In Payton Tolle’s season debut against the New York Yankees, he threw a 2-2 changeup to Giancarlo Stanton with the bases loaded. It was the first changeup he threw all season, and Stanton, like everybody else, never saw it coming and whiffed for the first out of the inning.
In the moment, I was impressed by the pitch call and execution. What I didn’t realize was that it was a sign of things to come.
Through 20 starts, Tolle’s registered a 2.97 ERA and ranks 15th in K-BB% among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched. He’s allowed just three earned runs over his last 20 innings, giving the Red Sox length during a stretch in which their bullpen depth has been tested. Most recently, he went eight shutout innings against the Blue Jays to help the Red Sox snap an eight-game losing streak. If it looks like an ace, and it pitches like an ace, it’s probably an ace. Payton Tolle is becoming an ace.
Last season, Tolle’s emergence was due to his four-seam fastball. He dominated the Pittsburgh Pirates with it in his debut. After that start, his lack of a Plan B was exposed, seeing him demoted to the bullpen for the end of the season. This season, his four-seamer shape has shifted slightly, featuring less vertical and more horizontal movement, but it remains an elite pitch. The swinging strike rate (16.5%) is 4th among 93 pitchers with 500 thrown, while the ideal contact rate is low at 32.8%. It’s not due to just the raw stuff, either. He’s locating the pitch consistently at the top of the zone, where the approach angle helps it play up.
His four-seamer put him on the map, and it continues to anchor his arsenal. The massive strides he’s made in his second season aren’t due to his four-seamer, but his secondary pitches.
Tolle added a sinker this offseason, and it’s been a massive addition to his repertoire. He’s using it 32% of the time against left-handed hitters, and it’s been a huge source of strikes for him at a 70% strike rate. He spots it on the arm side decently enough, and the movement allows it to miss barrels. On top of the high strike rate, it’s returned a 71% groundball rate and a minuscule 22.9% ideal contact rate. Detractors might point to a 0.284 batting average against it, but that’s largely composed of jam-shot singles.
The sinker is a great weapon against lefties, and a solid supporting piece against righties. He’s using it about 18% of the time, which is enough to keep hitters from squaring up the four-seam. The ideal contact rate on his primary fastball has dropped from 50% all the way to 28%. Improved four-seam locations definitely help in that regard, but a second fastball shape is also probably contributing. Here it is in action:
And here’s that same sequence again:
Last season, at 3-2, he’d likely be challenging the hitter with a four-seam fastball in the zone. Hitters knew it and were able to gear up for it. This sequence isn’t some sort of magic cheat code, but rather one example of how more quality pitches give hitters different looks to worry about. With a new sinker (and other improved pitches), he’s been able to mitigate that issue, avoid barrels, and continue to rack up strikeouts.
With a four-seam and sinker to get ahead of hitters, Tolle has been able to use his cutter more effectively as well. Among pitchers with at least 150 cutters thrown, Tolle’s ranks third in swinging strike rate (19.2%) behind only Brayan Bello (huh???) and Jose Alvarado. He uses it against both sides of the plate, but the performance against righties has been particularly strong.
You’ll notice two hot zones for Tolle’s cutters to righties: on the glove side and at the top of the zone. Those at the top of the zone are primarily early in counts as Tolle looks to steal called strikes. Deeper in counts, he’s done a solid job at getting the pitch to the glove side, where he’s been able to rack up whiffs. He’ll miss on the arm side with some regularity, but those misses have mostly been fouled off rather than being punished. In addition to the whiffs, there’s been plenty of weak contact as the cutter gets in on the hands of righties, jamming them regularly. For a third offering, it’s been a great one.
So that’s three fastballs, ranging from 88 to 99 mph, each covering a different part of the plate. We’re done, right? Wrong. There’s a curveball, and it’s a surprisingly good one. Tolle’s strength has always been power. In the offseason, I was banging the drum for him to add a sinker to play off that strength, because I thought it was an easy enough way to add strikes to his repertoire. Improving his feel for the curveball was a development I didn’t see happening, at least not so soon, but it has.
His curveball only accounts for about ten percent of his pitches, but it’s the perfect surprise pitch with everything else being hard. The zone rate is about 40%, due to him occasionally dropping the pitch in to steal called strikes. Deeper in counts, he’s shown the ability to spot it down and away, and he’s only getting better.
Apologies for the tiny text, but these are Tolle’s two-strike curveballs by month. From March through June, he didn’t quite have a feel for it. Since the start of July, however, he’s hit that spot regularly. Here it is again if we look by season half.
Since the start of the second half, his curveball has a 30% swinging strike rate with two strikes. With the high-octane fastballs in his back pocket, the curveball can make hitters look ridiculous, like this:
And that changeup that I showed at the beginning? Well, he hasn’t figured that one out yet. Everything else has been so good, though, that a changeup at this point is just gravy.
Tolle’s next start is today against the Arizona Diamondbacks. If you remember last season, the Diamondbacks are the lineup that brought Tolle back down to earth after his electric debut, tagging him for five earned runs over just three innings. They pounced on his fastball as he couldn’t land anything else for strikes, citing the Trajekt machine as key in their preparations for the lefty. This time around, the D’Backs won’t have the Trajekt machine at Fenway, and Tolle has a host of new weapons to navigate the lineup with. Workload remains a concern for the second-year pro, but the Red Sox will need to lean on him down the stretch to remain in the playoff race. He hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down at this point and appears to only be getting better.
