Every morning, the We Love Baseball crew reviews the Nastiest Pitches from the previous day’s games. If you see something you think should be included here be sure to tweet @PitcherList to let us know. Or, if you’re a PL+ Member and part of our Discord, shout it out in the Nastiest Pitches channel.
Luis Gil’s Changeup
Luis Gil certainly is not known for his changeup. In 2021 and 2022 he only threw it about 7% of the time, but this is a beaut. Thus far in 2024, he has made a concerted effort to throw it more, coming in at 20% usage. He throws it very hard at 91.3 mph, good for the 99th percentile. It’s a small sample size of course, but it otherwise doesn’t grade out well. He has such a good fastball it doesn’t need to be great.
Chris Sale’s Slider
This is such a beautiful backdoor slider there isn’t much Marte can do with it. If he had given up on it, it may have been a called strike 3. The slider has been the Frail’s go-to for years. It’s one of the slowest sliders in baseball, but, if Sale can stay healthy, it should be great again this year.
Joe Boyle’s Sweeper
It looks like Boyle misses his target, but his catcher sets up down the middle on each pitch, so it’s hard to say if he ever has a target. Coming into this game Boyle’s breaking balls had about a 25% Zone%. He has a chance to be good if he can gain any semblance of control, but that seems a long way off at this point.
Jack Flaherty’s Knuckle Curve
While Flaherty got hit hard in this one, he did end the day with 14 whiffs. He generated them largely with breaking balls well-placed below the zone, like this one. Flaherty has a long way to go before returning to his old form however.
Garrett Crochet’s Slider
Although he threw just 77 pitches in this one, Crochet is off to a great start in his first attempt at being an MLB SP. Perez really struggled against the slider, with many feeble attempts all afternoon, but this was the nastiest. It will be fun to see how Crochet progresses.
Thyago Vieira’s Fastball
This was just good old-fashioned country hardball. At 99.6 mph, it was the hardest pitch of the day. He hasn’t pitched much in the majors, but he averaged 98.0 mph in 2023. If Vieira logs more IP this year I expect he’ll make some more appearances on Nastiest Pitches.
Ryan Pepiot’s Fastball
Pepiot isn’t known for having eye-popping stuff, but I wanted to highlight him here. He generated a league-high 21 whiffs on the day. 13 of them were on the four-seamer. Yes, this is very well-placed. However, despite averaging just 94.4 mph, it is 81st percentile extension, 94th percentile Induced Verticle Break, and 74th percentile VAA. I’d expect this to be one of the more underrated fastballs in 2024. The Rays sure can find them.
Edwin Diaz’s Slider
Even though Díaz’s slider is down around 1.5 mph from 2022 it is good to see him back on the mound and dominating. He is already getting typical results for him, despite his stuff being down a tick. I would expect him to hit another gear as the season goes on and he gets stronger and more confident in his knee.
Adam Ottavino’s Sinker
This sinker from Ottavino seems to move from the inside part of the plate to the outside. Ottavino is known for continually inventing himself. Since 2021 he has added at least .5″ of horizontal break on this sinker each year.
Miguel Castro’s Slider
Castro has always had mesmerizing stuff, but has never taken full advantage of it. This frisbee made the hitter look silly. Castro has really increased the horizontal movement on his slider this year. It’s up about 6.5″, making it 97th percentile.
Photos courtesy of Icon Sportswire
Adapted by Kurt Wasemiller (@KUWasemiller on Twitter / @kurt_player02 on Instagram