Taj Bradley's Lefty Tinkering. Examining Bowden Francis's Struggles

Taj Bradley, Bowden Francis, Michael Lorenzen

• Rays Taj Bradley has lost some swing-miss versus left-handed hitters. His swinging-strike rate is down from 13% last year to 9% this year. He’s throwing more curveballs to lefties, 8% last year in the second half is up to 19% this year. A lot of this curve push has come in two-strike counts. The pitch has never been a bat-misser for him, so I’m a bit perplexed with the approach. But after watching some of his last few outings, it’s clear he has 0 slider feel, scrapping the pitch until the 6th inning yesterday and throwing it just 7% in his last 3 outings (almost all of them being missed locations). His cutter sat at 19% usage last year and was a notable non-splitter whiff weapon for him down-in to lefties. Until he regains that feel or reworks the pitch, I don’t expect the swinging-strike to rise back above the 7-8% it currently sits. ☀️

  • Bradley also debuted a new sinker early in the season and threw it ~13% to right-handed hitters across his first two starts of the year. After giving up a homer on a bad miss down-in to Jake Burger, he’s thrown the pitch just 2% to righties and not once in each of his last 2 starts. Lots of tinkering for Bradley early this season. I think it’s made his first month of 2025 tough to analyze. It might be as simple as watching the swing-miss evolve here over time and whether he tweaks the slider for lefties. The bullish projection is to think he breaks a 3.80 ERA rest of season, correcting his issues quickly. Modest projections probably think he’s in the ~4.20 area, and even with those changes, he doesn’t improve much. I lean toward the bullish side.

Taj Bradley’s splitter and slider grips (2025)

• Blue Jays Bowden Francis is struggling (3 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 5 HR, K). FIP always had him as more of a low 4s ERA guy, even during his torrid stretch last year, but the 5 HR he allowed pushes me into the “was he tipping” level of concern—not a fun place to be. There’s low-hanging fruit in reviving the sinker he threw occasionally last year. Even if the shape is poor, it would allow him to move his fastball back to the up-away portion of the zone to righties, where it succeeded last year. More slider makes sense as well, especially with his splitter’s fall-off in in-zone whiff. He’s using the slider just 6% compared to 16% last year. Versus lefties, he can’t seem to avoid barrels with anything. All his fastball barrels have been sporadic misses back to the heart of the plate. Given the shape is mediocre, I’d guess his margin for error is smaller than others with either a) better command or b) better stuff. 🇨🇦

  • I think Francis earns a good Location+ via FanGraphs because he’s in zone a lot with his secondaries. I’d be curious to see if his miss distance/patterns have become more sporadic than last season, resulting in his gaudy barrel rate against left-handed hitters (18%). I struggle to find a fix here beyond tightening up his misses to lefties. The righty fix is likely just mix diversity.

Bowden Francis’s four-seam location and barrels allowed. The pitch is serviceable away, but anything missing back glove-side over the plate has been pounded.

• Royals Michael Lorenzen is throwing more cutter to righties. This is mostly a behind-in-count adjustment. Late last season with the Royals, he threw mostly sinkers behind in count (~40%). He’s now pushed his cutter up to 35% mixed with less sinkers and some four-seamers, both around 20%. Despite the changes, the early results haven’t been great. His zone rate is up from 45% to 53%, but he’s flipped from a ground-ball pitcher last year versus righties to a fly-ball pitcher this season (small batted-ball sample). This is likely due to more elevation of his four-seam and the cutter living more up in the zone in these behind-in-count situations. 👑

  • Lorenezen’s lefty approach remains solid. He’s a reverse splits guy who is still working through ways to neutralize right-handed hitters. I like the revamped cutter approach and am curious to see a larger sample of righty performance before assuming this trick didn’t work. He’s a league-average starter, or around that mark at present. I’ll take the under on a ~4.40 ERA projection.