Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Three)

April 19, 2023

Eric Samulski evaluates SPs who have developed new pitches for 2023 for Part Three of his FSWA-award-winning series. Will these starting pitchers be fantasy baseball breakouts?

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement to what a pitcher already has.

So instead of just celebrating that some pitchers are throwing new pitches, I watched the pitch in action, checked in on its performance, and looked at the Statcast Spin Direction graphics to see if it might actually make the pitcher any more effective. From there, I will try to give you a simple verdict as to whether or not we should care about this new toy or not.

This is one of my favorite things to write, so I hope that you enjoy it. You can keep track of all of the pitchers I've been tracking and my evaluations here. It's important to note that this is the first time many of these pitchers have thrown these new pitches in a meaningful game, so the overall quality and consistency may get better over time. I've tried to take that into account in my analysis. We should also note (for the purposes of this article) that I will be including pitchers that have reworked or revamped a pitch to make it "new" even if it was technically a pitch they already threw.

Joe Ryan - Splitfinger (Split-change)

Despite a successful 2022 season that saw him pitch to a 3.55 ERA and 1.10 WHIP, Joe Ryan drastically re-made his repertoire in the offseason. He ditched his curveball, went from a change-up to a split-change, and leaned into a sweeper that he introduced late in the 2022 season.

Ryan introduced the sweeper on September 13th of last year and threw it 15.1% of the time during the last month, replacing his slider. Heading into this season, Ryan's sweeper added three inches of horizontal movement but has yet to see that translate to any increased swing-and-miss. The sweeper has just a 9.8% SwStr% but actually has a 36.4% whiff per swing, which means Ryan isn't getting enough chases on it right now. That's in large part due to the fact that it has just a 29.3% zone rate, which means Ryan hasn't shown that he can command it for strikes enough to force swings and misses.

Still, the pitch has a -0.10 dERA and has yet to allow a hit in 52 pitches thrown (44 to righties), so it remains a strong pitch for Ryan.

The new splitter has also been a good addition. The pitch has yet to allow a hit and has a .148 xBA and .201 xSLG. Despite being introduced to replace his change-up, the splitter actually has a 20% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and 33% CSW. It also has a -16.2 launch angle allowed, which means hitters are just chopping it into the ground.

Since the splitter has 10 inches more vertical drop than the change-up did, the decision to go with a four-seam and splitter pairing has also allowed the four-seam to play up. You can see from the image below that the four-seam and splitter approach the batter from a similar release point, but the splitter has a deviation of -60 on the clock below, while the fastball has no deviation.

This creates deception and since Ryan is still using his four-seam as his primary out pitch, throwing it 56.3% of the time in two-strike counts, hitters having to adjust for the splitter has meant more swinging strikes on a fastball that is now up to 20% SwStr% from 13.8% last year. That means the splitter is not only a good pitch on its own but is allowing other parts of Ryan's arsenal to be better.

VERDICT: MEANINGFULLY IMPACTFUL

The splitter has already succeeded in limiting hard contact and allowing the four-seam to play up as more of a swing-and-miss pitch. I also think there is room for growth if he wants to use the splitter more in two-strike counts given its 20% SwStr%. If he can also find better command of his sweeper, then Ryan could see even better results.

Logan Gilbert - Re-vamped Slider and new splitfinger

Logan Gilbert followed up his strong 2021 debut with a sophomore season that saw him pitch to a 3.20 ERA and 1.18 WHIP; however, the strikeouts took a step back. The right-hander posted a 22.7% strikeout rate and 16.3% K-BB in large part due to inconsistent secondary pitches, so he set out this offseason to try and modify his rotation to add more swing-and-miss to his game.

The splitter Gilbert describes above has allowed no hits so far in 2023 with a 0.44 xBA and .052 SLG with a 31.6% whiff rate and 20.7% SwStr%. However, he is just throwing it 11.2% of the time so far and, perhaps more interestingly, has gotten zero called strikes on it. Through three starts, the splitter has a 41.4% zone rate and a 65.5% swing rate, which means that when he does put it in the zone, he's allowing a fair amount of contact. It just hasn't been meaningful contact so far.

Yet, another benefit of the splitter is that it should allow the fastball to play up, much like Joe Ryan. Gilbert now has 12.5 inches of drop difference between the splitter and his four-seam, but he hasn't gotten the swing-and-miss gains with his fastball that Ryan has. So far in 2023, the fastball has seen no uptick in whiff rate and is allowing a .360 average (just a .238 xBA) while posting a 6.59 dERA. Perhaps that's because he has yet to show that he can throw the splitter consistently in the zone for strikes or it might have to do with the fact that the four-seam is down to 94.3 mph from 96.1 mph last year. 

The new slider is 1.5 mph harder this year with three inches more vertical drop but has less horizontal movement. That basically makes the slider more akin to a gyro slider and not the sweeper that has become popular around the league.

Gilbert has just a 12.5% SwStr% on the slider, which is almost 4% below the league average on sliders. However, he also has a -15.1-degree launch angle allowed on the slider and a 2.23 dERA, which means the hard-biting gyro spin is inducing lots of groundballs, which is helping his ratios early in the season.

VERDICT: MODERATELY IMPACTFUL

In 2023, Gilbert is missing slightly more at-bats with a 13.1% SwStr% up from 12.2% in 2022; however, that improvement doesn't really move the needle. The biggest impact has been in terms of the quality of contact allowed. The four-seam is still a bit of a concern with Gilbert, but this new arsenal could give him multiple other pitches he can use to throw strikes and get outs, even if he's not making major strikeout gains. He just needs to get more consistent with them.

Another thing to keep an eye on with Gilbert is that his curveball has more than doubled its SwStr% from last year, but he's not really using it with two strikes, throwing it just 14.6% of the time. Perhaps there is some strikeout growth to be had if Gilbert leans into the curve usage a bit more as a putaway pitch.

Johan Oviedo - Re-vamped Slider and Curve

While Joe Ryan and Logan Gilbert are rostered in most leagues, Johan Oviedo is likely not, but his last two outings have certainly caught my eye and are worth examining.

The biggest thing that stands out when you watch Oviedo is the swings and misses he gets on his slider. The pitch averaged 86 mph last year, with just six inches of horizontal movement and 35.6 inches of drop. This year it’s averaging 89 mph, with five inches of sweep and 30 inches of drop, so it's more of a cutter than the slider he was throwing last year.

The differences in the pitch have led to small gains in performance as well. He has a 20.6% SwStr% on the slider in 2023 after posting a 19% mark last year and a 36.8% whiff/swing after posting a 33.8% whiff/swing last year. Those are not major gains, but they are gains. While he's allowed a .273 batting average on the slider this year, his .191 xBA is similar to the .179 xBA from last year, so the pitch itself continues to be his strongest pitch with slight improvements from last year.

The true difference has been in his usage. Oviedo has continued to lean on the slider but has also upped the usage of his curve way more and dialed back the usage of the fastball.

That's a smart decision since the fastball has been a pretty bad pitch for Oviedo over the years. Even this year, it has just an 11.3% SwStr%, an 18.2% barrel rate, and a .688 slugging percentage allowed.

The curve is also slightly different for Oviedo this year, coming in two mph faster, but with less vertical and horizontal movement. While it would seem to be odd to throw a breaking ball with more velocity and less movement, the new curve appears to have more bite while last year's curve appeared to be a bit loopier with more movement and less velocity.

As a result, although it's not a drastically different pitch, the curve this year has a .056 BAA (.122 xBA), .111 SLG (.152 xSLG), with a 19.4% SwStr% that is drastically better than the 8.6% mark he had in 2022. That's a substantial difference and Oviedo has responded by not only throwing the pitch more but throwing it with two strikes 24.4% of the time.

VERDICT: MARGINALLY IMPACTFUL. 

The slider is not a substantially different pitch, despite its new shape/velocity, but it's been performing better and the changes to the curve have been impactful early in the season. The biggest impact has just been that Oviedo has dialed back on the four-seam to rely more on his breaking pitches, throwing the slider/curve 61.2% of the time overall and 77.7% of the time with two strikes.

Oviedo is still a bad fastball pitcher, but the changes to his breaking pitches make him more interesting. I think he likely settles in as a streamer, but the poor fastball and the lack of clear improvement in results against the slider have me thinking that some of these early results are a bit of a mirage. However, even just emerging as a streaming option is a big improvement for Oviedo.

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