Faster and Furious: Pitchers with Rising Velocity/Performance

Connelly Doan evaluates starting pitchers who gained velocity with their fastballs in 2019 in order to project fantasy baseball value for the 2020 MLB season.

Welcome fantasy baseball players! I’m sure that you, like me, are anxiously counting down the days until your drafts and Opening Day. While the fantasy season may not start for several weeks, there are plenty of things we can do to start preparing for a successful season. One of those things is to take a good look at players who changed their games for the better in 2019 and decide if those changes will continue to pay dividends.

Jumps in value will always be noticed by fantasy players, but it is important to understand whether those jumps are sustainable before you pay up for those players. This is especially true for starting pitchers, where the gap between the top players and the rest of the field is distinct.

In this article, I will take a look at some starting pitchers who found overall success in 2019 due to an increase in their fastball velocity. I considered all types of fastballs (four-seam, sinker, cutter) but only considered pitchers who threw the pitch at least 250 times. Keep in mind that this article will not necessarily take a look at the hardest-throwing pitchers, but those who saw the biggest bump in their fastball velocity from 2018 to 2019. For reference, the average fastball velocity change came out to about 0.0 MPH across all fastballs for pitchers who threw at least 250 fastballs. Let’s take a look at some of the top velocity gainers!

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Jake Odorizzi, Minnesota Twins 

(Four-seam fastball velocity gain: 1.8 MPH)

The first pitcher presents an interesting case in terms of fastball influencing performance because he throws mostly fastballs despite being a starter. Jake Odorizzi threw 93.5% fastballs in 2019, 57.9% of which were four-seam fastballs. Odorizzi had a stellar season, going 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, and career-high 27.1% strikeout rate. Odorizzi’s success could be attributed to the nearly two-MPH gain in velocity he experienced on his fastball. Let’s take a look at the impact on his game.

Odorizzi benefited in plenty of ways from the bump in his fastball velocity. For starters, his swinging-strike rate on the pitch hit a career-high 14.9% compared to a 10.5% average. Consequently, hitters made less contact with the pitch (71% vs 78.9% career) and did not benefit as much when they did make contact (.188 batting average against vs. career .226).

Odorizzi’s location of his fastball also helped him in combination with his velocity. He has always tended to be a flyball pitcher because he likes to pound the top of the zone, despite not throwing all that hard. This was still the case in 2019 (47.2% fly balls with fastball vs career 48.5%). However, given the extra velocity, Odorizzi was able to get more hitters out (as shown above) as well as keep the ball in the park (6.8% home run-to-fly ball rate vs. 10.4% career).

Odorizzi has managed to be a serviceable middle-of-the-rotation pitcher throughout his career while relying mostly on fastballs. In 2019, he showed that he can be an All-Star pitcher with a bit of extra velocity. So long as he maintains that extra punch to his fastball, he should be able to give fantasy players solid value once again in 2020.

Lucas Giolito, Chicago White Sox 

(Four-seam fastball velocity gain: 1.8 MPH)

This next pitcher has long been thought to be a potential ace but had not been able to put everything together. That is, until 2019. Lucas Giolito had a 2019 season that everyone had been hoping for, going 14-9 with a 3.41 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and an impressive 32.3% strikeout rate. He also gained an impressive 1.8 MPH on his fastball. How much did this velocity increase attribute to his overall success?

We’ll start with his fastball usage first. In 2018 Giolito threw a four-seam fastball (39% usage) as well as a sinker (20.5% usage), neither of which were very effective (.274 batting average against and .524 slugging average for four-seam, .274 and .445 for sinker). However, he abandoned the sinker all together in 2019 in favor of a better four-seam fastball (55% usage). By focusing on one type of fastball, Giolito was able to get much better results with the pitch (.203 batting average against, .364 slugging average) while locating it better (55% zone vs 51.2% in 2018).

Not only did his fastball gain above-average velocity (71st percentile), but it also gained spin (61st percentile). Consequently, Giolito was able to miss bats much more often with the pitch (11.5% swinging-strike rate in 2019, 4.7% in 2018). His better fastball rounded out Giolito’s pitch arsenal and made his other pitches even better. He has always had a strong changeup and slider, but because he was able to keep hitters off-balance with his improved fastball, he saw career-high swinging-strike rates for both pitches (22.2% for his changeup, 18.6% for the slider).

There had been a lot of hype surrounding Giolito for a long time, so his inability to perform to expectations may have made it seem like he was hopeless. However, he is still just 25 years old and had everything clicking for him in 2019. With his new-found fastball, a solid pair of secondary pitches, and an improved White Sox offense backing him up, Giolito is now a high-end fantasy option.

Patrick Corbin, Washington Nationals

(Sinker velocity gain: 1 MPH)

Our third pitcher had a lot to prove in 2019. He had just signed a six-year contract with the Nationals after a career season. However, would he be able to repeat his success? Corbin fully answered that question, going 14-7 with a 3.25 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and 28.5% strikeout rate. The lefty is known for his devastating slider, but he gained an extra MPH on his primary fastball from 2018 to 2019. How did Corbin’s sinker help him achieve success yet again in 2019?

The first thing to note is that Corbin threw his sinker significantly more often than he did in 2018, upping his usage from 28.5% to 34.3%. He has relied primarily on his slider and sinker over the past several seasons, but 2019’s pitch mix was the closest it has ever been to a slider/sinker equilibrium (37.1% slider usage, 34.3% sinker usage). As evidenced by his overall numbers, this combination was once again effective.  

Looking specifically at Corbin’s isolated sinker performance, his numbers on the pitch weren’t really better or worse. He did see a slight uptick in swinging-strike rate on the pitch (4.8% vs 4.1%). He also threw the pitch in the strike zone more frequently (46.5% vs 41.3%) and got less contact on the pitch in the strike zone (92.9% vs 95.9%). However, his batting average (.280 vs .276), slugging average (.439 vs .371), and average exit velocity (89.7 MPH vs 89.5 MPH) all went up marginally. Overall, Corbin’s sinker remained an effective pitch and complement to his primary slider.

It is interesting to be analyzing a pitch other than the slider for Corbin, but, as a starter, it is hard to rely solely on a single pitch. His sinker/slider mix has allowed him to be highly successful in 2019 and, while he doesn’t throw the pitch all that hard (91.8 MPH), his newfound velocity seemed to have helped him in certain departments. Look for Corbin to be a high-end fantasy option once again in 2020.

Madison Bumgarner, Arizona Diamondbacks 

(Cutter velocity gain: 1.7 MPH)

Our final pitcher is a familiar face in Arizona but will now be wearing their uniform. Madison Bumgarner has played in the NL West for his entire career with 2019 seemingly being his last with the Giants. MadBum was below average for his standards but still put together a respectable 9-9 record with a 3.90 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and 24.1% strikeout rate. One definitively positive sign was his increase in fastball velocity; Bumgarner gained 0.6 MPH on his fastball and an impressive 1.7 MPH on his cutter. What could the bump in velocity mean for Bumgarner in 2020?

The broad takeaway from the velocity bump is that Bumgarner appears to be fully healthy. Bumgarner fractured his left hand in 2018 and saw a drop in velocity. However, with his hand healed, he was able to gain velocity and spin on the pitch. His spin rate on his cuter in 2018 was 2,129 revolutions per minute; that number jumped to 2,488 in 2019. As we will see, these changes did not hugely benefit Bumgarner, but the fact that he seems to be at 100% after several seasons is a positive sign.

Unfortunately, while Bumgarner’s velocity on his cutter was up, the results of the pitch weren’t better than last season. His batting average on the pitch rose from .214 to .265, his slugging average increased from .364 to .460, and his average exit velocity off the pitch rose from 87.1 MPH to 89 MPH. It is worth noting that Bumgarner threw significantly more cutters in 2019 compared to 2018 (1,078 vs 719), so hitters did have more chances to see and learn how to attack the pitch. However, that can only partially excuse the results.

Bumgarner’s results in 2019 left some mixed messages. On the positive side of things, he gained both velocity and spin on his cutter, stayed healthy, and pitched over 200 innings, something he had not done since 2016. On the negative side, the results of his cutter took a step back, as did all of his stats. Given his career and the fact that he has a healthy season under his belt, it is certainly plausible that he can bounce back in 2020 as a higher-end fantasy pitcher. His downside is still a valuable fantasy pitcher, but perhaps more of a high No. 4 starter. Given the shift to a less pitcher-friendly park, fantasy players should temper expectations of Bumgarner.

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