Three MLB pitchers with new pitches that could really tie their arsenals together: Sarris

Every spring, we hear about the new pitches each player spent the offseason refining.

A little bit like New Years resolutions in their optimism, those new pitches are often well-conceived and even oft-practiced, but then a few weeks later we never hear from them again.

To wit: Logan Gilbert has a new mystery pitch he unveiled today.

He didnt want to discuss it in detail Its early, he said and didnt want to describe it as anything more than a sinker.0 He threw it once, for ball 4, and he joked Cal Raleigh may never let him throw it again.

Adam Jude (@A_Jude) February 24, 2025 Maybe we see this new sinker from Logan Gilbert, or maybe we dont.

But the concept hit the group chat this one consisting of Marquee Sports Network player development analyst Lance Brozdowski , Pitcher List founder Nick Pollack, NBC Sports analyst Eric Samulski and myself and we thought of a collaborative wrinkle on an old tune.

Advertisement What if we each picked our favorite new pitches and wrote about them and then linked to each others pieces? So here are my three favorite new pitches that could end up being meaningful to their owners.

George Kirby, Mariners: Cutter The dude is already really good, so this isnt the case where a new cutter will make him a sleeper.

But a cutter could help Kirby reverse two tendencies that came to a head last August when he gave up three homers per nine innings and had an ERA near seven and everyone wondered what was going on.

One thing that Kirby loves to do is to throw the high four-seamer with two strikes.

Hes done it a third of the time for his career, and its mostly turned into something like this: Unfortunately, every once in a while, he runs into a month where batters expect this move and hit his four-seam hard even high in the zone.

August was one of those months, as batters slugged .857 on two-strike four-seamers.

Another thing that Kirby does is throw the four-seamer high in any count to lefties.

In 2024, nearly three-quarters of all four-seam fastballs he threw to lefties were in the top third of the zone or higher.

And that makes sense because thats where four-seamers play well.

But its problematic for Kirby for two reasons.

For one, his particular shape of four-seamer is much better against righties (110 Stuff+ against righties vs 93 Stuff+ against lefties).

For another, its the only pitch he throws left-handed hitters high in the zone at any volume.

Hes thrown 1127 high four-seamers to lefties in his career, 211 high sinkers, 124 high sliders ...

you get the point.

So lefties like the pitch, and generally hit it hard if he misses at all in the zone, as this heat map from Baseball Savant shows us.

Those white blocks in on the hands of the lefty? Thats exactly where Kirby would throw his cutter.

So a good cutter, to go with his four-seam fastball and the occasional high two-seamer? Kirby wouldnt be predictable, and hed avoid the occasional home run outburst that hes faced in each of his first three seasons.

That could be the difference between really good and some personal hardware.

Advertisement Clay Holmes, Mets: Four-seam, cutter, kick-change Theoretically, Holmes had a wide enough arsenal last season to handle hitters on both sides of the plate.

His sinker, sweeper, and gyro-slider were all above league-average pitches by Stuff+ to batters of both hands.

But thats a little too simplistic.

For one, closer inspection reveals flaws in the sinker and sweeper when Holmes is forced to use them against lefties.

The expected swing rate goes down on sweepers to lefties, so his expected whiff and swinging strike rates also go down.

Hes less likely to get the swing-and-miss that you want from a secondary.

Also, while his expected home run rate given the extreme shape of his sinker is still good against both hands, its almost twice as high to lefties as to righties (.46 homers per 100 sinkers against lefties, .26 against righties).

Hes also much less likely to get a whiff against lefties on the sinker, so two of his better pitches are not as good in those situations.

Secondly, hes going to lose some stuff moving from the bullpen to the rotation.

Weve found that change to be around seven points of Stuff+.

Again, thats a number he can handle, although the sinker only had a 102 Stuff+ against lefties as a reliever.

So that sinker would be a below-average offering against lefties, which means he needs a hard pitch against lefties.

How about two? Those red, brown, and green dots all represent new pitch types for Holmes, all from his first spring training start.

Hes thrown some of these four-seamers, changeups and cutters before, but in this game, Holmes: He got a whiff on the change! Who knows how many innings he can put up even if he was durable as a reliever, but Holmes looks like he has the arsenal to compete against lefties.

Three hard options, and three soft options, no matter whos at the plate? Thats a proven way to turn the lineup over.

Casey Mize, Tigers: Second and third sliders I cant spin the ball really well, Mize admitted to me last year, and its hard to argue considering his slider gave up a .500 slugging percentage last season (and that was better than it did in 2022).

He hasnt had an above-average breaking ball by Stuff+ ever, either.

Advertisement But he does have a good sinker (105 Stuff+ last year) and splitter (103 Stuff+ last season) and a four-seamer that hes worked hard to improve (93 Stuff+).

If only he had a good breaking ball, he could maybe erase those reverse platoon splits he saw last year when righties slugged .451 off of him and only struck out 14.6 percent of the time.

So does he have a good slider this spring? How about three? Thats at least what hes trying this spring according to this movement chart.

Thats a sweeper with a slightly below-average sweep, a couple of two-planers with depth, and then what looks like four of last years power sliders (at 89 mph) to boot.

They look distinct, the only question is will they be good? At 89 mph, the power slider would be the hardest hes ever thrown it, and that makes sense since all of Mizes pitches were harder than usual.

Against same-handed hitters last year, his slider Stuff+ was almost there (99.7) and thats when it averaged 85.7 mph.

That pitch should be an average offering at worst, even at 87 or 88 or so.

The two-plane sliders looked most like sliders thrown by Marcus Stroman and Reese Olson, who both have slightly below-average sliders.

His sweeper looked most like the one thrown by Brad Keller last year (133 Stuff+), so theres some promise here even if its just one pitch.

Theres some work to do, and Mize has to probably pick one or two of these sliders to emphasize in the regular season.

But if he can fashion a good breaking ball, he already has the weapons to get lefties out.

(Photo of George Kirby: Jonathan Dyer / USA Today Sports / Imagn Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.