Let’s Get Excited About Spencer Strider’s Curveball

It’s nearly March! It’s time for the climate to really feel prefer it needs to be altering, just for it to not likely change for a pair extra weeks. It’s time for the very first baseball of the yr. It’s time for enormous overreactions to the tiniest pattern sizes conceivable. With that in thoughts, sound the alarm: Spencer Strider threw three curveballs! “What’s that,” you say? “Spencer Strider doesn’t throw a curveball,” you say? Welcome to 2024, my pal, the place something is feasible (apart from opaque pants, apparently).

Earlier this month, there was some confusion concerning the pitch, as Strider indicated that he was merely taking part in with the form of his slider. Nevertheless, since then, each he and Brian Snitker have confirmed that the pitch is a curveball. He’s thrown it in dwell batting follow and in Saturday’s spring coaching sport towards the Rays. It’s the second pitch within the video beneath:

Olson and Strider.

Good battle. pic.twitter.com/X5F0NXb0ue

— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) February 19, 2024

Within the press and on social media, essentially the most frequent response to this information has gone one thing like: Spencer Strider is possibly the very best pitcher in baseball with two pitches, so the league gained’t stand an opportunity if he finds a 3rd. Nevertheless, I needed to assume this via earlier than I signed on to that line of considering. Merely including a brand new pitch doesn’t essentially make a pitcher higher. Final yr, I broke down 25 pitchers who’d added a brand new cutter in 2023. I discovered that total, these pitchers carried out roughly the identical as they’d in 2022. Moreover, Strider’s four-seamer and slider are two of the nastiest pitches in all of baseball. The slider racked up 306 whiffs in 2023, essentially the most in baseball. The four-seamer racked up 285, second most in baseball. The 2 clearly play off one another properly already. Bettering on Strider’s present pitch combine is a particularly tall order.

However, each Strider’s ERA and FIP elevated by simply over a run in 2023, and his xERA and xFIP elevated by a greater than half a run. His velocity additionally ticked down some, and his groundball price fell from the thirty fourth to thirteenth percentile. Strider throws his four-seamer almost 60% of the time, and whereas it’s completely one of many sport’s finest, the league as a complete fared higher towards four-seamers in 2023. All of that is to say that there’s room for enchancment.

Let’s begin with the plain: We don’t know whether or not Strider will truly carry this pitch into the common season. If he does, we don’t know whether or not he’ll keep it up or whether or not he’ll use it typically sufficient to make any distinction. However the level of this text is to invest, so let’s discuss how Strider may use a curveball, and why a curveball may assist him.

How would Strider use a curveball? He’d undoubtedly use it towards lefties to assist mitigate his platoon splits. In truth, all three of his curveballs got here towards lefties on Saturday, and the video of a curveball from dwell batting follow additionally got here towards lefty Matt Olson. Strider used his changeup nearly solely towards lefties in 2023, throwing it 12.5% of the time. In truth, by each wOBA and Baseball Savant’s Run Worth, the changeup was Strider’s finest pitch towards lefties. That’s even if the changeup rated solely an 85 from Stuff+ and a 44 from PitchingBot. As Pitcher Record’s Nate Schwartz famous a couple of weeks in the past, by having a pitch that he might find low and away, Strider compelled lefties to fret about all quadrants of the strike zone. Even when it wasn’t the very best pitch on the planet by itself advantage, utilizing it as a change of tempo and a change of place from the fastball and slider made it work.

That’s not the rationale I need to speak concerning the changeup, although. Extra vital for our functions is the best way Strider’s pitch combine modified to accommodate it. That 12.5% got here completely out of the slider column. Even though he was utilizing three pitches as a substitute of two, his four-seamer price was truly greater to lefties than it was to righties. Additional, Strider nearly by no means threw the change when he was behind within the rely, basically turning again right into a two-pitch pitcher. I’ve to think about that truth made it into scouting reviews, and that batters who already had the benefit of being forward within the rely appreciated having the additional benefit of getting fewer pitches to be careful for. If Strider finally ends up trusting the curveball sufficient to make use of it rather less surgically, and if he permits it to take some stress off of the four-seamer, left-handed batters can have much more to fret about.

I’m additionally open to the likelihood {that a} curveball — no less than the one which we’ve seen Strider throw — might have a spot towards righties as properly. That has much less to do with Strider’s pitch combine and extra to do with its motion profile. Let’s begin right here. In 2023, curveballs from right-handed pitchers to left-handed hitters have been more practical than sliders. They earned fewer whiffs, however made up for it by inducing extra groundballs.

Inducing extra groundballs will surely assist Strider. The most important distinction between his 2022 and 2023 stats was he allowed extra house runs. A few of that was attributable to a HR/FB price that just about doubled, which often signifies unhealthy luck. Nevertheless, in line with Baseball Savant, Strider’s anticipated house runs went from 7.9 in to 22.5. It’s not simply that he was unfortunate. Strider’s groundball price fell by roughly six share factors, and his barrel price rose even if his hard-hit price fell barely.

Though Saturday’s sport not was not recorded by Statcast, skilled sensible pitching individual Lance Brozdowski revealed its motion profile: “The form averaged out to -9” vertical break with 14” sweep at 80 mph. It had extra sweep than the common right-handed curveball with comparable drop. It’s just like Jameson Taillon’s or Bryce Miller’s curveball, however extra sweep. Each these pitches are available round 110 FanGraphs Stuff+, so I’d count on it to be a notch greater.”

Strider’s changeup and slider don’t have elite stuff on their very own. They play properly off the four-seamer. In truth, from 2022 to 2023, PitchingBot noticed the slider drop from 58 to 51, and Stuff+ noticed it drop from 115 to 105. The curveball may properly be an enchancment by way of total stuff. Now, let’s plop that onto a chart of Strider’s pitch motion from final yr, as a result of it seems to be just like the curve might open up every kind of prospects:

I’m positive you already know that along with blistering pace, Strider’s four-seamer has elite rise. What you may not have realized is that his changeup was additionally among the many league leaders in rise, and that even his slider averaged 1.3 inches of rise. By way of motion, there’s not a lot distinction between his four-seamer and his changeup, which helps to clarify why he doesn’t lean on the changeup very a lot.

And 4-seam fastballs, even those that rack up a lot of whiffs at and above the highest of the zone, have a weak level: house runs. When pitchers elevate the ball, hitters have an opportunity to do the identical. Not solely does that pink dot have extra sweep than Strider’s slider, it will be the one pitch he throws with an induced vertical break that doesn’t have a minus check in entrance of it. You already know all these hitters who put together to face Strider’s gravity-defying fastball by training swinging above the place their eyes are telling them that pitch will are available? Rapidly, they’d should ponder the likelihood that his pitches might actually and actually fall off the desk. Even when the curve isn’t as efficient towards right-handers, it looks like having to fret about that might completely profit Strider’s different choices. Something that retains them from getting on high of his four-seamer and slider could be a win.

As soon as once more, all of that is speculative. We don’t know whether or not Strider will keep on with the curveball. We don’t know whether or not the form we’ve seen up to now will maintain. Possibly he’ll come out and throw a splitter or a sinker in his subsequent begin. For now, although, simply the concept Spencer Strider is tinkering with a curveball and managed to throw one a couple of occasions actually is purpose sufficient to get excited.

Many due to our personal skilled sensible pitching individual, Kyle Kishimoto, who made this text significantly better.