Do We Still Believe in Jack Leiter? Jared Jones Lost His Feel (For Now)

Jack Leiter, Jared Jones, Caden Dana

• Rangers Jack Leiter is back in the majors after a rough debut in late April. His fastball is up 1 mph compared to early in the year (sitting 97+ mph instead of 96). To lefites, he ditched the cutter he was throwing ~13% and doubled his slider usage to 36%. His slider location to righties is perplexing. It has drifted to the middle of the plate from down-away. His catcher sets up with central targets in most counts, and Leiter’s natural miss in these last 2 outings has been to run it up above that location (see heatmaps below). The expectation is for his miss to drift down-away from the central target? We’re just not seeing that right now. 🤠

  • Stuff models still love Leiter because of the fastball shape. He has above-average velocity, vertical movement, and extension with a lower-than-average release height. This is the Jared Jones, Spencer Strider mold without the same results or consistency of location. Location+ has him slightly below average on all pitches. There’s variance in his fastball location to righties that doesn’t appear completely intentional. He has to get the slider back down-away against righties. I left him just outside my top 40 pitching prospects. I think that was an overreaction to his rocky debut. But we’re all still waiting for it to click with Leiter.

Jack Leiter’s slider location to righties (April-June vs August). Notice how the deepest red is in completely different spots between the 2 heatmaps. He wants the heatmap on the left.

• Pirates Jared Jones has mixed results since coming off the IL (2 starts against the Cubs). His four-seam’s vertical break is up from 16” to 17”. It seems to be a byproduct of a slight hike in his arm angle. His release height is up ~1”, extension is down ~1” and his release side has crept slightly toward the center of the rubber. There’s no change in the grade of the pitch, but what’s notable is that this seems to have hurt his ability to elevate his four-seam. Versus lefties he’s failing to elevate the pitch as he did early in the season (see heatmaps below). It’s a similar situation versus righties. His slider is also in the zone more than usual to righties, suggesting some inability to get it down. 🏴‍☠️

  • This feels like a spot where it’s clear Jones is finding feel post-injury. Given the Pirates removal from the playoff picture, Jones has the rest of the month to get back to 120+ innings and keep his innings total on pace with last season.

  • One more small note that I’m unsure what to do with: Jones has the second-highest fall in average four-seam velocity when comparing windup to the stretch (-.9 mph), second to only Mitchell Parker -1.2 mph). Jones’ loss in contact quality isn’t dramatically different than the league average between the windup and stretch.

Jared Jones four-seam location to lefties (April-May vs 2 starts post IL). Notice the lack of four-seam elevation (red at the top right of the strike zone) compared to earlier in the season.

• Angels Caden Dana went 6 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K in his MLB debut. As I saw in the minor leagues, his stuff is underwhelming given his Double-A results. He’s about 90% fastball-slider to righties. To lefties, he’s heavier on his fastball (55%) and mixes in a changeup, curveball, and cutter with only about 15% slider. Nothing grades out as above average. The fastball is 94 mph with 16” vertical break from a 6.1’ release. His slider is 85 mph with 2” vertical break and 5-6” sweep. It’s a tight gyro slider with below-average velocity for the shape. If this is going to work it’s because the locations are supreme. Right now, they appear to be more zone than shadow. 🤷‍♂️

  • There’s large release height variation here that makes me worried. He’s popping a half-foot above his slider to get to his fastball shape and then popping another half-foot to get to his curveball shape. These are massive differences and he’s not creating outlier shapes in the process like a Ricky Tiedemann, where you can squint and justify it. Rhett Lowder does this a bit too but not nearly as dramatic. Dana looks like a 20-year-old pitcher to me. There’s a lot of unpolished traits here that jump out even in a one-start sample. I get he had good results at Double-A but this isn’t the kind of arm you jump to MLB like Spencer Schwellenbach or Drew Thorpe given Dana’s underlying metrics. The angels remain a fascinating organization. Perhaps there’s some bet that he’ll learn quicker in MLB than in MiLB? I’ve always been a proponent of aggressive promotion. One can only hope.