Five pitchers who are changing up their arsenals and could be in for better days (2024)

The pitcher controls the action. He decides when the ball is thrown and, more importantly, what pitch is going to be thrown. That fact, combined with the fact that starting pitchers give us a wealth of information but only every five days, combines to put outsized importance on what a starter has thrown most recently.

In other words, a pitcher can quickly change his outlook by altering the shape of one of his pitches or how he mixes those pitches. And, because each start gives us a week’s worth of information, we as fans should be receptive to small changes being a big deal.

Here are five pitchers who have been doing something differently in a small sample, and may be better for it.

Clarke Schmidt, New York Yankees

In May, the Yankees starter has added both depth and cut to his cutter without costing himself any velocity. That doubled the whiff rate on the pitch to lefties and gave him a real higher-velocity weapon against southpaws for the first time.

It’s been particularly effective at the top of the zone against lefties, which opens up the bottom of the zone for his curveball, which in turn leaves the door open for back-door sweepers like this one.

That’s three different things to worry about, and if the batter seems too comfortable on any of these pitches, Schmidt has been throwing a high sinker that looks like the high cutter until it leaves the strike zone up and away. All in all, that’s a package that can work against lefties, who have hit .282/.362/.457 against Schmidt for his career and caused him fits until now. This May, lefties have hit .218/.267/.291 against him, by far the best month of his career as a starter in that category. Against Minnesota this month, all eight of his strikeout victims were left-handed.

Against righties, he has his sinker and sweeper as foundational pieces, and he can play the rest of his arsenal off of their horizontal dominance. That’s how he’s risen to the top 15 among qualified starters in strikeouts-minus-walks, which will quickly be a new normal for him if this approach continues to work. From these seats, it looks like it will. He just went on the injured list with a lat strain but might be worth holding at this level of quality.

Brandon Pfaadt, Arizona Diamondbacks

Here’s another starter who has used a sinker and sweeper to dominate righties but has struggled against lefties (to an even worse degree, as they are hitting .280/.331/.505 against him for his career). For Pfaadt, though, the changes have been a little more dispersed and a little more subtle. In the past month, he’s shown:

• The hardest curveball of his career
• The second-most drop on his changeup of his career
• Improved ride on his fastball, from the second-lowest release point of his career
• The lowest four-seam usage against lefties for his career

This may seem like faint praise, but the .294/.333/.397 lefties are hitting against Pfaadt this month counts as the second-best month of his career and an improvement over his overall line. If there’s room for improvement, it might be some more curveballs. The Stuff+ model doesn’t like Pfaadt’s change — lefties are hitting .308 with a .385 slugging against the pitch this month — and they haven’t gotten a hit off the curveball. Sure, the curve hasn’t gotten a ton of whiffs, but it can look like this:

For the year, Stuff+ says both the curve and change are just about average. But, with Pfaadt throwing that yakker harder and harder, it looks like it has more upside.

Because this is more of a mixed review, Pfaadt is not a universal target. Against teams with great lefty bats like the Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers and Yankees, he might be a sit. But against the New York Mets, San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Angels — his next three starts, presumably — he should find a level of success that’s useful in all leagues.

Gavin Stone, Los Angeles Dodgers (53 percent rostered in Yahoo)

The book on Stone coming into the season was that his four-seam didn’t have a great shape despite good velocity, and that even if his change was a plus pitch per the scouts and his slider rated well by the models, it wasn’t obvious that the out-pitches were good enough to overcome the fastball issues. Coming into May, that book seemed about right, as batters had slugged .613 against the four-seam for his career and .452 against the slider. The changeup made for an awkward strike-stealer of a pitch with its plus movement profile.

Should the book change after a May that saw him give up seven runs in 32 innings with 23 strikeouts? That’s a decent line but it’s not a lot of strikeouts and there were a few easier matchups on the schedule for him.

There have been some changes along the way. Stone hasn’t pushed the fastball all the way there yet, but it’s in the middle of improving.

It’s a little strange to see these big spikes, but it’s also true that his five best games by fastball ride have come in the past 30 days, and that hitters are only slugging .282 on the pitch this month. A better fastball could make both his slider and change play up, and also give him a pitch for called strikes against either lefties or righties. Everything’s better with a better fastball.

That 18.5 percent strikeout rate paired with a 4 percent walk rate over the past month is an improvement but still doesn’t make Stone a top-end option, so it makes sense that he’s available in half of Yahoo leagues. But he’s supposed to go up against the Colorado Rockies at home, before a tough matchup in Yankee Stadium and a better one against the Kansas City Royals. His team should hand him wins, but he might be a guy you want in and out of your lineups in most leagues in the short run. Keep him on your roster though, in case this new fastball sticks.

Hunter Brown, Houston Astros (33 percent rostered in Yahoo)

Brown showed good stuff last season, powered by a plus four-seamer, a decent power slider and an elite knuckle-curve. He pitched well at times, but inconsistent fastball command led to a homer problem. Heading into this season, it seemed like he could be a sleeper based on the hope that he improved his command just a little bit and pitched more to his advanced location numbers (he had a league-average Location+ last season). But this year has been more of the same, with Brown getting decent strikeout numbers but walking the lineup and giving up even more homers.

In his last start, though, Brown tried something completely different.

There goes the fastball! Against righties, Brown threw more sinkers than four-seamers, and against lefties, he threw more cutters than four-seamers, leaving him with about half of his regular four-seam usage. Probably a good idea, since batters slugged .511 on the four-seamer last year and .609 against the pitch this year. Turf it!

Does he have pitches he can command well enough against lefties to make this work? Maybe. Lefties have hit .263/.333/.579 off the cutter this year, and he’s thrown a lot of middle-middle cutters to them:

In his last game, though, Brown stayed away from lefties and played the four-seam, cutter and splitter off of each other on the outer half of the plate.

Put together like this, it looks like it could work. Just the idea to stop throwing a four-seamer that had been hit that hard is probably a good thing. And, lastly, his next three games are against the Minnesota Twins, Angels, and Detroit Tigers, so it seems like a decent enough time to test picking up a pitcher with some excellent secondaries, good velocity and a new approach to his mix.

Tylor Megill, New York Mets

The single most predictive stat for a pitcher’s success is fastball velocity. Then you go through all the other things that matter like extension (how close to the plate the pitcher releases the ball), vertical movement (or ride), release point height, spin and the rest. But if you make the fastball go brrr, you can mitigate a lot of flaws on the rest of the list. In Megill’s past couple starts, the fastball was going brrr again.

With elite extension, but poor vertical movement on the fastball, Megill’s velocity is maybe more important than most to his success. And you can see it’s been all over the place in his short career so far. Maybe it’s actually worrisome is that Stuff+ thinks it’s his best pitch (with the current velocity), because the other pitches won’t save him.

But it’s a small sample so far, and the splitter could be the key to making the secondaries work. With the Diamondbacks, Miami Marlins, and Texas Rangers up next, it’s at least time for fantasy owners to keep an eye on that radar during Megill’s starts. If it goes brrrr, there could be good news ahead.

(Photo of Gavin Stone: Adam Hunger / Getty Images)

Eno Sarris is a senior writer covering baseball analytics at The Athletic. Eno has written for FanGraphs, ESPN, Fox, MLB.com, SB Nation and others. Submit mailbag questions to esarris@theathletic.com. Follow Eno on Twitter @enosarris