Mixing It Up: Bradley changes it up, Woo adds a pitch
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Welcome to Mixing It Up, a weekly column where I look at starting pitchers who are making noteworthy changes to their pitch mix or pitch shape/velocity. In this column, I'll break down three to five pitchers each week who have shown a change in their profile that has me intrigued. It won't always be a pitcher who requires an immediate add but could be somebody who has worked his way onto our fantasy baseball radars or a pitcher I think is set to begin a productive stretch. I'll always try to make sure we have enough of a sample size to work with and I'll be mixing in both shallow and deep league targets, so there should be a little something for everyone.
In the last few weeks we identified some positive changes in Luis Medina , Freddy Peralta , Cole Ragans , Brandon Williamson , and Chase Silseth before major breakouts so hopefully we can hit on a few more arms making intriguing changes.
With that said, let's dig in to this week's pitchers of note.
Taj Bradley and I have been linked in a few ways this season. He was my first big FAAB claim of the year in a lot of my NFBC leagues. I am often a little too passive in early waiver periods, and I wanted to change that this year, so I went hard (relatively speaking) after Bradley in a few leagues. My dad was also in Las Vegas for work after Bradley's second start, and I told him that it might make sense to place a modest wager on Bradley to win AL Rookie of the Year.
Needless to say, both of those have not panned out.
Despite early success, Bradley was sent back down to Triple-A to work on pitching on a five day schedule or some garbage to keep his innings in check. Since he's come back up, he's been just OK and has a season ERA of 5.42 despite a 3.56 xFIP and 3.66 SIERA. He also has a tremendous 11.97 K/9, which has equated to a 21.2% K-BB%. In many ways, Bradley has flashed elite ability, but the surface-level results haven't been there, which might actually drive his cost down next season.
However, he has made one noteworthy change since coming back from up a third stint in Triple-A just last week. Last Sunday he showed off a changeup that was down to 89 mph from 90 mph but also had five inches less arm-side run and roughly the same 10 inches of drop (according to the work done by Lance Brozdowski).
Now, the purpose of that appears to be to create better tunneling with his four-seam fastball. The straighter change-up will now, theoretically, look more like the four-seam out of the hand but then drop the ten inches to create swing-and-miss or soft contact. This is backed up by the fact that Bradley used the change-up the most of any of his pitches against right-handed hitters on Sunday. Considering Bradley has been slightly worse against right-handed hitters this season, that usage is important.
On Sunday, the change-up had a 33% whiff rate and 24% CSW, while allowing just a .167 batting average against. That increased reliance on the change-up meant that Bradley cut down on his cutter, which he had thrown 39% of the time to righties in his last MLB stint.
That's also good news because, on the season, the cutter has an 8.36 dERA (Defense Independent ERA) against righties but a 3.64 dERA against lefties. If Bradley can stick with a change-up and curve focused approach to righties, while mixing in his four-seam (which still needs some work) then he should be able to fix some of his platoon splits. That could go a long way towards helping him get closer to those xFIP and SIERA numbers.
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Another rookie tinkering with his arsenal as the season goes on is Bryan Woo. The right-hander started to use a cutter in June and has been consistently increasing its usage until it has now become as frequent an offering for him as the four-seam fastball he was using 50% of the time when he debuted.
Most notably, Woo's four-seam usage has been dropping consistently versus left-handed hitters in his last three starts. That's a change we can support since the four-seam has a 5.26 dERA against lefties but a 2.87 dERA against righties. The four-seam also has a 12.5% SwStr% against lefties while the cutter has a 15.9% SwStr%, so by going more cutter-heavy to lefties, Woo is actually able to reduce hard contact and miss more bats. That's a pretty compelling win-win.
Of course, the cutter has just a 4.50 dERA against lefties, so it's not as though it's a plus pitch yet, but I think there is a solid foundation to build on here. Especially since he continues to tweak the pitch to look for ways to improve it, including dialing down the velocity over two mph since July.
Considering the cutter has seen a precipitous drop in dERA and a rise in SwStr% with the lower velocity, this is another modification we can get behind.
As you can see from the chart above, Woo has also tinkered with his sinker, adding drop and taking away some velocity, and he's actually started throwing his sinker more to right-handed hitters instead of using his slider and four-seam. The changes have lead to a clear improvement in quality of contact and a reduction of his dERA from 4.45 in the first half of the season to 3.42 in the second half. However, his SwStr% has also dropped from 15.3% to 13.1%, so you're now getting slightly better ratios but a bit less swing-and-miss, which is a tradeoff that we can support since Woo has proven to be a high strikeout pitcher who just needs to get a better handle and how to consistently attack MLB hitters before he can get back to angling for the high strikeout totals.
Alec Marsh - Kansas City Royals
Let's throw in a pitcher for you deep league sickos out there. On the surface, there's not much to love about Alec Marsh's 6.23 ERA (4.62 SIERA) and 1.65 WHIP, but when I'm looking for pitchers who could become usable in deep leagues, I look for guys who have flashed a clear skill and just need to make a tweak to unlock another level of production. For Marsh, that skill is strikeouts.
In 52 MLB innings, Marsh has notched 60 strikeouts. He also posted an 11.4 K/9 in 15 innings in Triple-A and a 10.65 K/9 in 47.1 innings at Double-A this year. In his minor league career, he has 311 strikeouts in 245.1 innings, so he can definitely miss bats. The question for him is can he stop giving up home runs and free passes?
So, first, HOW does Marsh get his swings and misses? Well, primarily on his slider, which has a 21.1% SwStr% on the season, but here's the rub, Marsh also stopped throwing his slider.
In August, Marsh tweaked his slider to turn it into more of a sweeper. What had been an 87 mph pitch with 32.6 inches of drop and basically no horizontal movement became an 84.6 mph pitch with 40 inches of drop and 9.8 inches of break.
That version of the pitch also has a 15.2% SwStr%, which is promising, but also has a 40% barrel rate allowed through five starts and has allowed three home runs in just 109 pitches, which is not ideal. Marsh threw the sweeper just 10% of the time in his last outing; although, that one lasted just 2.2 innings against a left-handed heavy Boston lineup, so we don't want to read too much into that.
On August 27th, Marsh also added in a sinker. The pitch has 16.3 inches of arm-side run and Marsh has thrown 14-of-21 sinkers to right-handed hitters in two games while now using his four-seam fastball primarily against lefties. That might not be such a bad idea since his four-seam fastball has an 8.76 dERA against righties this year, but a 5.28 dERA against lefties. He has also allowed the most home runs off of his four-seam this year, so dialing back it's usage might help him keep the ball in the park.
If you squint hard enough, you can see a fantasy-friendly pitcher here. Marsh can stick with his four-seam/sinker combo as his fastball, but he needs to go back to his slider, which was his best pitch and was also effective versus lefties with a 2.75 dERA. He also needs to trust his curveball more against righties since he uses the pitch 22% of the time against lefties but just 10% of the time against righties despite it having a 1.33 dERA.
Those changes would give Marsh two solid breaking balls with a fastball for hitters of each handedness and then a show-me change-up as a fourth pitch. It's not a Cole Ragans breakout, but I do believe that makes Marsh a viable 15-team league starting pitcher option, so he's a pitcher I'll be keeping an eye on.
And with that ends the most words I ever thought I'd write about Alec Marsh .
