Entering 2025, the AL East boasts some of the strongest pitching in MLB. The Yankees, coming off an American League pennant, added Max Fried and Devin Williams to an already intimidating staff. The Rays have a (mostly) healthy rotation full of extremely talented arms, the Red Sox add Walker Buehler and a healthy Lucas Giolito to their rotation, and even the Blue Jays have a sneaky good rotation with some promising bullpen arms.
Within this season of pitching success in the AL East, a few arms still struggled to continue some form of past success. Even if that success was not in the year prior, these pitchers still have high-potential talent, and with a few changes, could see their success return in 2025.
Three pitchers like this are Brayan Bello, Mark Leiter Jr., and Trevor Rogers. This article will take a look at their 2024 season, compare it to their past performance in major or minor league baseball, and see what changes they could make to return to form.
Brayan Bello had a decent 2024 season, posting a 4.49 ERA/4.19 FIP over 30 starts and 162.1 innings. After signing a 6-year, $55 million extension prior to the season, Bello was expected to take a step forward after a solid 2023 season as the Red Sox’s most valuable starter.
Unfortunately, Bello stayed about the same, improving some of his peripherals but declining in others. While Bello has yet to have a clear “best season” in the majors, there are bits and pieces of his 2022 and 2023 campaigns that would make him effective if they were to develop further.
This is not to say Bello had nothing to show for his 2024 season. He made crucial adjustments to his arsenal, reducing his usage of his below-average four-seam fastball from 21% to 5% and incorporating more sliders, which I believe are his best pitches.
This likely led to his uptick in strikeouts, as his career-best 21.8% strikeout rate showed. It also led to an uptick in walks, which were not a problem in 2023, and his formerly elite 56.3% ground-ball rate regressing to a still very solid 51.3%.
Bello still allows far too many home runs, but his batted balls did not induce the results a groundball pitcher would want. Since his average EV allowed was solid, some could be attributed to the Red Sox infield defense.
Red Sox infield defense ranked 29th out of 30 teams in 2024, and while no additions have been made yet, they have been linked to defensive wizards Alex Bregman and Nolan Arenado throughout the offseason. In addition, frequent shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela, who generated a -2 DRS and -7 OAA at shortstop in 2024, is expected to stick to the outfield full-time in 2025.
This is to say Red Sox fans should be optimistic about Bello in 2025. While a new addition to his arsenal could help, and a new infielder with some more defensive upside would be nice, Bello is still just 25 years old, and could certainly see some better results in 2025 alongside a solid Red Sox team.
Mark Leiter Jr., acquired by the Yankees in a mid-season trade with the Cubs, struggled after donning the Yankee pinstripes. While his ERA was mostly unchanged, his FIP nearly tripled, jumping from 2.12 in 36.1 innings with the Cubs to 5.24 in 21.2 innings with the Yankees.
A reliever’s ERA is always going to be volatile, but his laughably high 2.5 home-runs-per-nine with the Yankees certainly justified such a bump in FIP. His 11.6 hits-per-nine with the Yankees was also nearly double his hits-per-nine with the Cubs (6.7).
Once joining the Yankees, Leiter Jr. bumped up his curveball and splitter usage, his highest grading pitches by Stuff+, while dropping his sinker and cutter usage. While the Yankees are often smart with their pitch usage, it certainly wasn’t working in Leiter Jr.’s regular season sample with the club.
Still, there are upsides to Leiter Jr.’s game. His remarkable consistency from 2022-2023 was one of the biggest factors in his acquisition, and while his small sample with the Yankees was concerning, there are some positives from his 2024 season as a whole.
Leiter Jr.’s strikeout rate jumped from 28.6% to 33.6%, while his walk rate remained unchanged. He still generated ground balls, decent exit velocities, and a career-best 3.44 xERA.
Overall, there’s no one fix to point at for Leiter Jr.’s game. Sure, his elite splitter should be thrown more, and his mediocre sinker should see less usage, but a lot of this comes down to reliever volatility. Relievers seeing smaller samples means any number of small things could leave a huge dent in his season stats, which is why Leiter Jr. was included on the Yankees playoff roster and even saw high-leverage innings.
In all likelihood, Leiter Jr. will start the season in middle relief behind the Yankees’ elite back end of relievers in Luke Weaver and Devin Williams. Still, keep an eye on Leiter Jr. to see some important innings down the stretch, and hopefully re-establish himself as one of the more underrated relievers in baseball.
Trevor Rogers, also acquired in a mid-season trade, made just four starts after joining the Orioles at the trade deadline. These four starts were notably worse than his 21 starts with the Marlins, where he posted a 4.53 ERA/4.43 FIP, leading to his demotion to AAA less than a month after his acquisition.
This trade, sending Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby to Miami, gained infamy as a major overpay. Still, there’s much more to consider over the next few years before this becomes true.
For starters, Rogers is just 27. Even after missing time over the past few years, performing mediocrely when healthy, and losing a spot in the Orioles’ already weak rotation, many are writing Rogers off – this shouldn’t be the case.
As a 23-year-old in 2021, Rogers finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, posting a 2.64 ERA/2.55 FIP over 25 starts and 133 innings. 2024 was his first mostly healthy season since, aside from a disastrous 2022 season plagued by minor injuries, and the results were not pretty.
There are not many underlying metrics to be optimistic about, either. Rogers had a well-below-average strikeout-minus-walk rate (7.3%), swinging-strike rate (9.7%), and 90.7 average EV, all career worsts.
A lot of this can be derived from his stuff declining – his velocity and stuff were down across the board, and even his formerly elite command dropped closer to league average. Fortunately, Rogers has reportedly made many changes to his offseason approach.
Rogers looked to rebuild his velocity, develop some new pitches for his arsenal, and improve his health for a full season after an offseason of training at Driveline Baseball. While these changes are quite optimistic, if Rogers’ arm talent is still there, he’s as capable as anybody to implement these changes effectively.
There may be holes in the Orioles’ rotation, but I would be surprised to see Rogers start the season there. A strong spring training could snag him a bullpen spot, and if his health does not become a problem, Rogers could be in store for some real progress toward returning to form in 2025.