Zebby Matthews' Breakout is Happening. DL Hall's New Cutter
DL Hall, Zebby Matthews, Jose Soriano
Twins Zebby Matthews has a 16:2 strikeout to walk ratio in his last 2 starts after a rocky 2025 season debut. He went 7 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, BB, 7 K last night in Seattle, with all the damage coming in the first inning. He’s progressively cut his four-seam usage in these three outings. He’s thrown it 61%, 47%, and then 41% yesterday. To lefties last night, he threw 12 combined curveballs and changeups after throwing just 3 combined in his first two outings. His ability to zone his slider shot up dramatically yesterday as well, much more in line with Triple-A. Six of his 7 strikeouts came on the pitch, which FanGraphs graded a 130 Stuff+ (plus-plus). It’s a similar story to righties, where he threw a pair of right-right changeups, mixed curves, and boosted his slider usage. 📈
It was correct to push aside his first start, even if these early inning troubles have resurfaced. He’s an easy buy right now. I’m intrigued by the changeup to lefties given the shape he’s flashing on the pitch (10”+ vertical break separation with only ~7 mph of velocity difference). The curveball is also more two-strike than early count, which should fit given the pitch’s velocity (~83 mph) and interest in early count sliders to protect his fastball. 3.80 ERA rest of season? If you’re under on that, it’s officially a breakout.
Brewers DL Hall has a new cutter. It averaged 92 mph with 10” vertical break and 2” glove-side in his first two outings of 2025. He’s throwing it 14% to righties and mixing it in all counts. The spin efficiency on Hall’s four-seamer is up from 84% last year to 92% this year, implying he’s cutting the ball less than he used to. It has jumped a full tick in velocity to 94.3 mph with 2” more vertical break (averaging 16.4”) with the same ~6.5” arm-side movement as 2024. His curveball, which he threw 23% to righties last season, is substantially reduced this year. It’s been replaced by more changeup and slider usage. His four-seam usage has dipped from 43% to 33% against righties, likely connected to the addition of the cutter. ✂️
Hall doesn’t have his 95-96 mph Orioles fastball from his days as a top prospect. Since then, we haven’t seen the big strikeout numbers of days past. The new cutter is intriguing. I feel like the amount of success needed to be confident in any breakout is larger than a comparable arm, given we’ve seen <80 major league innings of Hall across the last 3 seasons. He’s more of a watch-and-hope scenario rather than a guy I am excited about.
Angels Jose Soriano followed up a 5.67 April ERA with a 2.34 May ERA. He’s having an odd season, one filled with minimal strikeouts, too many walks, and minimal damage against him. He’s sitting 1 full mph harder in his last 3 starts than he was in early April, which is a good sign. He’s ripping more four-seamers to lefties (not working), and he’s cut some sinkers for curveballs to righties. The oddity with Soriano has also been the presence of two great pitchers that he doesn’t use—splitter and slider. He zones both better than you’d expect for their velocity and shape, and they routinely generate strong swing-miss and chase. 🤷♂️
FanGraphs Stuff+ agrees that the slider and split are his best pitches, but is largely fading the rest of his mix from a stuff perspective (which doesn’t make any sense to me). The Angels have the second-lowest strikeout rate in MLB (Rockies are last) and the 6th-worst team ERA. Projections think Soriano will bounce back to a 21% strikeout rate but hang around a 4.00 ERA. I’m more confident in the ERA happening than the strikeout rate, given I don’t think the Angels are optimizing for swing-miss.