Welcome to Mixing It Up, a weekly column where I look at starting pitchers who are making noteworthy changes to their pitch mix or pitch shape/velocity. We often assume that the offseason is the only time that pitchers will make meaningful changes to their repertoire or their pitch shape. While it’s certainly a time when the most tweaking happens, there are many pitchers who continue to modify their pitch mix or their grip as the season progresses in the hopes of capitalizing on the results or pitch modeling they’re seeing.
In this column, I’ll break down three to five pitchers each week who have shown a change in their profile that has me intrigued. It won’t always be a pitcher who requires an immediate add but could be somebody who has worked his way onto our fantasy baseball radars or a pitcher I think is set to begin a productive stretch. I’ll always try to make sure we have enough of a sample size to work with and I’ll be mixing in both shallow and deep league targets, so there should be a little something for everyone.
In the last couple of weeks we identified some positive changes in Luis Medina , Steven Matz, Freddy Peralta , Cole Ragans , and Chase Silseth , so hopefully we can hit on a few more arms making intriguing changes.
With that said, let’s dig in to this week’s pitchers of note.
Jordan Montgomery - Texas Rangers
Normally we like to have more than a one start sample size before we start to analyze a pitch mix change, but Montgomery has only made one start since being traded to the Texas Rangers and they made one noticeable change that we need to discuss.
On the season, Montgomery is throwing his sinker 44.1% of the time and his cutter just 1.6% of the time. In his one start with the Rangers, he threw his sinker 33.8% of the time and upped his cutter usage to 17.5%. That’s a pretty massive jump on the cutter and considering he threw all but one of them to right-handed hitters, it’s not likely a result of the lineup he was facing since most lineups will be mostly righties.
The cutter hasn’t been great in a small sample size for Montgomery this year with a .286 batting average against; however, it has not allowed a barrel and has a 12.5% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and 40% whiff rate. On Friday, the pitch had a 50% whiff rate and 36% CSW, so there might be something here.
Part of the reason Montgomery is able to get whiffs on his cutter, which is not typically a swing-and-miss pitch, is that he buries it down-and-in on right handed hitters rather than trying to jam them in on the hands.
Considering his two most-used pitches are a sinker and a change-up that both dive away from righties, having the cutter dive down and in gets him good coverage on both sides of the plate. What’s more, keeping the cutter low allows it to work well with the change-up, which he also keeps low in the zone but has an opposite movement profile. With the change-up having a 19.9% SwStr% on the season, incorporating a pitch that works well off of it makes some sense.
It’s only been one start, so we don’t want to overreact too much. However, in principle, I like the idea of Montgomery adding the cutter back in more and trying to increase his strikeout profile.
Gavin Williams - Cleveland Guardians
Gavin Williams was one of the more exciting young pitchers in the minors this season, posting a 2.39 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 60.1 innings across two levels. However, in eight major league starts, Williams’ strikeout rate is just 20.7%, which equates to 37 strikeouts in 42.2 innings. Fantasy managers would certainly like more, and it seems like Williams does too since he’s made a clear shift to his slider in his last two starts.
On the season, Williams averages 83.6 mph on his slider, but he threw it 84.6 mph on July 26th and then 86.4 mph on August 1st. Adding three mph on a pitch is not a random development, even if it was just one start, so we need to look at this a bit.
With the added velocity, the pitch has less vertical movement, which makes it appear as more of a bullet slider. It didn’t work so well on Tuesday as the pitch had just a 17% whiff rate and 19% CSW. On the season, the pitch has a 15.4% SwStr%, which has made it one of his better pitches, so I’m initially not sure about the change.
The curve ball and change-up have by far been his two least effective pitches when it comes to swings and misses and also command, so until we see some changes or improvements to those pitches, I’m not really buying much into Williams being a different pitcher at this level. With that said, he has a 3.38 ERA, so you’re certainly not mad about what he’s doing even if the strikeout haven’t been there. I’m just not sure this change leads to more strikeouts.
Corbin Burnes - Milwaukee Brewers
Corbin Burnes came into this year as arguably the top starting pitcher in fantasy baseball, but things did not go his way early on. However, he settled down as the summer started and then kicked it into another gear in July, posting a 2.00 ERA and 20.5% K-BB% in 45 innings since July 1st with just a .113 batting average against.
While some of that is just natural regression to the mean for a talented pitcher, I think there are two key changes that have fueled his success: Burnes has added sweep to his sweeper and modified his curveball to add more vertical break and reduce horizontal break.
You can see in the screenshot above from Brooks Baseball that Burnes’ slider has drastically increased its horizontal movement in July and August, while the curve has dropped its horizontal movement marginally. However, the curve has also drastically added vertical movement and Burnes has altered the vertical approach angle on it as well.
Both changes have paid off. In July, Burnes had a 22.9% SwStr% on the curve and -0.96 dERA a month after he had posted a 13.3% SwStr% and 1.78 dERA. He also had a 27.6% SwStr% and -1.84 dERA on the sweeper after posting a 4.78 dERA and 22.3% SwStr% combined in May and June. While he still only throws the sweeper about 7% of the time, the added break gives it more separation from his cutter, which creates more deception in his arsenal and that’s always a good thing.
I think there’s a path for Burnes to incorporate the sweeper more, but even without doing that, he has built up the depth of his arsenal and added swing-and-miss upside to two peripheral pitches, which could elevate him to the heights many predicted at the beginning of the season.
Yonny Chirinos - Atlanta Braves
This is going to be a quick one because we haven’t seen any positive results yet, but Yonny Chirinos has drastically increased the use of his splitfinger over the last two months, raising it from 5.7% in May to 41% in June and July. It’s his best pitch with a 14.9% SwStr% and 1.38 dERA. He also significantly cut down on the use of his slider, which is one of his worst pitches with a 6.3% SwStr and 7.98 dERA.
Then the Braves went out and traded for him and added him to their starting rotation. We haven’t seen it pay off just yet, but I’m at least watching for deep leagues to see if there’s anything that comes of this.
Mike Clevinger - Chicago White Sox
Lastly, we’ll end with Clevinger, who missed a month and a half and then came off the IL with a different arsenal. On the season, Clevinger has thrown his slider 27% of the time and his change-up just 11% of the time, which that flip-flopped in his two starts off the IL, with Clevinger throwing his change 30% of the time and his slider just 17.4%.
It’s a switch that makes sense for Clevinger since the change-up is his best pitch with a 13.5% SwStr%, .154 batting average against, -0.42 dERA and no barrels allowed. The slider is a good swing-and-miss pitch with a 15.8% SwStr%, but it also has a 2.56 dERA and an 8.8% barrel rate allowed, so it works great as a two-strike offering and a part of the larger arsenal.
Clevinger’s two starts since coming off of the IL have been a mixed bag, but I think increasing the use of his best pitch while still utilizing his best swing-and-miss pitch 20% of the time will bring positive results to end the season. The White Sox rarely ever let him go more than five innings and wins could be hard to come by, so I think he remains just a deep league play at this point.
