Spring Training Skill Searching: Pitch Velocity Gainers - Mitch Keller, Joe Ryan, Madison Bumgarner and more

Jon Anderson dives into early Spring Training data to find starting pitchers who added velocity over the offseason for fantasy baseball evaluation.

Not much trustworthy data comes out of Spring Training. Players are just getting back into the swing of things, and the data samples are inherently small. This means we have to tread very lightly when looking at spring data.

The data points we can take a bit more seriously are the skill-based metrics. Numbers that tell you directly how a player is performing with no other environmental influences. Pitch velocity turns out to be one of these metrics.

Pitchers are constantly at work, and the younger guys particularly do a lot of research and throwing over the offseason. This is especially true for pitchers who haven't had much success in the big leagues yet, so it's not uncommon to see pitchers come into a new season as a totally new pitcher. We have already seen some guys throwing harder than what we've seen in the past. Let's see if that makes them legitimate draft sleepers.

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Considerations

Not all Spring Training stadiums have the Statcast infrastructure in place. In fact, only 12 teams play their spring home games somewhere where StatCast data can be captured. Those stadiums: ARI, COL, DET, MIA, MIN, NYM, NYY, PHI, PIT, STL, TOR.

Because of this, it's quite likely that we are missing some guys here. Any pitcher who hasn't pitched in one of those stadiums this spring was not considered in the study.

Pitch Velocity Gainers

Mitch Keller, Pittsburgh Pirates

The poster boy for 2022 velocity increases thus far has been Keller, who at the time of this writing has added a ridiculous 3.5 mph to his fastball. This is a monstrous increase, and it has the hype train running hot. His maximum velocity on the pitch was 99.8 miles per hour, and you can see that all of his pitchers have increased in velocity by at least three miles per hour. It's been exciting to see.

We tend to over-react to increase velocity in spring, but with a change this big it's tough not to really view Keller differently. Of course, you have to do more than just throw hard to have success as a Major League pitcher, but given Keller's previous track record as a top prospect, things are looking up. I would certainly be buying Keller right now, because with what he costs there's not much risk to it.

Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins

Ryan was already a popular late-round pitcher to draft after he put up some really nice numbers in a short sample in 2021. He posted a 4.05 ERA but an elite 0.79 WHIP and a great 30%-5% K-BB% last year in 26.2 innings.

The one thing that stood out to me about Ryan was his high SwStr% on his fastball (11.1%, an elite number for a fastball) despite the lack of velocity (91.2 miles per hour). It didn't make a ton of sense that he had that much success with the pitch given its slowness. This spring, he's averaging 92.6 on the fastball, which is still pretty uninspiring, but it's something to note.

Clearly, Ryan had some level of deception with the pitch, and he could improve on that if it's getting on a hitter with a bit more velocity. It's a good sign for Ryan, and just another reason to take a shot on him late in your drafts.

Madison Bumgarner, Arizona Diamondbacks

We have been here before with Bumgarner, as his velocity has been up-and-down for years now. Because of this, I'm not really reading into this. But it must be said that his velocity is up right now. Last year, he averaged just 89.9 miles per hour on his sinker, and so far this spring he's averaged 92.0 with it - a big increase of 2.1 mph.

That's still a low velocity for a fastball, and Bumgarner has been mostly bad since 2018, but for deep leagues maybe he's someone to keep an eye on.

Max Fried, Atlanta Braves

Fried has been great for fantasy purposes the last three seasons, but the one thing he lacks in is the high strikeout rate. His career K% sits at 24%, which is fine but lags behind the league's best pitcher by quite a bit. So far this spring, he's throwing the slider much harder, all the way up to 87.3 miles per hour.

Velocity on a slider isn't always a positive thing, as the main thing you want to see with a breaking ball is, well, the break. If this turns out to reduce some break in the pitch, it might actually hurt things - but we can be confident that Fried and the Braves pitching staff will do what is best with the pitch. For right now, it's an interesting development and something to keep tabs on.

Alek Manoah, Toronto Blue Jays

Manoah had a really nice rookie season with the Jays and is looking to take another step forward in 2022. Early on, he's showing some increased velocity on the sinker. He threw that pitch at 92.8 mph on average last year, and so far in spring, it's at 94.1 on 22 offerings.  That is an important pitch for him, and last year he earned a high 55% GB% with it. If that pitch is getting on hitters a bit quicker this year, you would expect more good things from it and it should work to set up his four-seamer and slider very nicely. Not a huge change for Manoah here, but a good sign nonetheless.

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