It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch.
The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to see if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth buying into or if they're just mirages.
Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started.
Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also has a great strike zone plot feature, which allows you to see how the whole arsenal plays together.I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard.
Jordan Romano, Hayden Birdsong and Matt Shaw join the Top 300 this week.
Zebby Matthews - Minnesota Twins (Velocity Gains, New Cutter Shape)
After dominating Triple-A to the tune of a 1.93 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, and 38:9 K:BB ratio in 32.2 innings, Zebby Matthews finally got a shot in the big leagues in 2025. It did not go as planned. On Sunday, he allowed four runs on five hits in three innings against the Brewers while walking three and striking out five. However, before we get into his pitch mix analysis, we should point out that he got squeezed in the third inning. At least three pitches that were called balls were actually strikes, including a ball four to Christian Yelich that was a really nice backdoor cutter. That's not to say Zebby was good on Sunday, but it's just pointing out that his command wasn't nearly as bad as it seems from the box score.
So what is Zebby doing differently this year that led to that kind of success in Triple-A? The most obvious thing is that is four-seam fastball is sitting 96.5 mph this year after sitting 94.9 mph last year. That's a big jump for him, and considering he is 6'5" and gets 6.7 feet of extension on the release of his fastball, that added velocity makes a big difference. Depending on where you look, he has about 16 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB), which means the fastball seems to "rise" as it approaches home plate, and you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below, that Zebby's four-seamer has significantly more vertical movement than average for his release point (VAA AA - Vertical Approach Angle Above Average).
Considering Zebby also keeps the fastball up in the zone about 60% of the time, that movement profile and velocity should lead to plenty of success on his four-seam fastball. But he also has four other pitches that round out his arsenal. He threw the slider just 10% of the time to lefties in his debut but almost 22% of the time to righties.
One of the biggest changes we saw from Zebby in his debut was flipping the use of his cutter and slider. Much of that is probably because the Brewers trotted out five lefties or switch-hitters, and Zebby struggled with the slider to lefties in 2024. Against lefties, he went to the cutter nearly 21% of the time in his debut and also mixed in the curve and changeup.
This season, as you can see from the chart above, Zebby has also added over one mph of velocity to his cutter, which has changed the shape of the pitch a bit as well. It has a little bit more vertical and horizontal break and has increased its movement over the average cutter from its particular release point. He used it inside to lefties two-thirds of the time in his debut, and I think that's going to be a good pitch to mitigate hard contact for him.
It will also allow him to reserve the slider for two-strike counts against lefties, which is what he did in his debut. He threw only three sliders to lefties, but two of them were with two strikes, and one of those two-strike sliders netted him a strikeout. The slider itself is slightly harder than last year, tied to his overall velocity bump, and that has cut some of the horizontal bite on the pitch, so we'll need to see if that matters much. Right now, it's movement profile is more similar to the cutter than it was last year, but he doesn't really throw the cutter to righties, so he's not relying on tunneling or deception with those two pitches.
At the end of the day, I think the added velocity and added cutter-focus to lefties is a plus for Zebby. He has been a strong command pitcher for his entire professional career, and I'm not going to let one start overshadow that. I think he has the pitch mix and the control to be a solid MLB starting pitcher, but I have some fears that, unless the curve or changeup takes a step forward, he won't miss many bats against lefties, which will keep his strikeout numbers down a bit. He also has the added risk of playing for a Twins team that will remove him at the first sign of trouble. That being said, I'll still take a chance against the Royals this week.
Logan Henderson - Milwaukee Brewers (Full Pitch Mix Breakdown)
Logan Henderson is another young starting pitcher getting a shot in the starting rotation thanks to Jose Quintana landing on the IL. Through three starts, Henderson has been great, allowing just three runs on nine hits in 16 innings while striking out 23 and walking four. So, how realistic is this?
When I first dug into Henderson, I didn't expect to like what I saw so much. He seemed like a changeup-first pitcher, similar to Gunnar Hoglund, and, in some ways, he is. Henderson is primarily a two-pitch pitcher, using his four-seam fastball and changeup 86% of the time. He will mix in his slider to righties about 8% of the time and throw a few sinkers, and he throws his cutter about 9% of the time to lefties while also mixing in a few sinkers, but the four-seam and changeup are the bread and butter.
That's not such a bad combination, though. It's led by the changeup, which is a pretty strong offering, posting an 18.8% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) in those three starts with about equal numbers to both righties and lefties. He does a good job of keeping it in the zone, so it also gets a fair amount of called strikes. He uses it early in the count more often to righties and will often throw it middle-in to try and tie them up, but he throws it 39% of the time in two-strike counts to lefties. However, against lefties, it has a below-average 13.8% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout, which is not really what you want to see. It also gets below-average chase out of the zone against lefties in two-strike counts, which feels odd considering how good a pitch it is.
For example, against Baltimore, Henderson had a 20.5% SwStr% overall on his changeup, but it had just a 22% strikeout rate and induced only two strikeouts despite being thrown 14 times to lefties in a two-strike count. I think its lack of success in two-strike situations against lefties could be connected to the rest of his arsenal.
As you can see from Kyle Bland's chart above, Henderson got just one whiff combined from his sinker, cutter, and slider in his start last week against the Guardians. He doesn't throw his cutter or slider to lefties at all in two-strike counts, which means when a lefty gets into a two-strike count, they can sit on a four-seamer or changeup and adjust to the other offering. He will throw his changeup up in the zone to lefties, which can lead to some deception, but he doesn't get chases out of the zone on that pitch in two-strike counts because when a left-handed hitter sees a two-strike pitch low in the zone, they assume a changeup and can account for the movement.
However, we also mentioned that Henderson has that other pitch to rely on: his four-seam fastball. It doesn't have elite velocity, but it's a strong offering with nearly 17 inches of iVB, which creates an exceptionally flat fastball from his release point. He keeps it in the upper half of the strike zone about 70% of the time, so that makes the best use of that shape and is why he gets a lot of chases up and out of the zone because the pitch seems to keep "rising" as it approaches the plate. The four-seamer has been a good two-strike pitch for him against lefties, with a 25% PutAway Rate, but has been even better against righties with a 50% PutAway Rate.
Those two main pitches will be enough for Henderson against a lot of teams, and we saw last night what it can do to a left-handed-heavy team like Baltimore. Yet, I do have some concerns that there's little else in his arsenal. He mixes in his slider to righties, but it has not registered a single swing-and-miss in his three MLB starts. Same with the sinker, which he rarely uses. That means he's basically just a four-seam/changeup pitcher to righties, and four-seam/changeup with a dash of cutter to lefties. That's an approach that can work, but it's not one that generally dominates the way Henderson has seemed to early on.
Yet, we should note that he upped his cutter usage on Tuesday against the Orioles, throwing it 13% of the time while getting three whiffs and posting a 44% CSW. He had not gotten a single swinging strike on his cutter in his first two starts. What's funny is that he had success by throwing the cutter down the middle more often. He reduced his high location rate and threw five of his nine cutters in the middle third of the strike zone. Maybe it worked because hitters were looking for the four-seamer up. Maybe it worked because the Orioles are not good right now.
To sum up, Henderson has a solid two-pitch mix, but his best pitch struggles more than you'd like in two-strike counts versus lefties, and none of his other three pitches have stepped up so far. That hasn't hurt him against the Orioles, Guardians, and Athletics, but maybe it will against better offenses or teams with more right-handed hitters. There are some things to like here, and I'd be happy to take more gambles on Henderson, but when you also add in that Aaron Civale, Brandon Woodruff, and Jose Quintana are likely back in the Brewers' rotation in the next two weeks, it seems unlikely Henderson will be in the rotation full-time until the Brewers drop out of the playoff race and think about making some trades.
60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league.
Slade Cecconi - Cleveland Guardians (New Sinker, New Cutter, Added Velocity, New Curve Usage)
With Ben Lively headed to the injured list, Slade Cecconi made his Guardians debut this week and has a chance to stick in the rotation for an extended period if he can pitch well. Overall, I was pleased with a lot of what I saw from him in his debut this weekend. When I spoke to Guardians pitching coach Carl Willis during spring training, he mentioned some of the tweaks they were looking to make with Cecconi after acquiring him in a trade. One of those was "working with him to recapture that height on his back leg and torso," which led to a higher release point in spring training and carried over in his debut.
As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below, Cecconi's release point changed from 5.6 feet to 5.9 feet, and his arm angle rose by three degrees. All of that is tied back to Willis' point about fixing Cecconi's back leg on his delivery to keep him from buckling as much. That also can often add some stability and power for pitchers, which might be why Cecconi sat 95.4 mph on his four-seam fastball after being 94.4 mph last year.
The mechanical change also cut almost three inches of horizontal movement on Cecconi's four-seam fastball, which is good because he added in a sinker this year, so we want his four-seamer to be "straighter" to create more deception with the sinker, which will ride in on righties. Cecconi also kept his fastball up in the zone well in his debut, but the command of the pitch was worse than we saw in 2024, with just a 48% zone rate. Perhaps that was adrenaline getting the best of him or him still shaking off some rust, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
You can also see from the chart above that he dropped his four-seam fastball usage overall by about 15%. A lot of that is the result of him deepening his arsenal, adding in the sinker and a cutter, but it's also an approach change. Last year, Cecconi threw his four-seamer 56% of the time to lefties. In his season debut, that dropped to 34.5% while he threw his changeup nearly 28% of the time, his curveball 24% of the time, and mixed in his slider 7% of the time. His four-seamer got hit hard by lefties last year and didn't miss many bats with an 8.3% SwStr%, so I like the idea of going away from it against lefties.
Additionally, he only used his curveball 14.6% of the time to lefties last year, so that jump to 24% is a big one and jives with what Carl Willis told me in the off-season: “When you look at his entire arsenal, [the curve] does create separation in terms of velocity and the back and forth with the hitter,” said Willis. “We feel like he could throw his curve more than he threw it last year. He relied heavily on the slider. We think the curveball is good enough that he could up the usage and create a little bit of that separation while also creating a whole different profile.”
In his season debut, his curveball had a 30% SwStr%, primarily because it was chased out of the zone a lot. He used it primarily as a two-strike pitch and saw a lot of success with it, so that's a change we can look to continue as the year goes on.
Cecconi also added in a cutter this season, but is primarily using it against righties. The pitch is 86.5 mph with just half an inch of drop and 1.5 inches of horizontal run. That's a small contrast from his slider, which is 85 mph with almost equal drop but four inches of horizontal movement. He throws both pitches primarily on the outside corner to righties, and so the inclusion of the cutter seems to be about creating deception with the slider and taking some of the pressure off the four-seam fastball. He used the slider 73% of the time early in counts to righties in his debut, while throwing four of his eight cutters in two-strike counts. It's unclear if that usage will continue, but Cecconi can go to the cutter, four-seam, or curve in two-strike counts to righties, and that should increase his strikeout upside even though none of them are truly a wipe-out offering.
Overall, I like the changes we're seeing from Cecconi. The added velocity is always good, as is deepening his pitch mix. The increased use of the curve is something the Guardians wanted from the start, and it worked well early on. Cecconi has now entered that Chris Bassitt territory that Eno Sarris talks about with a pitcher who has six pitches and can often succeed even if the Stuff+ numbers appear average. His command will need to improve, but we don't want to read too much into that after one start. I'd be adding Cecconi in deeper formats just to see what his next few starts look like. There could be something interesting here.
Noah Cameron - Kansas City Royals (Full Pitch Mix Breakdown)
Noah Cameron rounds out our grouping of young pitchers getting a chance at a starting rotation spot, and that might make sense because he's probably the pitcher I like the least, from a fantasy perspective. In two MLB starts, Cameron has allowed just one run on three hits in 12.2 innings while striking out six and walking five.
Yes, a 6:5 K:BB ratio in 12.2 innings is not particularly strong, and neither is posting a SwStr% of 0.0% on your fastball. Yes, Cameron has not gotten a single swinging strike on his four-seam fastball in his two starts. That should be concerning to you, and I think it's backed up by a pitch mix that seems to be largely created for weak contact and called strikes.
Cameron's best pitch is his slider, which has 3.5 inches of drop and 3.3 inches of horizontal run at 83.5 mph. He has really good command of the pitch with a 54% zone rate and 70% strike rate, and keeps it in the lower third of the strike zone and away often against lefties. It's his primary offering to lefties, and his best one, so it makes sense that he leans on it often.
Interestingly, against righties, Cameron uses the slider 16% of the time but throws it UP in the zone a lot. That could be a plan to create some deception with a cutter that he also throws 18% of the time to righties, but is 87 mph with two inches more horizontal movement. He throws that cutter middle or up in the zone 90% of the time to righties, so using his slider up in the zone might make sense to get hitters out in front of the slider if they're thinking cutter or just keep them off the barrel. He uses the cutter early in counts and the slider later in counts to righties, and that makes some sense since his slider is a better swing-and-miss pitch.
The issue is that the rest of his arsenal is fairly average.
His four-seam fastball has poor velocity, mediocre extension, and doesn't have much horizontal movement, which is odd for a left-hander. His changeup is a pitch he primarily uses to righties, but his command of it is questionable, and it has just an 8% SwStr% to righties on the season. He rounds out the arsenal with a mediocre curve that he tries to sneak for called strikes early in the count against lefties and later in the count against righties.
To me, the big reason Cameron has succeeded is because of how his arsenal works together. As you can see from the chart below, his cutter (brown), slider (purple), and curve (blue) all attack hitters from a similar angle with slightly different velocity and movement profiles. That creates deception, which has led to weak contact and just a .059 BABIP so far this season.
My concern is that Cameron doesn't have a pitch that makes me think he can beat an MLB hitter if they know it's coming. No pitch has too much velocity or too much movement to make up for mediocre command or sequencing. That means Cameron has to be perfect with how he mixes and matches and locates his pitches to succeed. That may be easier when hitters have never faced you before, but as they start to have more footage of you or have faced you before, it's going to be continuously harder to fool them. That makes me question the long-term viability of Cameron for fantasy purposes.
Shane Baz - Tampa Bay Rays (Full Pitch Mix Breakdown)
Baz got off to a strong start to the season, posting a 3.86 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, and 37:12 K:BB ratio in 35 innings over his first six starts. However, since the calendar flipped to May, Baz has been brutal. He has a 9.61 ERA, 2.03 WHIP, 12:10 K:BB ratio in 19.2 innings across four starts, including two against the Marlins and Royals, who have fairly mediocre offenses so far this season.
I have Baz on quite a few teams, so I wanted to try and figure out what was going on, and I went to Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard.
We can see that Baz's arm angle has dropped a little from April to May, particularly on his four-seamer and curveball. However, those changes seem negligible. I'm not sure a 1.5-degree drop in arm angle impacts the movement of the four-seamer and curve, but it is worth noting that his curve has seemingly lost 1.5 inches of vertical movement, and both pitches have performed much worse in May.
In particular, Baz's curve has just an 8.7% SwStr% in May with a 50% zone rate, 24.3% CSW, and 39% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) allowed. In his first six starts, the curve had a 13.2% SwStr%, 48.1% zone rate, 31.7% CSW, and 29% ICR. So, Baz is throwing the pitch in the zone more often, which means it's not his command of the pitch. The shocking change has been that hitters are making far more contact on the pitch outside of the zone. In March/April, Baz had a 37% contact rate on curveballs out of the zone. That has skyrocketed to 63% in May. How are hitters making that much more contact on curveballs that are OUTSIDE of the strike zone? Does it have to do with that slight change in vertical movement? Are hitters able to see that the curve is coming because Baz is tipping his pitch? It's the primary concern that he needs to solve.
And Baz knows that because he has reduced the usage of his curve in his last two starts and started to use the slider more instead. The issue there is that the slider isn't that good. The pitch that used to be his "destroyer of worlds" has just a 10% SwStr% on the year, with a slightly below average strike rate and league average ICR allowed. It's not a pitch that's going to miss bats to righties, and the four-seamer has not been that pitch this year either, so he needs that curveball to come back if he's going to continue to have fantasy success.
Earlier, we also mentioned that Baz's arm angle has dropped a bit on his four-seam fastball, which has caused him to lose horizontal movement on the pitch. The changes seem minuscule, but Baz has seen his CSW on the fastball drop from 28.4% in his first six starts to 23.2% in his next four. It's not that the pitch is missing fewer bats; it's actually missing more bats. The issue seems to be that hitters are being way more aggressive on Baz's fastball. Despite him throwing it in the zone 5% less often, hitters are swinging at fastballs in the zone over 10% more, up to 76.3%. That has led to a 7% increase in zone contact and an ICR up to 46.4%.
So why are hitters all of a sudden swinging at his four-seam fastball more, even though Baz is throwing it in the zone less often? It can't be because they're just spitting on his curveball, since we also established that hitters are swinging and hitting that pitch more than before as well. Could the change in arm angle not be connected to a movement shift, but connected to something that is tipping pitches? Maybe hitters are simply able to tell when the curve or fastball is coming? That would seem to answer why they are swinging at those pitches more often than before and making more and better contact off of them.
If Baz were to be tipping his pitches, that would be a best-case scenario for fantasy owners because it's an easier fix. If the answer is that his curveball has simply become more hittable as hitters are seeing it more, then his fantasy value would take a huge hit.
Matthew Pouliot
