A brief interruption from tennis for a short #NextLevel #BlueJays 🇨🇦⚾️🧵 on Jose Berrios.
It's about what happens when something stops working, how you try to adjust & a prediction about the off-season.
Let's start here: His 4-seam pitch chart from last night....
Easy to look at chart above & say, "he couldn't locate his 4-seamer" but when you look at tape, that's not where I land.
I see someone who has told himself he almost will never throw a 4-seamer over the plate (of note, of the 3 he threw over the plate: bunt single, HR, single)
It makes sense. 4-seam has been issue all year & the team has been trying to work around it (w/ some success)
They moved him on mound, threw more sinkers, threw more breakers & here's 2 undisputable truths: He's throwing it less often & less in the zone than he ever has before
More undisputable truths:
Despite having no issues with velocity, and using it less, he's throwing it further away from the middle of the plate and further up in the zone than ever before too.
To me, this is all saying, something is up & they've lost confidence in this pitch.
The problem with this strategy is that it can work for a minute, but when an opposing team can eliminate the fastball from what they have to worry about, they can start to time up the pitches you're using more to compensate. That seemed to be case last night.
But back to 4-seamer. The other worrying part is, this isn't something that's just popped up this year. His 4-seam effectiveness started to dip in 2020.
Look at "Run Value" data point for 2020-22. Run Value places a value on every pitch thrown whether it's a called strike, foul, hit, ball, etc & aggregates it.
For context: NO PITCHER IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL HAS HAD A LESS EFFECTIVE 4-SEAM FASTBALL SINCE 2020 THAN JOSE BERRIOS.
When I tried to find reasons for what's different over last few years, esp this year... it was really hard to find anything, other than this:
His release points have been dropping ~2-4% this year compared to previous years.
When you compare video from previous years to this season... arm angle seems similar, but if there's any change, it seems like his lead/landing leg (left) is lower (or alternatively, "breaking down") a bit more.
Could a flatter angle from the 4-seam be making it easier to hit?
I still believe he's been better than most of Gen Pop would give him credit for & I applaud him for finding a way to succeed without really having this basic club in his bag.
Like finding a way to shoot 2-over without your driver.
Don't want to call this a prediction, more of a possibility & it's based on absolutely zero inside info but wouldn't be surprised if we hear about left knee surgery in the off-season with Berrios.
Or maybe it's better to say, I'm hopeful it's that as opposed to an arm thing.
Maybe it's not that, maybe he's just run out of bullets with that pitch.
But regardless, the 2022 Jose Berrios season highlights the potential dangers involved with giving ANY pitcher a long-term contract.
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