Welcome back to my pitch review series, where I’ll be taking a look at the five best pitches of each pitch type from last year.
If you haven’t read the first article in the series on the five best changeups from last year, that outlines how this series works, what the prerequisites are to be included and all that fun stuff (plus there are some pretty cool changeups in there too!).
Today, we’re going to take a look at the five best curveballs of last year, as ranked by PLV. So let’s dive in!
For our first curveball of the day, we’ve got a reliever!
Pierce Johnson pitched 65 games out of the bullpen for Atlanta last year and put up some pretty solid numbers, logging 16 holds and one save over 59 innings with a 3.05 ERA and a 24.8% strikeout rate.
This curveball is his bread and butter. He throws the pitch 72% of the time, and it comes in at around 86 MPH with a good bit of induced vertical break and loads of spin.
As you can imagine, there’s a reason Johnson throws the pitch so often—it works, especially as a swing-and-miss pitch. Last year, Johnson’s curveball posted a 31.8% chase rate (63rd percentile among curveballs), a 20.8% CSW (75th percentile), and a 12.9% swinging-strike rate (58th percentile). None of these numbers are going to knock your socks off, but they’re all rock solid.
If there’s one issue with Johnson’s curveball, it’s his command of it. He had a habit of making some mistakes with it, posting an 8.3% mistake rate—or the percentage of pitches in the zone that earn less than a 4.5 PLV—last year (27th percentile), which led to the pitch occasionally getting knocked around.
All in all, though, it’s a pretty great curveball.
Yusei Kikuchi has never struggled with his breaking stuff. His slider has routinely been one of the best in the league, and this curveball is pretty darn good, too.
To the latter, cause this isn’t a sliders article(!), while Kikuchi only threw his curveball 15% of the time, it worked great. Kikuchi mainly threw his curveball as a backdoor pitch to righties early in the count to steal a strike, so it doesn’t come with jaw-dropping strikeout numbers (though a 34% chase rate is nothing to sneeze at), but it was excellent at inducing weak contact, with a 26.3% ICR (89th percentile among curveballs).
Despite the good curveball and excellent slider, Kikuchi didn’t have the best year last year, posting a 3.99 ERA and 1.42 WHIP over 178.1 innings, which frankly is just about to be expected from Kikuchi at this point.
But why does this happen if he’s got this great slider and curveball? The answer to that would be his garbage fastball. Some pitchers can overcome a bad fastball with elite breaking stuff, but not Kikuchi. While the fastball has good velocity and he gets solid extension on it, Kikuchi has trouble commanding it, meaning hitters have a habit of teeing off on it.
Last year, Kikuchi’s fastball posted a 45.9% ICR (30th percentile among fastballs) and a .366 wOBA against (26th percentile). That’s…not what you want from your second most-thrown pitch.
3. Landen Roupp
There were definitely plenty of things to like from Landen Roupp in his first full season as a starter last year, and this curveball is one of those things.
The pitch comes in really slow, around 77 MPH on average, and he generally locates it low and glove-side to righties and low and arm-side to lefties (basically, it’s always coming low and inside). And it’s a banger of a pitch. Last year, it posted a 36.4% chase rate (79th percentile among curveballs), a 35.5% CSW (81st percentile), and a 29.7% ICR (83rd percentile). Basically, it works as a swing-and-miss pitch, and it’s great at inducing weak contact.
Roupp’s final numbers last year weren’t the best; he posted a 3.80 ERA with a 1.48 WHIP in 106.2 innings with a pretty middling 21.4% strikeout rate and a really bad 9.5% walk rate, but the stuff is there. If he can command his sinker better and refine his changeup, he could be a pretty solid pitcher.
2. Cade Povich
It was a rough year, to say the least, for Cade Povich last season. Over 20 starts and 112.1 innings, he posted a pretty miserable 5.21 ERA with a 1.50 WHIP (though that 24.2% strikeout rate looks nice!). Honestly, it was a rough year for the Orioles as a whole.
That being said, this curveball was quite a bright spot for Povich (really the only bright spot in his repertoire). He throws it 22% of the time, and it comes in fairly slow, around 79 MPH with a good bit of break to it. He likes to locate it low in the zone and especially low and to the lefties.
It’s a pretty great swing-and-miss pitch. Last year, Povich’s curveball posted a 37.8% chase rate (85th percentile among curveballs) and a 14% swinging-strike rate (70th percentile). It was vulnerable to getting sent out of the park at times, though I’d argue that a HR/FB rate as high as 27.3% is something that’ll come back down to earth some, especially given that Povich posted such a low mistake rate with the pitch.
1. Aaron Nola
Aaron Nola has been on the best curveball list basically every year I’ve done this, and for good reason. He’s got one of the prettiest curveballs in the game, and it works like a charm.
Last year, Nola threw the pitch around 29% of the time and it put up predictably great strikeout numbers, with a 46.1% chase rate (98th percentile among curveballs), a 35.9% CSW (84th percentile), and a 19.7% swinging-strike rate (93rd percentile).
That said, it was a rough year for Nola (as odd-numbered years tend to be for some reason). A large part of that was some pretty bad luck—I mean, a 62% LOB rate, 31% HR/FB rate, and a .316 BABIP (19th percentile in the league) is a wild combo. Is Nola a Cy Young guy? Probably not, but he’s still a starter who’s going to go six+ innings and lock in a very good strikeout rate. And, you know, it’s an even-numbered year, so obviously he’s going to be great; it’s just how it goes.
Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire | Featured image by Ethan Kaplan (@djfreddie10.bsky.social on Blue Sky and @EthanMKaplanImages on Instagram)
