jump my fastball has. It’s a good thing to hear

Lance: You’re a pitcher who over the last few years has “overperformed” your underlying metrics, are you aware of this at all?

Abbott: I don’t pay too much attention to that. I just want to be consistent every fifth day. I’m not here to wow anybody, I’m just here to get outs. I do see the statistics, but I never pay attention because I think the results speak for themselves.

Logan Webb

Lance: Your strikeout rate jumped from 20% to 27% this season. Was this something that you intended to do coming into the season?

Webb: I'm trying to get more strikeouts every single year. I think this year, finding news ways to get those strikeouts… I have two pretty big strikeout guys in the rotation with me between Verlander and Ray, so learning from them is one of the biggest things as well.

Lance: How has the cutter you added at the end of last year helped your lefty mix?

Webb: It’s just something to keep them off the stuff down. At the end of the day, I’m probably going to throw something at the bottom of the zone, so being able to throw two or three pitches instead of four pitches down in an at-bat has allowed me to keep hitters honest.

Lance: Your four-seamer has one of the highest swinging-strike rates in baseball, which I find odd for a sinker-first pitcher—

Webb: Well I gotta tell my pitching coaches because they don’t want me to throw it

Lance: Why?

Webb: Well, it’s not that they don’t want me to throw it more, it’s not a metrically good pitch… so using it more for effect rather than all the time is the goal.

Lance: Your changeup usage has also fallen over the last couple of years, any particular reason why?

Webb: I think it has to do with throwing more cutters, throwing more four-seam fastballs, I’m just trying to mix it up a bit.

MacKenzie Gore

Lance: Your strikeout rate jumped from 25% to 31% this season. What do you attribute it to?

Gore: I think understanding how to use what I have, sequencing… We had a really good plan going in, we knew where everything needed to be thrown, and I’ve executed it at a very high level.

Lance: Why did you push into more of a downer slider against lefties instead of the cutter/sweeper combo you were throwing last year?

Gore: I did slow it down to lefties some, trying to get a little more difference in the velocity… It’s a little different grip… a grip that’s allowing me to slow it down some… I’ve used it some in the past, just not too consistently to left-handed hitters and saw that with the harder slider to lefties, they’d kind of hang in there … and I think this shape makes it a bit more difficult to do that.

Lance: I know you’re down about 5 percentage points in overall four-seam usage this season. Do you feel the pressure from the league to throw fewer four-seamers?

Gore: I like my heater. Whatever the league is doing, the league is doing. I’m more focused on what’s the best version of me. So we just kind of found what percentage that means for fastball usage and went with it.

Lance: Do you think over time your fastball usage will fall even more and you’ll throw more secondaries?

Gore: I’m down some this year, and there have been starts where I’ve thrown it a lot less, others a lot more. I think it will continue to drop. The more guys see you, the better chance they have… I think my secondaries generate so much whiff because of the heater. It also depends on what the game is giving us on a specific day. There have been starts when I’ve been around 40%, others around 60% if the heater is really good.

The conversations above have been lightly edited for clarity