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Welcome back, RotoBallers, to my weekly "Starting Pitcher Arsenal Changes" article series for Week 12 of the 2024 fantasy baseball season. Today's article will discuss Chris Sale and Taj Bradley. For those new to this column, each week we cover a few starting pitchers and their arsenal changes via pitch mix, velocity, and movement. We're at a point where the pitch movement, arsenal, and velocity should tell us a story with several starts under their belts. With more injuries likely coming soon, we'll want to continue identifying streaming pitcher skills or struggling pitchers with underlying metrics suggesting better results coming soon.
After examining the changes for these starting pitchers in the early parts of the 2024 season, we'll summarize whether we should act or be patient with the data. We're over two months into the season with a decent sample size of starts in 2024, and we'll compare the current and past information. This one is a bit beefier than usual and for a good reason.
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Chris Sale is Relying More on the Sliders
In Sale's most recent outing, he threw the slider 50 percent of the time, translating to a 29.4 percent swinging strike rate against the Nationals on June 7. During the season, Sale threw the slider 39.5 percent of the time, with the highest usage over 50 percent since April 2024 (51.6 percent). The slider is his main offering, but it's rare to see him use it over 50 percent of the time.
Sale threw his slider 45 percent of the time or higher in five of his 12 starts. He has been tossing his breaking ball at a career-high rate, with the previous high in 2023 at 37.5 percent. That's positive since his slider elicits a silly 21.8 percent swinging strike rate, five percentage points above his career average. Sale's slider possesses tons of vertical movement, with 10-11 inches of arm-side sweep. In the past, his slider dropped significantly but had more horizontal movement.
That means his slider went from an elite breaking ball to a near-elite one as he pitches in his 14th season. Thankfully, Sale's slider hasn't shown signs of concern yet, as it dominates right-handed hitters (.205 wOBA) and lefties (.117 wOBA). The only other starting pitchers with over 200 sliders thrown to right-handed hitters allowing a lower wOBA include Brady Singer, Jon Gray, Graham Ashcraft, and Luis Castillo. Meanwhile, Sale has the lowest wOBA allowed on sliders to left-handed hitters with a minimum of 100 pitches thrown to lefties.
To further support the dominance, Sale's slider ranks seventh best in swinging strike rate among starting pitchers with 200 sliders thrown. The only other starting pitchers with a slider eliciting a swinging strike rate above 20 percent include Corbin Burnes, Reynaldo Lopez, Jesus Luzardo, Dylan Cease, Jared Jones, Tyler Glasnow, Castillo, Andrew Heaney, Jack Flaherty, and Joe Ross.
Sale's Changeup is Dropping More
In 2024, Sale's changeup has dropped the most since 2018 and 2019. His offspeed pitch gives him another offering besides the slider to keep right-handed hitters off balance. The changeup is his best pitch from a wOBA standpoint, given the .182 wOBA allowed to right-handed hitters. Interestingly, the results look better than in recent seasons, yet it only generates a 12.9 percent swinging strike rate.
Like the slider, his changeup movement profile shifted slightly from past seasons. Though Sale's changeup is dropping at one of the highest rates in his career, it's a career-low in arm-side movement. Typically, pitches tend to generate weaker contact when they possess more horizontal movement. Regardless, hitters have been struggling against the changeup. That could indicate Sale commands the pitch well, as he locates it down and away from right-handed hitters, making it a challenging pitch to crush.
Sale locates his changeup over 52 percent of the time down and away to right-handed hitters. That's in Zone 9 and 14 to right-handed hitters, which results in a combined .143 wOBA. Since teams typically stack right-handed hitters against left-handed starting pitchers, Sale's slider and changeup continue to elicit whiffs and allow weak contact.
Summary
Some might consider selling Sale given his injury track record in recent seasons. The last time Sale threw over 140 innings came back in 2019. Sale has elite control, evidenced by his 30.4 percent ball rate in 2024. That's paired with one of his best swinging strike rates, indicating he's showing peak-level skills in his 14th season. Though the slider and changeup movement profiles changed slightly, we don't see many red flags in Sale's arsenal and stuff. We want to avoid giving up a pitcher like Sale, who provides near-elite levels of fantasy juice on a per-inning basis, so ride the wave because it looks like a legitimate bounce-back season for him.
Taj Bradley's Elite Four-Seamer IVB, But the Results Have Been Terrible
Against the Orioles, Bradley's four-seamer elicited 10 whiffs for an 18.9 percent swinging strike rate. That's over six percentage points higher than his season-long average (12.8 percent) in 2024. It's the second time in Bradley's career that he had 10 whiffs via the four-seamer, with the last occurrence on June 15, 2023.
While induced vertical break, or IVB, isn't everything for four-seamers, it matters when considering the fastball's ability to generate whiffs and weak contact. Bradley boasts 18.5 inches of IVB on his four-seamer, similar to 2023 (19.2). His release points haven't changed much, aligning with the stability in the four-seamer IVB. Though the four-seamer sits slightly above the league average in the four-seamer swinging strike rate, hitters destroy the heater.
The right-handed hitter's results against the four-seamer look worse, with a .448 wOBA compared to .418 in 2023. Unfortunately, it's even worse against left-handed hitters, evidenced by the .442 wOBA (2024) skyrocketing from a .356 wOBA (2023). Part of the problem involves home runs, as Bradley's four-seamer allows a 27.8 percent home run per fly-ball rate (HR/F), over eight percentage points above 2023 (19.4 percent). Besides the HR/F, Bradley's four-seamer has a .357 BABIP in 2024 with a career average of .319, aligning with the brutal fastball results.
Theoretically, Bradley may want to throw his four-seamer fewer times regardless of the elite levels of IVB. That's odd because it's a flatter four-seamer with a vertical approach angle (VAA) of -4.2 degrees. The other factor to consider involves the four-seamer lacking arm-side movement with about 2.5 fewer inches of horizontal movement. That hints at Bradley's four-seamer being straighter, meaning hitters can square up the ball more often.
When we see quality numbers in IVB and VAA on a four-seamer, it's likely poor luck or location issues. Bradley throws the four-seamer in the upper third of the zone 14.8 percent of the time, up over one point compared to 2023 (13.2 percent). However, the results exploded with a .428 wOBA (2024) compared to .216 (2023) when locating the four-seamer in the upper third.
When comparing 2023 and 2024, left-handed hitters have been smashing the four-seamer, especially high and tight, when located on the inside of the plate. In 2024, Bradley's four-seamer allows a .517 wOBA when he throws the heater high and inside to left-handed hitters compared to a .074 wOBA in 2023.
That's unusual because the league averages a .300 wOBA and 2.7 percent barrels per plate appearance for left-handed hitters facing four-seamers high and inside. Typically, the left-handed hitting sweet spot has been low and inside, evidenced by a .427 wOBA and 4.8 percent barrels per plate appearance against four-seam fastballs for leaguewide hitters.
More Cutters and Splitters, Please
Bradley's best pitch against right-handed hitters involves the cutter, with a .068 wOBA in 2024 compared to a .440 wOBA in 2023. The cutter lost vertical movement but added over two inches of horizontal break. It's been one of his best pitches for swings and misses, evidenced by the 17.1 percent swinging strike rate.
Last season, Bradley's cutter filled the zone 53.6 percent of the time, and hitters crushed the pitch. However, Bradley lowered the zone rate on the cutter to 47.9 percent, leading to a lower zone contact rate from 81.7 percent (2023) to 71.1 percent (2024) and eliciting more whiffs. After seeing those numbers, Bradley likely locates the cutter better than in 2023.
Bradley's cutter acts like a harder-thrown slider, commanding it down and away from right-handed hitters. Interestingly, Bradley's cutter allows a .278 wOBA down and outside to righties in 2023 compared to a .694 wOBA in 2024, as he throws it over 18 percentage points more often in that location. Bradley might be too predictable for opposing hitters, leading to poorer results.
Against left-handed hitters, Bradley's splitter performs the best, evidenced by the .216 wOBA, similar to his .204 wOBA in 2023. He bumped up the splitter usage by eight percentage points compared to last season against lefties, showing an attempt to use his best pitch more often.
From a movement standpoint, the splitter isn't anything special. However, his splitter dropped over three inches more in 2024. Interestingly, the splitter's swinging strike rate declined from 19.9 percent (2023) to 14.3 percent (2024) while adding vertical movement.
Contrary to the cutter, Bradley fills the zone with the splitter. His splitter zone rate of 55.6 percent jumped by nearly nine percentage points. That's unusual because splitters typically don't exist much in the zone, evidenced by the league average splitter zone rate of 36.5 percent. Based on the splitter locations above, it seems like a concerted effort to command the pitch better lower in the zone compared to 2023.
Summary
Bradley's actual results compared to his expected ERA suggest better outcomes, though the strand and home-run rates haven't been in his favor. The skills and stuff for Bradley keep sucking us in, but he might be one to bench and hold instead of stream in deeper formats. Bradley's four-seamer possesses above-average to near-elite levels of IVB and VAA, meaning it should perform better moving forward. Since he made a couple of changes in pitch location for the cutter and splitter, it hints at him making adjustments to the arsenal. Buy low and stash where you can on Bradley because of the above-average pitching metrics.
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