If I were Mike Burrows, I think I’d be a bit tired of being constantly overlooked. In fairness to baseball fans, he’s never been the most exciting pitcher in Pittsburgh’s system. With such riches as Skenes, Jones, Chandler, Barco, Ashcraft, Harrington, Solometo, and more, it’s easy for Burrows to get lost in the mix. He’s been with the Pirates since being drafted in the 11th round seven years ago already. He doesn’t throw 100, he’s not physically imposing, and his best pitch is one that can be difficult for scouts to get a good read on. Not to mention, he just modified his mechanics in a way that made his pitches better this past offseason. Understandably, he may have been left behind a bit in the minds of fans until this year. Now though, Burrows seems ready to establish himself as a part of the Pirates’ future rotation.
The Arsenal
Like many pitchers, Burrows leads with a 4-seam fastball. Also, like many pitchers, he puts more responsibility on that pitch than it should realistically be managing. What probably would’ve been considered a good fastball 5-10 years ago is no longer enough to beat major league hitters consistently. While he does throw reasonably hard, averaging 95.2, and gets decent movement at 17.1” iVB and 5.5” of run, this is a very generic shape for his release point and arm angle. It moves exactly the way hitters would expect it to, which almost invariably holds pitches back.
Due to his ability to mix up his spots while avoiding the middle of the zone with this pitch, it doesn’t get mashed quite the way you’d expect it to. It’s a bit odd to me that he doesn’t consistently elevate it, which might help him miss more bats. It’s still not as good as it looks visually, and I would prefer if he cut back on its usage. Even if he avoids the biggest mistakes, throwing a 4-seam with below-average whiff, chase, and CSW rates 42.4% of the time is asking for trouble.
Moving on to his best pitch, this guy’s changeup is awesome. Not only that, it’s awesome in a way that everyone except the hitters facing it should enjoy. It doesn’t actually hit any of the “elite” benchmarks I set to judge changeup stuff. It has 8.3 mph velocity separation, 8.4” iVB separation, and 8.1” horizontal separation. The spin rate is substantially lower, but not low enough to get extra credit, and it’s on a noticeably lower spin axis than his fastball. He doesn’t get much of any SSW, either. So if it’s doing everything else at an average to good level, what makes it great? What do the old school pitchers and fans say is the most important thing about a changeup? “It’s all in how you sell it”.
If you’re throwing your changeup with the exact same delivery you do your fastball and let the grip do the work, it should get the job done for you. This is exactly what Burrows does; his release point and arm angle are unchanged between his fastball and changeup, and if you’re using the eye test, his arm doesn’t appear to slow down at all. It’s so much fun to watch him throw a fastball and then a changeup because of how well he repeats his mechanics. You think you’re going to see another fastball until it appears to get struck by a strong wind carrying it down and to the arm side.
Furthermore, I undersold its stuff quality a bit for emphasis on the best aspect. It’s still a plus pitch on stuff alone; it has impressive depth for his release height and arm slot. But it’s the sell he does that carries the pitch to plus-plus. It has the second-highest in-zone swinging strike rate (30.6%) of any pitch that’s been in the zone at least 100 times. This pitch is difficult to get to, no matter where he’s locating it. Only two changeups have higher in-zone whiff rates with the same qualification limit. To add context, the one directly behind Burrows’ is Tarik Skubal’s, and the ones ahead of it are Cristopher Sánchez’s and Joey Cantillo’s.
The unfortunate thing for hitters is that Burrows is good at locating this pitch, too. While he zones it far more than the average changeup, his aggressive approach with it also generally keeps him close enough to the zone to elicit chases from unfortunate hitters who think they’re getting a hittable fastball. He can spot it below the zone and next to it off the arm-side as well. With an 85th percentile chase rate, 97th percentile SwStr%, and 79th percentile ICR%, it does everything for him. This is just a phenomenal pitch, and I wish he’d throw it more often.
Enough gushing about the changeup, let’s move on to his main breaking ball. Burrows throws a tight gyro slider at 86.4 mph, with 1.7” iVB and 3.8” of glove-side movement on average. This pitch’s effectiveness is theoretically amplified by his slightly higher-than-average release point, creating a steeper angle for it. -0.9° HAVAA on a slider thrown in the mid to high 80s is impressive. Unfortunately for Burrows, this pitch hasn’t lived up to its stuff quality yet. His locations for this pitch aren’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but sharpening his command of it might be priority one for the future. He throws too many pitches that are far enough from the zone to never tempt hitters, and too many that don’t fall out of the zone like he’s aiming to do. He’s trying to bury them just off the low glove-side corner, but it just isn’t landing there as often as he wants it to.
The strange thing is that even when it does come in the correct spot, hitters are making much more contact against it than I’d expect. Granted, it’s not particularly productive contact, but this isn’t a pitch that should have a 16th percentile O-Con%. Maybe he’s tipping it somehow? Or he just isn’t setting it up well enough? I don’t fully understand why it’s not more missing bats. It could be a small sample thing, but it’s severe enough to make me think there’s something more going on there.
His curveball is solid. It’s a good version of what you would normally expect from a high slot pronator. It comes in much slower than the rest of his arsenal, with a ton of movement and a good spin mirror. It fools hitters often enough to rack up called strikes 30.5% of the time he throws it, good for the 94th percentile among starters’ curves. The sample is too small to accurately judge its batted ball results, though so far it’s about what you would expect; it gets hit into the ground, unless he hangs it, in which case it gets clobbered. It’s a solid fourth pitch that he just needs to keep lower in the zone.
He also has a sinker that he’s done little more than experiment with. I’d like to see more of it. I think it could have a similar effect as what we’ve seen from other high slot righties who started using a sinker. It likely wouldn’t have a great shape in a vacuum, but it would give him something to take some weight off of the 4-seam, especially against same-handed hitters.
Taking the Next Steps, and Looking at the Ones He’s Taken
I mentioned at the start that Burrows modified his delivery this offseason. His extension is up half a foot from last year, and his release point is a few inches lower with no arm angle change. He is also releasing the ball nearly a foot closer to the third base side, though I think this has multiple causes. He sometimes shifts his position on the rubber, moving off the first base side and more toward the middle against some hitters. Take the next bit with a grain of salt because I’m not 100% sure I’m right about this. I think his delivery is more closed than it used to be, meaning his plant foot position is further to the right than it was last year. Either/both of these would explain the horizontal release point change.
The mechanical change led to a few alterations in his stuff. His fastball lost some run and spin efficiency, but the raw spin rate is higher. Also, the spin direction is further up the axis, leading to no loss of vertical movement. He’s getting around his slider much better now, with it basically being a new pitch. The one he had last year was a bit cutter-ish, with 7” of IVB; he wasn’t killing depth on it like he is now. Maybe that movement change is part of why he isn’t locating it well this season; he needs more time to adjust to the new pitch. His changeup is essentially the same. The curveball has much more movement now than it did last year, with an extra 5.4” of negative iVB, and 3.2” more sweep while losing only 0.8 mph. Overall, his pitches got slightly better with the new delivery.
Looking to the future, Burrows has to throw fewer 4-seamers. This problem was on display in his last outing as he gave up three homers, all on that pitch. It just is not good enough to throw it as often as he does. I’d like it if the changeup took up most of the slack left behind by lower 4-seam usage. Hopefully, his sinker could handle the rest if he can get it going in a real way. He threw 10 of them against the Giants, which nearly doubled his season total. A lot of the progress he needs to make comes with time, though. Learning his new slider, adjusting to pitching backwards, working on a new sinker, etc. He’s got a solid foundation to build off of with his changeup; the other pitches should come along eventually.
Even then, I’m talking like he hasn’t been perfectly fine this year. A few bad outings have ballooned his ERA to 4.45, but he’s been mostly solid since the start of June. You can’t realistically expect reliability from a rookie pitcher; doing so is a surefire way to be disappointed. The things to watch for are the progress of his unrealized traits, such as the breaking ball command and fastball usage, and the flashes of brilliance from his strongest ones. Slowly but surely, he’s getting there.
