Eric Samulski discusses five trending starting pitchers and how interested we should be for fantasy baseball.
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch.
The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages.
Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started.
Matthew PouliotLuis Gil - New York Yankees (Season Debut)
The reigning AL Rookie of the Year made his season debut on Sunday, and it did not go well. Gil allowed five runs on five hits in 3.1 innings while walking four and striking out three. But if we look beyond the surface-level stats, did anything stand out about the 2025 version of Gil?
For starters, five whiffs on 77 pitches is, um, not so great. You can see from the pitch plot above that the slider command was not great with Gil bouncing more than a few and also leaving some up and in to righties. His changeup also registered just 50% strikes, which is not good when you only have three pitches. He really needs to be more crisp with the entire arsenal, but it was one game, and the velocity on his pitches was good, so we don't want to overreact to those command struggles. Especially from a pitcher like Gil, who has always had suspect command.
There were a couple of new changes too.
Gil's four-seam fastball maintained great Induced Vertical Break (iVB) with seven feet of extension, which is up from 6.7 feet last year. That's a pretty big jump and would be great for Gil if he can maintain it. He also seems to have cut some arm-side run from the four-seamer, which is making the pitch flatter, and that will help it seem to "rise" as it approaches the plate. When you combine that with the new extension, that makes his fastball potentially better than what we saw last year, and that's pretty nice.
He also has more extension on his slider, with 7.2 feet this year, up from 6.7 last year. Again, extension can sometimes be impacted by the mound or stadium, so we don't want to read too much into one start, but it is something we want to monitor. The slider in his first outing registered more break overall than the one he showed off last year, which may simply be due to the release point with the added extension. The pitch graded out well on Sunday, so we'd love to see if he can get the command of it going.
Sadly, we don't see much difference with the changeup. It was a pretty average pitch for him last year, but it did induce a lot of weak groundballs, so he'll have to hope for that again this year, if he can get the command of the pitch back. Overall, I'm tepid on Gil for this season. He's a pitcher with a long track record of command issues coming off a long layoff due to a shoulder injury. That makes me think we'll see lots of inconsistent command for the next 3-4 starts, and that's almost half of his remaining starts. I'm happy to roster him because we know the type of talent he has, but I'm not expecting him to drastically alter the fortunes of my fantasy team in 2025.
Joey Wentz - Atlanta Braves (Four-seam shape, Cutter Usage)
(ARTICLE WAS SUBMITTED ON TUESDAY NIGHT BEFORE WENTZ'S START)
Not a lot of things have gone right for the Braves this season, but one thing that has, has been the acquisition of Joey Wentz and the move to put him in the rotation. The 27-year-old left-hander started the year with the Pirates and then spent June with the Twins before the Braves claimed him off waivers and then moved him into the starting rotation after just one appearance. In four games (three starts) with the Braves, Wentz has recorded a 1.50 ERA, .072 WHIP, and 21/6 K/BB ratio in 18 innings.
So what did the Braves change?
On the surface, the answer is: not much. It's weird to see a pitcher move into the rotation and throw FEWER pitches, but Wentz has scrapped his little-used changeup with Atlanta and thrown his curve a bit more. None of these changes feels significant, so why is he performing so much better?
A quick glance at Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaerboard above shows that Wentz's four-seam fastball has been performing much better as a starting pitcher, which means much better since he's been with the Braves. Not only that, but he's getting 1.2 inches more Induced Vertical Break (iVB) on the fastball with Atlanta while cutting some of the arm-side run. Those are pretty big changes and could suggest a grip or mechanical change the Braves made.
Since he has started, his four-seamer has also gotten significantly better against righties, with a 15% swinging strike rate (SwStr%), 43.2% CSW, and 0% ICR. That means not one meaningfully hit baseball from a right-handed hitter in four starts. It could be that he's using his four-seamer inside to righties 51% of the time after throwing it inside just 34% before coming to Atlanta. He had always used the four-seamer up in the zone, but getting it inside to righties seems to be working well for him.
Part of that could be because he is no longer using his cutter up in the zone to righties. He's keeping it low in the zone 83% of the time and throwing it in the zone more often to righties than he had before. The Braves have also cut 1.2 mph from his cutter and added almost two inches of horizontal movement, so they seem to be treating the pitch more like a slider. Which means, to righties, Wentz is now keeping that slider/cutter down and then elevating the fastball to change eyeline for the hitter, and it's working.
The biggest change with his cutter is that he is now using it 45% of the time in two-strike counts to righties when that number had been just 26% before coming to Atlanta. That adds to the idea that he's treating the pitch as more of a breaking pitch or a slider than he had before. Yet, he's throwing the cutter less often in two-strike counts to lefties, but is keeping it lower in the zone more often and throwing it out of the zone more. Despite having a 10% lower zone rate on the cutter to lefties, he's posting a 16% SwStr% on the pitch. The cutter has been hit a little harder with this change, but it's missing more bats, and Wentz's curveball has done a good job of also limiting hard contact and missing bats as a two-strike pitch to lefties, so the combination works.
So the Braves have added a little "rise" to the four-seam fastball in lieu of arm-side run and have Wentz getting the pitch inside to righties more often. They also seem to be tweaking his cutter to be a little more slider-ish and have upped his curveball usage as a two-strike offering. All of that has led to a jump in SwStr% from 11.3 to 13.7% and in strikeout rate from 17.1% to 32.8%, plus a decrease in ICR from 43.5% to 29.7%. Sign me up for all of that. I'm adding Wentz wherever I can right now to see how long his lasts.
Hurston Waldrep - Atlanta Braves (Season Debut)
I also wanted to cover Wentz's Braves teammate Hurston Waldrep because I blurbed his game for the website on Sunday and was intrigued by what I saw. Despite now knowing he was going to start until 11 pm the night before, Waldrep woke up at 4:45 am and drove five hours to the field and had to start a continued game with two runners on and one out in the first inning. Despite all of that, he allowed just one run on three hits in 5.2 innings while striking out four. So did he do anything in this start that was different from what we've seen from him previously?
Well, for starters, last year (and in the early stages of this year) Waldrep was throwing a four-seamer with below-average iVB and extension that was classified as a "dead zone" fastball, which is basically a fastball that moves exactly like a hitter expects it to, which allows them to anticipate the path and make better contact. Early this season, Waldrep started to work on a sinker and has now been using that to right-handed hitters instead of his four-seam fastball. The sinker is also a bit of a dead-zone pitch, but he locates it up in the zone and tries to run it in on righties to create weak contact. In the early going, he has also shown much better command of that pitch than his four-seamer, which is important, and we'll get to that later.
As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard above, Waldrep has also added a cutter this season. In his MLB debut, the pitch was 93.7 mph with about 10 inches of vertical break and essentially no horizontal movement. He also posted a 67% zone rate and 78% strike rate on the pitch in that debut, using it up in the zone often. He only used it 44% of the time early in counts, so this is not a get-ahead strike pitch, like the sinker is. It seems like Waldrep wants to use to cutter more to play off of his 88 mph slider, which he only throws to righties.
However, the biggest change may be, as Guarav Vedak, a Baseball Prospectus staff member, pointed out to me, that Waldrep has changed his mechanics to modify his leg lift and make it a little less aggressive. He had previously lifted his knee well above belt height, which causes him to have an inconsistent landing point and, subsequently, less command. That led me to an internet search, where I found a great article from Lindsay Crosby detailing the mechanical changes that Waldrep made.
As I mentioned above, Waldrep had a mediocre four-seam fastball with poor iVB, and he also had terrible command of it. As Crosby mentions, Waldrep had a 43% zone rate on his fastball last season. It was equally as bad early in this season, but in May, Waldrep went to a more subdued knee drive, which led him to be more under control and finish more upright. All of this, plus his shift to a sinker, has led to better command of an early-count fastball, which allows him to get ahead in the count and use his splitter, which is his best pitch.
While the results may not have been immediate in Triple-A, it's possible that they started to click in June. From June 15th on, Waldrep allowed 10 earned runs on 33 hits in 46.1 innings (1.94 ERA) with a 40/18 K/BB ratio. That's a pretty solid stretch.
Much like we see with Kevin Gausman and Kodai Senga, pitchers who rely so heavily on a splitter need a reliable strike pitch to get ahead and put them in a spot to use that splitter. The sinker seems like it's becoming that pitch. It doesn't miss bats, and, so far, neither has his cutter, so the swinging strike rate upside isn't quite here for Waldrep. However, he's gotten rid of his worst pitch, which we like to see, and set himself up in a better position to use his best pitch. He's also gone from a four-pitch mix, with a little-used curve, to a true five-pitch mix. I would still be cautious here because we haven't seen enough of an MLB track record of success when it comes to command and whiffs, but this seems like a more usable profile than the pitcher we saw last year.
Johan Oviedo - Pittsburgh Pirates (Season Debut)
Pviedo made his season debut on Monday, and the command was not great. He had a 44% zone rate with his four-seam fastball and a 17% zone rate on his curve, so the slider was really the only pitch that he could command. However, I noticed a few things that I wanted to discuss, and I think we have to give some leeway to a pitcher who hasn't thrown an MLB pitch since 2023.
The first thing I noticed with Oviedo was that his four-seam fastball had 7.4 feet of extension and 14.1 inches of iVB. That's way up from 7.1 feet of extension and 9.1 inches of iVB in 2023. He has cut a lot of horizontal movement on his four-seamer, so the pitch is much flatter and will theoretically be much more impactful up in the strike zone. He TRIED to locate his fastball up on Monday, so it seems like he understands that this could be a good approach for him, but a 95 mph fastball with 7.4 feet of extension feels more like 97-98 mph to a batter, and I love the flatter attack angle here.
The slider also seems a bit different here. It's only been one start, so we don't want to assume any of this is definitively who Oviedo is now; nerves were certainly at play on Monday. That being said, his slider was down to 86.7 mph from 88.2 mph in 2023. He also showed almost 1.5 inches more horizontal movement and 1.5 inches more drop on the pitch this season. Adding more movement is nice, but he also posted a 71% zone rate and 82% strike rate on the slider on Monday, so it seems like a pitch that he can command as well, even with the added movement.
Lastly, Oviedo only threw six curves on Monday and had poor command of them, but the pitch is down over three mph this year with more horizontal movement and less vertical drop, so he seems to have made modifications to that pitch as well. Back in 2023, his curve was effective to lefties, so it remains to be seen if the added movement in to lefties will help or hurt the curve, but if it remains effective, then Oviedo would pair that with a plus slider and a fastball that now has more life at the top of the zone. It certainly makes him a name to watch heading into his next start. OVIEDO HAS SINCE BEEN SENT BACK TO TRIPLE-A, BUT SHOULD BE RECALLED SOON.
Justin Verlander - San Francisco Giants (Curve and Fastball Usage)
Justin Verlander had his third straight strong start on Monday, allowing no earned runs in five innings against the Pirates. Over his last three outings, he has allowed one earned run on 10 hits in 15 innings while striking out 14 and walking seven. Yes, those games were against the Braves and the Pirates twice, but I felt like it was worth checking in to see whether or not Verlander was doing anything differently.
As you can see from the chart above, the curveball usage is the biggest change in terms of pitch mix. More specifically, Verlander has dialed up his curve usage ot righties. In his first 16 starts, he used the curve 11% of the time to righties and 15% to lefties, but that usage has shifted to 28% against righties and 12.6% against lefties over his last three starts. Lefties are seeing the curve early in the count 12% less often, while righties are still seeing it 71% of the time early in the count, with a slight increase in two-strike usage.
A bigger shift has also come in locations. Righties are seeing the curve on the outside part of the plate almost 13% more often and lower in the zone slightly more often, actually keeping the pitch below the strike zone more often, which has led to an 8% drop in zone rate. That has helped lead to a 4.4% increase in SwStr% and a drop from a 41% ICR to a 33% one. Lefties have also seen a huge dip in zone rate, with Verlander throwing his curve in the strike zone just 35% of the time to lefties now, down from 55% before. He's also throwing the pitch outside to lefties just 6% of the time after being at 40% in his first 16 starts, and is burying it low in the zone 18% more often. It's no wonder the curve has a 17.6% SwStr% against lefties in the last three starts while posting just a 7.5% mark earlier in the season.
In addition to the small added velocity on his four-seam fastball, Verlander has changed his approach slightly against righties. He also used to attack righties outside with the four-seamer 54% of the time, but has dialed that back down to 42% over his last three starts, coming up and inside more often. Additionally, he had previously used his four-seamer to righties just 23% of the time in two-strike counts with a 19% PutAway Rate, but that has bumped to 30.3% two-strike usage to righties with a 22% PutAway Rate thanks to his new attack plan.
I don't think that this is all of a sudden vintage Justin Verlander, but I do think the added velocity on the fastball and new attack plan on his curveball are helpful to miss more bats and induce more weak contact. Instead of avoiding Verlander in fantasy leagues, I think he's back on the streaming radar.
Category: General Sports
