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Corbin examines two fantasy baseball pitcher risers and sleepers displaying changes in their pitch mix, movement, and velocity heading into Week 20 (2024).
Welcome back, RotoBallers, to my weekly "Starting Pitcher Arsenal Changes" article series for Week 20 of the 2024 fantasy baseball season. Today's article will discuss Blake Snell and Edward Cabrera. 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.
We have two months left in the fantasy baseball season, causing fantasy managers to make crucial decisions for the final stretch. Pitchers can make notable changes in smaller samples, so let's see if we can find something with these two starting pitchers finding success and understand why. Let's look through my process of examining starting pitchers and their arsenals.
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Blake Snell is Throwing More Curveballs to Right-Handed Hitters
Blake Snell's strikeout skills have been off the charts again, with a 15.7% swinging strike rate. He has been dominant since July with an ERA under 1.00 and a ridiculous 18% swinging strike rate. From a pitch mix standpoint, Snell throws more curveballs to right-handed hitters. He bumped the curveball usage to 26.9%, the most since 2019 (26.1%).
Snell increased the curveball usage versus right-handed hitters, with dominant results, evidenced by his .165 wOBA. The curveball has been a legitimately deadly pitch, with a .180 xwOBA and 22.5% swinging strike rate versus opposite-handed hitters. That aligns with his season-long swinging-strike rate via the curveball at 22.7%, leading his arsenal.
His curveball movement profile hasn't shifted much from previous seasons, with elite glove-side movement, making it a difficult pitch for hitters to square up. We might hypothesize a location change for the curveball as Snell peppers the breaker down and below the zone. That's evident in Snell's curveball zone rate of 33.5% in 2024, similar to his career average, with some fluctuations in 2023 (27%), 2022 (36.4%), and 2021 (29.4%).
From 2022-2023, Snell threw his curveball down and inside below the zone to right-handed hitters 46% of the time in Zone 13. However, in 2024, Snell has been pounding the deuce in Zone 13 over six percentage points more often. Unsurprisingly, the results in Zone 13 in 2024 versus right-handed hitters have been dominant (.139 wOBA), similar to the results in 2022 and 2023 combined with a .100 wOBA. It looks like a concerted effort to pound right-handed hitters down and inside, making it an elite pitch for whiffs and weak contact.
Snell Lowered the Four-Seam Usage Against Lefties
Snell typically pumped four-seamers to left-handed hitters over 51% of the time in 2021 and 2022. However, he lowered the four-seam usage to 46.4% in 2023, close to his 2024 numbers (48%). Since 2019, Snell's four-seam performed the worst against lefties (.454 wOBA), similar to 2020 (.404 wOBA) and 2019 (.411 wOBA).
The movement profile on the four-seam hasn't changed much, with near-elite induced vertical break (IVB) and the second-highest swinging strike rate in his career at 10.7%. The previous high in the four-seam swinging-strike rate came in 2019 (12.8%) compared to a career average of 8.4%. We can't blame the luck factors for the struggles because Snell's four-seam allows a .250 BABIP (2024) compared to a .314 wOBA in 2023 and a .356 BABIP in 2022. Given the high IVB, Snell's four-seamer should continue eliciting whiffs while eventually avoiding hard contact.
Summary
Snell struggled before hitting the injured list in June. However, he turned things around, with a 0.75 ERA (2.68 xERA, 18.8% SwK%) in July and a zero ERA (3.39 xERA, 18% SwK%) in his August no-hitter. The pitch mix change and curveball location adjustment have contributed to his success in the second half of the season. Snell's curve is nasty, contributing to the boost in strikeout skills. It's positive to see Snell tweak his arsenal and unlock his strikeout upside while coinciding with his success after struggling at times.
Edward Cabrera Increases the Changeup to Both Sides of the Plate
The changeup has been Cabrera's money-maker, with a 17% swinging strike rate in 2024. He bumped up his changeup usage a few percentage points to right-handed hitters (32.7%), with a near six-point increase to left-handed hitters (39.2%).
The results improved in 2024 versus left-handed hitters, with a .303 wOBA. However, the xwOBA hasn't shifted much from previous seasons, with a .296 xwOBA in 2024 and a .289 xwOBA in 2023. That likely suggests his changeup's expected wOBA would indicate Cabrera's skill and effectiveness since it's a solid offering.
Cabrera's changeup is unique since it doesn't possess above-average downward movement but generates arm-side movement. With his changeup movement profile, he locates it down and away from left-handed hitters.
Cabrera's release point on the changeup changed, with a lower vertical release and a horizontal release point closer to the midline of his body. With the arm slot change, it's surprising that the movement profile remains similar to previous seasons. Cabrera's vertical release dropped over one inch, with a difference of more than two inches horizontally.
Having a lower release point, with a horizontal release closer to the midline of the body, would theoretically lead to fewer inches of horizontal movement. However, Cabrera's pitch movement profiles haven't shifted more than an inch. That might help Cabrera command his pitches better, though he still struggles with control.
Cabrera's Curveball Lost Its Effectiveness Against LHH
Cabrera's curveball has been his second-best pitch from a whiff standpoint. That's evident in his curveball, which generates a 15.6% swinging strike rate. Cabrera mixes in the curveball 25.9% of the time against left-handed hitters while losing its effectiveness. The curveball allows a .335 wOBA against lefties in 2024 compared to a .297 wOBA in 2023 and a .141 wOBA in 2022.
Unsurprisingly, Cabrera's curveball swinging strike rate fell to 12.8% (2024) from 15.4% (2023) and 17.3% (2022). We've seen Cabrera's curveball lose nearly two inches of downward movement in 2024 while seeing a decrease in horizontal sweep of about one inch. Though the curveball's overall swinging strike rate hasn't shifted much from previous seasons, there's a chance the 2024 results versus lefties might be fluky.
However, pitches tend to generate whiffs at a higher rate when possessing more downward movement, like his curveball lost in 2024. As we observed earlier with the release point changes, Cabrera most notably shifted his horizontal release closer toward the midline of his body.
One might speculate on curveball location issues if some results changed, especially against left-handed hitters. In 2024, Cabrera has thrown his curveball over 29% of the zone, down and inside to left-handed hitters, translating to a .240 wOBA. That's a seven percentage point increase in Zone 14 (down and inside to lefties) compared to 2023, with a ridiculous .046 wOBA. Since Cabrera struggles with command and control, his curveball location could fluctuate while dealing with smaller samples due to injuries.
Summary
We've seen flashes of Cabrera's upside recently, but the season-long numbers hint at regression in his favor soon. That's evident in his xERA (3.73) being over two runs lower than his actual. It's positive to see Cabrera increase his changeup usage since it's his best pitch. However, we'll want to keep tabs on Cabrera's release point changes because there's a chance it's helping with command and staying healthy. It might eventually lead to movement profile changes, but not in 2024. Regardless, we know it will be a bumpy ride with Cabrera since the control and command challenges will impact the consistency until we see more of a track record, but there's no denying the upside with his stuff.
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