Welcome to Mixing It Up, a weekly column where I look at starting pitchers who are making noteworthy changes to their pitch mix or pitch shape/velocity. We often assume that the offseason is the only time that pitchers will make meaningful changes to their repertoire or their pitch shape. While it’s certainly a time when the most tweaking happens, there are many pitchers who continue to modify their pitch mix or their grip as the season progresses in the hopes of capitalizing on the results or pitch modeling they’re seeing.
In this column, I’ll break down three to five pitchers each week who have shown a change in their profile that has me intrigued. It won’t always be a pitcher who requires an immediate add but could be somebody who has worked his way onto our fantasy baseball radars or a pitcher I think is set to begin a productive stretch. I’ll always try to make sure we have enough of a sample size to work with and I’ll be mixing in both shallow and deep league targets, so there should be a little something for everyone.
With that said, let’s dig in to this week’s pitchers of note.
It might be odd to see Darvish’s name in a column about breaking out since he’s been one of the better pitchers in baseball for the vast majority of his 11 year career; however, he is currently mired in his worst season since his injury-shortened 2018 campaign. On the season, Darvish has a 4.65 ERA, 3.88 SIERA, 1.26 WHIP, and 17.9 K-BB%. All of those are either career worsts or his worst output in over five years.
Considering Darvish throws eight pitches, he has always been known as a tinkerer who will alter his pitch mix depending on feel and results. It seems that we’re beginning a stretch of that tinkering now as Darvish has increasingly relied on his slider and curve over his last few starts. (Table below charts the percentage Darvish throws each pitch by month)
As you can see from this breakdown from Brooks Baseball, Darvish has drastically increased his curveball usage this summer, while also going back to his slider more often and reducing the usage of his sinker.
While Brooks Baseball breaks it down by month, this has really been going on since June 21st with mixed results. On one hand, Darvish has 19 strikeouts in 17 innings over those three starts. On the other hand, he’s also allowed eight runs and 19 hits. Still, I think this is a positive development for Darvish, and I expect to see more starts like his six innings of one run baseball with nine strikeouts against the Phillies coming out of the All-Star Break.
For starters, the curve has been Darvish’s best pitch this season. It’s allowed just a .119 average and .143 slugging percentage while registering a 43.4% whiff rate, 19.1% swinging strike rate (SwStr%), and 0.81 dERA. In that start against the Phillies, it had a 56% whiff rate and 44% CSW. Interestingly, he also threw the pitch 1.8 mph faster in his two July starts than he did earlier in the year, which is almost certainly by design. Yet, any time you see a pitcher relying on his best pitch more, it’s something you should be excited about.
The other two changes I mentioned above are less impactful, in my opinion.
The increased usage of the slider in lieu of the sweeper could simply be a result of facing more left-handed-heavy lineups. Darvish tends to throw his slider to lefties and had been throwing his sweeper to hitters of both handedness. However, according to Statcast, he threw just seven sweepers in the start against the Phillies and 18 of 25 sweepers to righties in his June 21st start against the Giants. The sweeper has been a much better pitch for Darvish this year, so we don’t want him abandoning it, but enough research has been done to suggest that sweepers are less effective against lefties than the more traditional hard slider, so if Darvish were to rely on the sweeper less against lefties that could benefit him as well.
The sinker and four-seam are both performing about the same this season and neither miss a ton of bats, so I’m OK with Darvish relying more on the curve/slider/sweeper rather than leaning as heavily on the sinker as he did in July. If this usage pattern continues, I expect that Darvish will see his strikeout totals tick up and will flash more dominant outings like he had against the Phillies.
Luis Medina - Oakland Athletics
Luis Medina has not been good in his first 39 innings as a starter in the Majors, posting a 6.92 ERA while allowing a .277 average, .529 slugging percentage and walking 24 batters. The idea that he could be “breaking out” seems entirely far-fetched; however, he has recently made a change that I believe could lead to him being on radars in deeper fantasy leagues.
Over his last three starts, Medina has introduced a sinker and begun to use that far more at the expense of his four-seam fastball. He has also started to gradually increase the use of his slider, which you can see below in the image from Statcast.
I like both of these changes and apparently so does Stuff+ since Medina ranks 9th in all of baseball in Stuff+ over his last 20 1/3 innings. That has led to 21 strikeouts but also 14 walks and nine earned runs, so it hasn’t been all good news.
Yet, a big reason for the Stuff+ boost is the introduction of the sinker, which has a 137 Stuff+ over that timeframe, making it the top sinker in all of baseball by Stuff+. Perhaps more importantly for Medina, it also has a much better Location+ and Pitching+ than the four-seam, registering a 105 Location+ and 106 Pitching+ compared to a 91 Location+ and 92 Pitching+ on the four-seam. Those give us the indication that, not only does the sinker have more movement than the four-seam, but Medina has a better feel for the pitch, which is often crucial to success.
On the season, the pitch has allowed a .294 average but a .251 xBA and zero barrels or extra base hits. It doesn’t miss many bats, but it has registered a 2.27 dERA, which makes it far and away his best pitch. As we said with Darvish, a pitcher throwing his best pitch more is a good thing.
The slider is also Medina’s best swing-and-miss pitch. It has a 22.2% SwStr% on the season, while allowing a .225 xBA and just a 4.5% barrel rate, so it’s not surprise that Medina’s strikeouts have improved as he’s leaned on the slider more. The slider is 86 mph with more vertical break than horizontal run, so it pairs well with the sinker, which bites hard in on righties. Becoming more of a sinker/slider pitcher could allow Medina to miss bats while also reducing the amount of hard contact he gives up.
Now if he could also identify a quality third pitch to go with that, or a pitch that allows him to consistently attack the top of the strike zone, we could be looking at a legit streaming option.
Freddy Peralta - Milwaukee Brewers
A few people have discussed that a second half breakout for Freddy Peralta is coming, and his first start after the break did nothing to dissuade us of that notion.
On Saturday, he fired six scoreless innings against the Reds, registering a 26% whiff rate and 31% CSW. However, his four-seam fastball clocked in at just 94.9 mph, which is up slightly from his season average but down from the increase we saw in early July that had many excited.
In his one start prior to the All-Star Break, Peralta averaged 95.9 mph on his four-seam and earned a 40% whiff rate on the pitch. When combined, his July velocity on the four-seam is 95.5 mph, which is still noticeably up from the 94.4 mph mark in April and the 94.6 mph mark in May. The added velocity shouldn’t be a huge surprise since Peralta experienced both lat and shoulder injuries last year and understandably has been regaining his rhythm and confidence as this season has progressed. The right-hander now has 38 strikeouts in his last 27 2/3 innings pitched while allowing 11 earned runs, so we’re beginning to see him turn that corner.
Peralta tends to go as his four-seam goes, so this added velocity has been crucial for his recent run of success. In 2021, Peralta’s four-seam had a 31% whiff rate and a positive 20 run value, according to Statcast. It had a 35.5% strikeout rate that year and was the third-best four-seam in all of baseball that year, behind just Carlos Rodon and Robbie Ray . This year, the pitch has just a 24.8% strikeout rate on the season while allowing a .240 batting average, so regaining the effectiveness of the four-seamer will be crucial to Peralta’s projected rebound in the second half.
In addition to that, the increased usage of the slider has been just as important. In May, Peralta was using the slider just 19.6% of the time while throwing his curve 15.4%. In his two July starts, the slider usage has ballooned to 29.4% while the curve usage dropped to 7.1%. That has helped the strikeouts tick up since the slider has registered a 21.6% SwStr% on the year, compared to a 15.3% rate for the curve. Both of them are solid pitches, and the curve does allow less hard contact, but the slider makes Peralta a more dynamic pitcher due to its swing-and-miss potential.
For fantasy managers, the increased usage of the slider and the uptick in fastball velocity make Peralta one of the more attractive trade targets for the final few months of the fantasy baseball season.
Cole Ragans - Kansas City Royals
Let’s end with an intriguing deep league pitcher to watch. Cole Ragans was recently traded from Texas to Kansas City for Aroldis Chapman , and in his one start with the Royals he flashed a noticeable spike in velocity, averaging 97.5 mph on his four-seam fastball after throwing it just 96 mph with the Rangers.
On the surface, this makes no sense. When Ragans was pitching in Texas, he was being used as a multi-inning reliever, which usually leads to pitchers ramping up their velocity since they know they’ll be throwing fewer pitches in a given contest. However, the left-hander averaged 97.5 mph despite throwing five innings in his first appearance with the Royals so something else must have changed.
The added velocity was impactful for Ragans in his first start as he had a 25% whiff rate and 28% CSW. When you take into consideration that those marks were against the Rays and Ragans allowed just one run on four hits in five innings, it begins to look even better.
On the season, Ragans has had two good offerings in his change-up and curve, both of which allow a sub-.200 average and sub-.200 slugging percentage. The change-up also has a 14.8% SwStr% and a -0.56 dERA while the curve has a 3.08 dERA, so they have been plus pitches regardless of the metrics you use to track effectiveness. If Ragans was able to add even a mediocre fastball to those offerings, that would give him three usable pitches and put him on the streaming radar.
Additionally, after just one start in Kansas City, he has seemingly dialed back the usage of his worst pitch, the cutter, which was allowing a .357 average and not missing enough bats. Getting rid of his weakest pitch and adding meaningful velocity warrants Ragans being on your watch lists for deeper leagues.