Hunter Greene Makes His (Early) Cy Young Case. Hayden Wesneski's New Approach

Hunter Greene, Casey Mize, Hayden Wesneski, Dustin May

• Reds Hunter Greene looks amazing. His approach has been “I bet I can throw fastballs by you,” and it’s working. He’s throwing his fastball 10-15% more versus either handedness of hitter. The average location of his fastball to lefties and righties is centered over the plate more compared to 2024. The effect is more noticeable versus lefties (shown below). To righties, his zone rate has ballooned from 54% to 68%, and his swing-miss on the pitch has gone up despite the in-zone tendency. 🔥

  • The root of this fastball success stems from sitting 99 mph, up 2 ticks from 2024. His FanGraphs Stuff+ has gone from 110 to 125 (plus to plus-plus). With that velocity increase, he’s maintained his vertical break (16.5”) and subtly lowered his release height with a small extension bump. If he can hold 99 mph all season, I think he’s got a shot to compete for a Cy Young with Skenes and Wheeler. The path to correction, if hitters start touching his four-seam, is to increase slider usage, which is mowing hitters down in its reduced usage.

Hunter Greene’s fastball location to left-handed hitters (2024 vs 2025). Noticed the darkest concentration of orange is more centered over the zone.

• Tigers Casey Mize broke his slider into a pair of pitches and has stopped using his curveball. As I show below, I believe these are two grips. One is a standard bullet slider, while the other is a spiked sweeper. The slider sits 86-87 mph, while the sweeper is more ~83-84. The horizontal variation in each is connected to the handedness of hitter he’s facing. I think it’s a byproduct of location. He’s mostly trying to backdoor the slider/sweeper (his arm side) to lefties and burying it glove-side to righties. The tighter slider shape loses just 1-2” glove-side movement when thrown versus lefties compared to righties. The sweeper loses ~3-4” when thrown to lefties versus righties. 🐅

  • This is a long-winded way to say that the added breakers seem to be helping. He had more difficulty versus righties last season compared to lefties, so the more lateral sweeper shape makes sense. And his lefty curveball was terrible last year, so turfing it also makes sense. Small-sample watch: he’s generating less ground-ball contact versus left-handed hitters without the curveball (ground-ball rate down from 46% last season to 27% this season). I think I’m comfortable taking the over on his 20% projected strikeout rate with the tweaked breaking balls.

Casey Mize’s slider grips—standard slider on the left, slightly spiked sweeper on the right. (2025)

• Astros Hayden Wesneski has changed with the Astros. The big difference is that he’s throwing more cutters to lefties. 15% usage last year is up to 27% this year. He also added a curveball, which he’s throwing even with his sweeper to lefties (~10%). This is notable compared to last season, where he threw 30% sweeper to left-handed hitters. 🤠

  • He’s also made a pretty dramatic usage change to right-handed hitters, increasing his four-seam usage to 53% after throwing it just 28% last season. He’s also elevating the pitch slightly more to righties, compared to putting it more away last season (see below). This combination of variables has given him new life, despite the four-seam shape still grading below average. It’s early, but the usage and location changes are allowing him to limit contact quality versus each handedness of hitter better than he did last year. If you’re in on him, the bet is that the newfound usage continues to prevent barrels. I think I need a few more outings to increase my confidence.

Hayden Wesneski’s four-seam location to righties (2024 vs 2025). Notice how the peripheral (light orange) pitches are more elevated in 2025 compared to 2024.

• Dodgers Dustin May had a release height and velocity drop compared to 2023. He has also backed off the cutter he was throwing 2 years ago. His velocity is down ~2 mph on everything, sitting 95 on his fastball compared to 97 in 2023. His release height is down ~4”, arm angle down 11° (considerable). The slot drop has pushed down the vertical break (”rise”) on everything he throws, affecting his four-seamer the most. 🫚

  • There’s some natural regression coming, given the even walk and strikeout rates. He’s never been able to miss bats despite great stuff. The profile has always been more of a barrel limiter. With his velo down, I have less confidence in the strikeout rate, which puts more pressure on the barrel limiting. I’m fading him rest of season, even with the Dodgers and their SP magic. I’ll take the over on his projected ~3.60 ERA. But it would be great to see him eclipse 80 IP for the first time.