O's fan so have been paying particular attention to Morton. In the depth of his struggles, I took a deeper look and noticed the added vert on his 4s, coupled with the change in location you noted. Tweaks to the fastball were the only real delta from last year (setting command aside). Interestingly, xwOBA and whiff rates on the 4s both got better this year (this look was admittedly a couple weeks ago, may have changed).
Command was obviously brutal but the curveball didn't seem to be any more up in the zone (locations didn't seem to get much more hittable), but damage against it was obviously through the roof. Led me to thinking the four-seam/curve tunnel may have actually been lost by bringing the fastball up in the zone and creating more separation. Fastball locations coming back down and effectiveness going back up is really interesting to me, but certainly could be confirmation bias.
I think you're spot on with the tunnel created via the fastball elevation. One of those things, where in theory, it makes sense to elevate the pitch more if the angle is "we want more 4S whiff," but it seems to have unraveled everything else that's made him good, which was largely a big-spin curve that inspires chase. Perhaps there was something mechanically off that led to some of that 4S elevation, but I think he won't be as bad as he was in April (that will be difficult to do haha).
O's fan so have been paying particular attention to Morton. In the depth of his struggles, I took a deeper look and noticed the added vert on his 4s, coupled with the change in location you noted. Tweaks to the fastball were the only real delta from last year (setting command aside). Interestingly, xwOBA and whiff rates on the 4s both got better this year (this look was admittedly a couple weeks ago, may have changed).
Command was obviously brutal but the curveball didn't seem to be any more up in the zone (locations didn't seem to get much more hittable), but damage against it was obviously through the roof. Led me to thinking the four-seam/curve tunnel may have actually been lost by bringing the fastball up in the zone and creating more separation. Fastball locations coming back down and effectiveness going back up is really interesting to me, but certainly could be confirmation bias.
Great stuff here, thanks for the comment!
I think you're spot on with the tunnel created via the fastball elevation. One of those things, where in theory, it makes sense to elevate the pitch more if the angle is "we want more 4S whiff," but it seems to have unraveled everything else that's made him good, which was largely a big-spin curve that inspires chase. Perhaps there was something mechanically off that led to some of that 4S elevation, but I think he won't be as bad as he was in April (that will be difficult to do haha).