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.
JUST AN FYI THAT THIS WILL BE AN ABBREVIATED ARTICLE WITH THE TRADE DEADLINE HEATING UP. HOWEVER, I WANTED TO GIVE YOU SOME PITCH MIX ANALYSIS ON SOME OF THE ROOKIES THAT WE SAW DEBUT RECENTLY.
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 determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in 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.
Matthew PouliotTroy Melton - Detroit Tigers
Melton had a rough MLB debut against the Pirates, and many people wrote him off; however, his pitches graded out well in that first start, and the Tigers wanted to give him another chance. He responded with a strong outing on Monday against a depleted Diamondbacks lineup, throwing seven shutout innings while allowing five hits and striking out five. So what do we make of Melton's pitch mix?
The 24-year-old has a deep six-pitch mix with at least four pitches that he uses to hitters of each handedness.
His four-seam fastball is his primary offering, using it to both righties and lefties to get ahead. He has 6.9 feet of extension on the pitch at 97 mph with 12.8 inches of iVB from a low 5.4 foot release height, which gives him a solid 1.3 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle. That means his fastball is particularly flat and appears to "rise" against gravity as it approaches home plate. With nearly seven feet of extension, that 97 mph pitch also looks closer to 99 mph to a hitter. Melton also does a really good job of keeping the pitch up in the zone and has so far shown a strong ability to locate the pitch in the strike zone, so I kind of love this as a foundational offering for him.
His primary secondary offering to both righties and lefties is his slider; however, he uses it far more often (33%) to righties than lefties (22%). He uses it over 35% of the time in two-strike counts to all hitters, but the pitch understandably performs much better against righties with a 36% Swinging Strike Rate (SwStr%) and 40% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch leads to a strikeout. The pitch is 85.5 mph with nearly seven inches of glove-side movement and three inches of vertical break, which is 38.7 inches when accounting for gravity, but it is a strong swing-and-miss pitch and has carved up righties all year at multiple levels.
Against lefties, he pairs that slider with a cutter, which you can see in the pitch plot above: slider in purple and cutter in brown. The cutter is a pitch he throws only to lefties. It's 91 mph with 2.6 inches of horizontal break but 27 inches of drop when accounting for gravity. He does a tremendous job of locating it in the zone, which helps to keep lefties from jumping on his slider. He also keeps the cutter low and away from lefties as a backdoor offering to try and draw called strikes, which is part of the reason is has a 96th percentile called strike rate through his first two starts. By locating that pitch away, he creates some deception with the slider and four-seamer because hitters need to determine out of his hand if it's a fastball that will be off the plate away, a cutter that will hit the outside corner, or a slider that's going to dart down and out of the zone. It's a tough call to make in a split second.
Those are his three main offerings, but lefties will also see a below-average splitter that he commands well but lacks elite movement on, and also the occasional curve that he can steal early strikes with. Right-handed hitters will also see a sinker that he tries to bury inside to keep them off his four-seamer, and the occasional curve as well.
There is still some growth to be had here. The splitter is reportedly a new pitch he added this year instead of his old changeup, so his feel for the pitch is likely still developing. Same goes for the sinker, but he has three fastball variations with a plus slider and a curve that looks like it could at least be an average offering. The injury to Reese Olson has given Melton a shot to stick in the Tigers' rotation, and I'm happy to take some gambles on him in deeper formats and use him as a streamer in shallow leagues.
Carson Whisenhunt - San Francisco Giants
With Landen Roupp managing an elbow injury and Hayden Birdsong sent to the minors, the Giants had two spots in the rotation open. The 24-year-old Whisenhunt got the first crack at one of those jobs with his MLB debut against the Pirates on Monday night. However, much like Troy Melton struggled in his debut against the Pirates, Whisenhunt did as well, allowing four earned runs on five hits in five innings. So was his debut as impressive under the hood as Melton's?
The short answer is no. We want to give rookies grace in their MLB debut because it's understandable that there are plenty of nerves at play, but a 47% zone rate and a 57.6% strike rate overall are not great from Whisenhunt. Considering he also didn't get many chases out of the zone, that led to just five whiffs and 16 called strikes.
What we know from Whisenhunt's prospect profile is that the changeup is his bread-and-butter pitch. Since he's a left-handed pitcher, we do love a great changeup. The pitch has almost 16 inches of horizontal break and 34 inches of vertical drop when you account for gravity. That means that the pitch will be more successful due to have much it runs away from right-handed hitters rather than dropping suddenly off the plate. However, it didn't really miss many bats in his debut, with just four whiffs overall and an 18.8% chase rate. Considering he also posted a slightly above-average 60% strike rate on it and allowed a home run on a poorly located changeup, it was a bit of a down performance for the changeup. I love that he has that in his bag, but the pitch didn't give me warm and fuzzy feelings of an elite offering on Monday.
Whisenhunt pairs his changeup with a sinker and a slider to round out a relatively shallow three-pitch mix.
The sinker has 17.2" of Induced Vertical Break (iVB) with 6.7 feet of extension, so we kind of like those specs. It makes his 92.4 mph velocity feel a bit closer to 93-94 mph, and he located it up in the zone well, which led to 14 called strikes. The pitch, which has over 10 inches of horizontal movement, pairs well with his changeup that has more run than drop; however, I don't love that he's using his sinker as a primary fastball to righties. He has no problem trying to jam them inside with it, but the sinker will run back over the plate, which is partially why he had just one whiff on it all game.
He rounds out his arsenal with an 81.1 mph slider that has just 0.6 inches of horizontal movement and 2.4 inches of drop, 45.1 inches when you account for gravity. However, his command of the pitch was all over the place on Monday, leaving some up and away from righties and bouncing others in the dirt. That leaves me with the impression that he might be more comfortable throwing that pitch to lefties and will be more of a sinker/changeup guy to right-handed hitters. Even if that change-up is good, I just don't see enough here to get me overly excited in fantasy leagues.
Pierson Ohl - Minnesota Twins
With Chris Paddack traded to the Tigers and David Festa landing on the IL, the Twins had a spot open in the rotation and opted to give Ohl an audition on Tuesday night. You're going to look at his box score and see four earned runs on five hits in three innings and think he's not worth your time, but there were some things I liked here.
We have to start with the changeup because that's Ohl's best pitch. Unlike my reaction to Carson Whisenhunt, when I saw Ohl's changeup, I sat up on the couch. He turns his wrist over on release, so the change tumbles out of the zone with nearly 14 inches of horizontal movement but also 37 inches of drop when you account for gravity. The metrics seem similar, but because of Ohl's release height difference, his changeup appears to drop more and also more suddenly, which is why he got seven whiffs and a 33.3% CSW on the pitch in his three innings of work.
He will throw it to both righties and lefties, and does a really good job of keeping it low in the zone (as you can see with the green dots below). In his start on Tuesday, he used the changeup as a two-strike swing-and-miss pitch, but he also used it as a strike pitch in 2-0 counts. I love the versatility that he has with that pitch and think it's a legit weapon. However, remember that we saw Gunnar Hoglund debut this year with a dope changeup and not much else, and that wound up not working out.
The pitch plot above highlights some of my concerns with Ohl's four-seamer. On one hand, 17.3 inches of iVB and a 0.8 Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle are pretty nice. However, he also gets nearly 10 inches of arm-side run on the pitch, so, at times, it looks like a sinker coming out of his hands. Perhaps there's a classification issue here, and Ohl threw more than three sinkers yesterday, but I didn't love the shape of his four-seamer, and the locations weren't great. A 65% zone rate is above average, but you see so many middle-middle fastballs when you look at the plot above, and then another few that missed way high. When you combine that with subpar 6.2 feet of extension and 92 mph velocity, I don't see this as a plus pitch.
Still, if he can keep it out of the middle of the strike zone, I think the attack angle on the pitch can keep it as a fine foundational fastball to help him get ahead. I do need to see how this four-seam/sinker combination plays out in subsequent starts because the fastball shape confuses me a bit here.
He rounds out the arsenal with a cutter and a curve. The cutter had some good moments on Tuesday, including striking out Alex Bregman. Ohl didn't throw a single one of his five cutters in the zone, which tells me that his primary goal for the pitch is to get chases. It did that a bit on Tuesday, and I think we should consider this pitch, with its 86 mph velocity, as more of a tight slider. I'd love to see him be able to dot some of these for strikes and then work off the plate for chases because I liked this pitch a little when I was watching the game.
Lastly, the curve is a bit of a get-me-over strike pitch, but it did register one chase outside of the zone. He seems more comfortable using it to lefties, which is fine because he prefers his cutter to righties, so this gives him three pitches for hitters of each handedness. I didn't love the curve, with 11.5 inches of drop (not including gravity) and 1.3 inches of horizontal break, but if he can locate it down in the zone against lefties, it could be useful as a strike pitch.
At the end of the day, Ohl intrigues me because his changeup is a legit pitch, and I see some potential in his cutter. This is a guy who posted a 2.17 ERA and 30% strikeout rate across Double-A and Triple-A this season. There is talent in his arm. I just think his best role might be as a multi-inning reliever where his limited pitch mix won't come back to bite him as much. With Pablo Lopez and David Festa both on the IL, Ohl could get another crack or two at the rotation, but I'd be cautious unless he was facing a left-handed heavy lineup.
