Tarik Skubal is Back. Aaron Nola's Four-Seamer
Tarik Skubal, Aaron Nola, Emmet Sheehan, Clarke Schmidt
Tigers Tarik Skubal returned to the mound for the first time since August 2022. His four-seam was up just over 2 mph, down about 1” of vertical break (carry) and lost some arm-side, so the velo jump didn’t send the grade too high—FanGraphs Stuff+ was 85 last year and 89 today. Only 5 sinkers but the velo was up 3+ mph there with no clear shape change. FanGraphs Stuff+ didn’t make an adjustment, but Driveline Baseball’s Stuff+ model thinks that’s his best fastball, giving it a 107. The biggest change comes to his slider. Velo down around 1 mph year-over-year, he took away 4” vertical break (dropping more) and added a marginal amount of cut. The drop-for-velo trade-off is good. FanGraphs Stuff+ upgraded it from 97 to 114, Driveline has it as a 133. Didn’t generate a ton of swing-miss on it (23% where 32% is MLB average). I wouldn’t be surprised to see usage jump there over time given the quality of the pitch. 🐅
Phillies Aaron Nola had his best four-seam of the year yesterday. Ever since May 31, he’s been averaging >93 mph on his four-seam and 92-93 mph on the sinker, both up just over 1 mph compared to earlier in the year. Stuff+ jumped accordingly from his May lull. Yesterday, his four-seam jumped to 17” vertical break after averaging 15” in his prior 4 starts, swing-miss up to 36% in the outing (22% is average). FanGraphs Stuff+ jumped from 101 to 128, Driveline from 96 to 140. Another subtle thing helping his grades are an increase in extension and a small drop in release height since that May 31 start. Would not be surprised to see him go on a run in the second half right before he hits free agency. 📈
Dodgers Emmet Sheehan vertical release on his fastball has dropped about 3” since his debut. And after a small uptick from 15.5” vertical break to 16.2” in his first two starts, it was down to 14.7” yesterday after returning from Coors. The Athletic has quotes that suggest he’s working through things with the MLB ball, which he’s never used before being promoted. Yesterday’s fastball grade was the lowest of his 4 MLB starts (removing Coors), but it’s still grading out above average—114 by FanGraphs Stuff+ and 135 by Driveline Baseball, both suggesting it’s about 1 standard deviation above the average four-seamer and better if he gets back to 16” vertical break. Slider and changeup are both above-average pitches. Changeup appears to be better swing-miss pitch, just in zone less right now.
Suwinski’s homer yesterday was interesting. Sheehan is getting almost all his fastball swing-miss up in the zone. Smith set up with a down-away target and Sheehan missed into the zone, middle-down. I assume the intent here was to get a take on a low fastball in a 2-0 count? Just didn’t work in his favor. 🎬
Yankees Clarke Schmidt might be figuring out his cutter to lefties. Throughout the course of the season, the pitch has dropped about 2 mph of velocity, added 2-3” drop and picked up 1” cut. FanGraphs Stuff+ with a subtle adjustment from 97 to 105. It appears he’s not backspinning the pitch as much and the results have been good. xwOBA down from .360 in April-May to .293 since June. The perplexing thing is that his cutter location has moved from inside to lefties to the middle of the plate… and it’s not getting obliterated. His sinker appears lost to me, losing run on it, Stuff+ dropping into the 80s from 100, xwOBA near 400. This tweaked cutter might help. 🗽