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.
Tarik Skubal’s Changeup
Skubal is off to an excellent start and his changeup is a big reason why. It’s his second most-used pitch and has a 44.7% CSW% (99th percentile). It even has a 77th percentile ICR. The stuff behind it isn’t anything special and he throws it in the middle too much (94th percentile y-mLoc%). I wouldn’t expect it to be as dominant going forward.
Bailey Falter’s Sinker
I thought the camera angle may have made this look like a “rising” sinker, but when I looked at Falter’s player page I saw that his sinker has 98th percentile iVB and 85th percentile HAVAA. PLV grades it as 95th percentile. He also uses it like a four-seamer. It has a hiLoc% of 61.8% (99th percentile).
Garrett Crochet’s Cutter
Cutters and sliders can sometimes merge. Ordinarily, Crochet’s cutter gets about 4″ of horizontal break. This one had close to 10″. Whatever it was, Donovan had little chance.
Joe Ryan’s Fastball
Ryan is known for his unusual four-seamer and you can see why here. With a 99th percentile Height Adjusted Vertical Approach Angle, this one rides up and in on Rafaela. It has a 59.7% Strike minus ICR (89th percentile).
Garrett Crochet’s Slider
This is a true slider from Crochet. It seems to spend forever in the zone before dropping down and in at the last moment. Reminds me a little of Randy Johnson.
Griffin Canning’s Changeup
Overall, Canning has not been good this year, with a 7.45 ERA and 1.55 WHIP. The one bright spot has been his changeup. It has a 30.4% CSW% (81st percentile) and 84th percentile PLV. It has an 86th percentile Total Break and he throws it up in the zone nearly 20% of the time.
Freddy Peralta’s Slider
Freddy Peralta’s slider makes a lot of appearances on Nastiest Pitches. This year it has about 2.5″ more Total Break compared to last year and is only thrown .8 mph slower. Its velo is just 12th percentile. So far it has allowed just a .108 wOBA and .163 xwOBA.
Aroldis Chapman’s Sinker
Chapman certainly isn’t known for his command, so this may have been more luck than anything, but this is such a perfect 3-2 pitch. I’ve spent a lot of time behind the plate so I’m supposed to be friendly to pitchers, but I don’t care what anyone says. Pitchers have a huge advantage over hitters and this exemplifies that.
Ryne Stanek’s Slider
Stanek has not been very good this year and his slider stuff metrics haven’t been either. However, he has been able to throw it consistently down and away to RHB, like here. If you have a respectable slider and can throw it here consistently you will have success with it. Against RHBs he has an 82nd percentile glove side location and 86th percentile loLoc%.
Edwin Díaz’s Slider
A RP getting 6 whiffs is impressive, but this is Edwin Díaz after all. He’s relying on it 57%, similar to 2022. The velo on it is down 2 mph, but the Swinging Strike% is still 21.8%. However, in 2022 it was an absurd 31.7%. Díaz is still an excellent pitcher, but I’m guessing his best days are behind him.
Photos courtesy of Icon Sportswire
Adapted by Kurt Wasemiller (@KUWasemiller on Twitter / @kurt_player02 on Instagram