Now that Spring Training is underway, everyone focuses on the changes that are happening right now. We are eager for news about new pitches, who’s in the “best shape of their life,” and who is fully healthy. Though we might have internalized a lot of performances from the past year, it’s important to look back at some changes that occurred down the stretch of 2024.
Three pitchers flashed changes midseason that changed their outlook for 2025: Ryan Pepiot, Bryan Woo, and Logan Gilbert. This group of young pitchers raised their ceiling by moving away from their fastballs, showing they have a wide arsenal of weapons. These performances in 2024 demonstrated improved usage for each pitcher, and 2025 can reinforce those skills.
ADP: 28, SP #5
Logan Gilbert is highly valued coming into this draft season after an exceptional 2024. A 3.23 ERA and 27% strikeout rate across 208 innings last season is about as much as you can ask from a top-end starting pitcher. Though SP #5 is an aggressive place for Gilbert, his arsenal and volume warrant the high price. Gilbert only got better as the season went on, and if we see him pick up where he left off, we’re looking at a bonafide ace.
Not only were there usage changes in 2024, but Gilbert upped his velocity by two mph by the end of the year. This was most notable for his fastball, which went from 95.6 mph to 97.7 mph, catapulting the pitch from a 91 Stuff+ to a 104 Stuff+. However, the increased fastball velocity came with a decrease in usage, as it was dethroned as his primary pitch. Gilbert turned to his slider 33.7% of the time in the 2nd half and had a whopping 39.2% CSW, second to only Chris Sale’s slider.
Even though Stuff+ doesn’t love the pitch (99 Stuff+), PLV adores it (5.84, 98th percentile). The strikeouts poured in as he increasingly turned to the slider throughout the year.
Even though his second-half ERA ballooned (2.79 vs. 4.01), the ERA estimators all improved (3.38 FIP to 3.07 FIP and 3.49 xFIP to 2.45 xFIP). Gilbert shelved the cutter in the second half for mainly curveball usage, which helped prevent hard contact. Curveballs with low usage, such as Gilbert’s, are often used for chasing whiffs in favorable counts or stealing early called strikes, but he used it for both. Despite an above-average swing rate, the curveball had a .216 xSLG and 37.7% whiff rate in the second half. Hitters were trying to attack the pitch and struggling to do anything with it, which was a good sign that the usage increase was successful.
Gilbert also has room to grow with his fastball location. Given 7.6 feet of extension and a 1.1 degree height-adjusted vertical attack angle (VAA), Gilbert should sit up in the zone with his fastball. Instead, he only has a 43% hiLoc%, which is the 17th percentile among starters. The fastball underwhelms with below-average whiff and chase rates despite being good enough to miss bats. If he starts elevating, it would create more separation from the rest of his arsenal and unlock a 30% strikeout rate.
With more breaking pitches and increased fastball velocity, it’s hard not to see how Gilbert will dominate in 2025. He’s improved his usage, allowing him to rack up strikeouts and go deep into games, which is all you can ask for from a modern pitcher.
ADP: 147, SP #39
Gilbert’s teammate, Bryan Woo, has shown much promise when healthy in his first two MLB seasons. After a 4.21 ERA in 2023, Woo posted a 2.89 ERA in 121 innings last season. Woo isn’t a huge strikeout arm, but he brings elite command. Woo did improve his strikeout rate throughout the season, and that’s primarily due to the usage increases for his breaking pitches and changeup.
To start, Woo has one of the hardest fastballs to hit, which gives him an excellent foundation to work with. His 5.1 ft. release height and 1.7 degree height-adjusted VAA help create a 16.1% swinging-strike rate and 36.6% chase rate, which are both in the 98th percentile for fastballs. He also has the sinker as a plus pitch, with good shape and locations resulting in a 25.7% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR). Woo just needed his secondaries to be passable to prevent predictability.
In the first half of the season, Woo kept his pitch usage somewhat similar between first and second times through the order while extremely fastball-heavy. Woo went to his fastballs 85% through the first time through the order and 75% of the time through the second. In the second half of the season, it was 77% the first time through and 62% the second time through.
Woo’s sweeper and slider performed similarly in 2024, posting around a 32% CSW. Woo slowed the slider down throughout the season, taking it from around 88 mph to 86 mph. This added two inches of drop to the pitch, and Woo threw it more confidently into the zone. While this affected its whiff rates and batted ball suppression, it was still within an acceptable range.
Meanwhile, hitters didn’t touch the sweeper in the second half. It had a .105 xSLG and a 45.5% whiff rate. It was purely used for whiffs and he seldom put it in the zone, but the number of whiffs it garnered shows that the pitch is a worthy secondary.
Woo’s reliance on the fastballs helped him keep a minuscule 2.8% walk rate, but if he continues to rely on the secondaries more, he will sacrifice walks for strikeouts. With the success we saw Woo display in the second half, the more balanced approach could do wonders for him. He showed that there are four pitches he can deal to right-handed hitters (and a changeup to lefties), which is also the basis for an ace in the making. As long as Woo stays healthy, which was a legitimate issue in 2024, there’s a high likelihood that he will outperform his draft day price, given that his skills far exceed SP #39.
ADP: 177, SP #48
Ryan Pepiot had a solid 2024, showing signs of a can’t-miss pitcher, but he didn’t put everything together quite like we wanted him to. The end of season 3.60 ERA and 26.3% strikeout rate in 130 innings was a good first full year, but his arsenal suggests there’s more to come. His second-half ERA was almost a full run better than his first half (3.92 to 2.95), which can be attributed to his increased cutter usage.
Pepiot had the smallest decrease in fastball usage of the bunch because he still uses his fastball/changeup combo as his go-to offerings. His fastball averages 95 mph and gets 18.5 inches of induced vertical break (iVB), which is more than expected for his arm slot. His height-adjusted VAA is also above average, and Pepiot uses that to go in and above the strike zone for results. His fastball had a 33.8% CSW in 2024, which is in the 97th percentile. The changeup has underwhelmed in the big leagues, despite it being formerly graded as a potential 70-grade pitch. Even as he increased its usage in the second half, it still had a meager 28.5% whiff rate and league-average batted-ball data.
Instead, the success came from turning the slider into a cutter. Pepiot’s slider averaged 89.0 mph, while his cutter averaged 91.6 mph. The slider held an average 28.6% whiff rate and below-average xSLG in the first half and it seemed the pitch didn’t totally fool hitters. When he introduced the cutter, however, it gave him a formidable bridge pitch to keep hitters from making solid contact. Both pitches get an exceptional amount of ride, which makes sense given the amount of ride on the fastball, but that isn’t always the case for pitchers with rising fastballs. This is critical in making hitters’ pitch recognition decisions challenging.
The cutter held a 29.2% ICR, which is in the 87th percentile for cutters. For example, you can see that Rafael Devers thinks this is a slider and swings right over it, at worst making poor contact.
Pepiot’s arsenal with formidable breaking pitches gives him a high ceiling coming into 2025. The changeup is still a work in progress but the rest of the arsenal was showing its polish towards the end of 2024. This will be Pepiot’s fourth season in the big leagues and second with a full-time rotation spot, and it appears that we will see what he truly has to offer.