Casey Mize had seven huge league appearances beneath his belt when he was featured right here at FanGraphs in January 2021. He additionally had excessive expectations. Drafted first total by the Detroit Tigers out of Auburn College three years prior, the right-hander ranked thirty second when our 2021 High 100 Prospects listing was printed that February. Bullish on his skill, Eric Longenhagen projected Mize as a “no. 2 starter able to pitching on the prime of a contender’s rotation.”
Our lead prospect analyst’s evaluation got here with an “if he stays wholesome” caveat. Longenhagen wrote that he was “sufficiently fearful of Mize’s damage historical past… to slip him behind gamers of the same expertise.” These issues have sadly been validated. The 28-year-old hurler required Tommy John surgical procedure in June 2022, and he has additionally landed on the shelf with a handful of comparably gentle maladies.
His numbers replicate the time missed, and the affect that it has had on his profession. Coming into the present marketing campaign, Mize had thrown simply 291 innings as a Tiger, and his ledger included a lowly 9-19 won-lost file to go together with a 4.36 ERA — not precisely what was anticipated from a high-profile draft decide with a high-ceiling arm.
Tigers followers are lastly seeing the Casey Mize they’ve been craving for. On the heels of a extra middling return-from-surgery 2024 season, the resurgent righty has gone 12-4 with a 3.68 ERA and a 3.98 FIP over 22 begins comprising 117 1/2 innings. Pitching behind Cy Younger favourite Tarik Skubal, Mize has almost matched rotation mate Jack Flaherty within the WAR division, and in 4 fewer begins.
A go to to Driveline over the offseason has helped gas Mize’s success. Displeased with final yr’s efficiency — his 4.49 ERA and 17.3% strikeout charge stood out like sore thumbs — he traveled to the coaching facility simply 5 days after the season ended. What resulted have been tweaks to how he grips and releases the baseball.
“I flipped the seam orientation on my four-seamer, so it’s carrying just a little bit extra,” Mize defined. “I’m monitoring down with the seams as a substitute of up. That’s one thing they informed me I may gain advantage from. In addition they wished me so as to add a slider that really went left. So, I’m throwing a much bigger slider now. I don’t name it sweeper, as a result of it solely goes like eight inches to the left. It’s not getting the right seam orientation to maneuver greater than that, partly as a result of I’m throwing the patch of the ball.”
Requested if he meant that he’s spiking his pointer finger off of a seam, the righty answered within the affirmative.
“Yeah, with a child spike,” he informed me. “Once more, I can’t get the seam orientation proper to the place it’s tremendous seam-shift on the seam, however I’ll work on that sooner or later. It’s not what I used to be attempting to do, so I can positively maximize it extra. I get some good outcomes with it, although.”
The sweepier providing is an addition to Mize’s repertoire, versus a alternative. His Baseball Savant breakdown displays as a lot. Savant exhibits Mize having thrown a complete 466 sliders final yr (in addition to 15 pitches that have been categorized as slurves); this season, they’ve him throwing 266 sliders and 280 slurves.
His unique slider has a considerably totally different motion profile than it did a yr in the past.
“It was just a little gyro slider, and I’m nonetheless throwing it, however now that I’ve the one which goes left, [the gyro] has truly kicked up,” mentioned Mize. “Whereas up to now it was like zero and three — identical to an actual gyro — now it has just a little extra of a cutter attribute to it.”
Pitchers tweaking their repertoires at outdoors amenities over the offseason is frequent in as we speak’s recreation, and in Mize’s case it occurred though he’s in a company that excels at pitch growth. In keeping with the hurler, the Tigers had no subject together with his doing so.
“It was principally, ‘Right here is my plan,’” Mize informed me. “We have been involved about that. It was, ‘That is what they advocate; what do you guys suppose?’ The Tigers informed me what they thought and we took each ends of it. We labored collectively. I feel all people is on board with me getting higher.”
Mize has clearly been higher this season, however that doesn’t imply he sees himself as a completed product. Removed from. A working example is his acknowledged want so as to add extra horizontal to his slider/slurve. Exterior of that, what’s he most wanting to enhance going ahead?
“The horizontal [on the slider] might be the largest factor on the docket,” Mize mentioned to my query. “Ideally, I’d prefer to have higher sinker traits than what I’m presently doing. It’s not a sinker, it’s a two-seam fastball. It’s humorous to me that they wish to name each two-seam fastball a sinker, whereas we appear to have eight totally different names for sliders. However yeah, I’d like to chop just a little little bit of vert out of the two-seamer. I don’t wish to throw a two-seamer and lookup and see [positive] 15 vert. I wish to see 11. It’s a minuscule change, however I don’t wish to carry it close to what I’m carrying my four-seamer at. Having pitches that carry in a different way is an effective factor. That’s me nit-picking just a little bit, however each little bit [of improvement] helps.”