I do know this isn’t actually a blind merchandise, what with the identify of the article and the image on the high and all, however bear with me for a second. I’m going to provide you some particulars a few thriller participant. Right here’s a listing of all of the transactions they’ve been concerned in since their preliminary signing in 2016:
This appears like a reasonably boring participant, proper? Some form of alternative stage journeyman, in all probability a reliever given how groups shuffle them on and off the top of the roster. It’s true: He’s a reliever, and a alternative stage one at that, similar to you’d anticipate. This explicit participant pitched to a 5.80 ERA and 4.44 FIP (4.94 xFIP, 4.35 SIERA, and so on.) in 40 1/3 innings of labor. His WAR was precisely zero throughout components of three main league seasons.
Oh, right here’s one other information level. Our thriller man began the 2024 season in Triple-A, and issues didn’t go so effectively. He struck out 29.7% of the opposing batters he confronted, however walked 10.1% of them and gave up a ghastly eight homers in 34 innings of labor. That’s, uh, not nice. That’s how you find yourself with a 5.77 ERA. It’s additionally apparently how you find yourself because the reliever with the second-best ERA and finest FIP in all of baseball, and earn a job because the nearer for the Tampa Bay Rays.
That’s proper – Edwin Uceta has been the most effective pitchers within the sport this 12 months, albeit in a small pattern of 30 1/3 innings. He’s completely embarrassing folks on the market, drawing dangerous swings at a comically excessive fee and placing out greater than a 3rd of the batters he faces. He’s not strolling anybody or giving up homers. He’s made 20 appearances and given up runs in precisely one in all them – two runs in a two-inning stint on July 30. Apart from that, he’s been good.
I may preserve this text quick and candy if I needed. “The Rays acquired a reliever after which talked to him, and now he is without doubt one of the finest pitchers on the planet.” We get it, that is what they do. However that feels slightly bit missing right here. There must be extra to it. There must be one thing we will level to.
A fast recap of Uceta’s prospect profile coming into the 12 months may assist. He got here up as a kitchen-sink starter, mixing sinkers, curveballs, and changeups. His changeup was in all probability his finest pitch – PitchingBot definitely thought so, and it additionally received one of the best outcomes out of the bunch. He kills the spin on it very successfully, so it begins on a aircraft along with his sinker after which simply vanishes.
The issue with Uceta’s pitch combine was two-fold. First, his sinker wasn’t something particular. It was a show-me pitch greater than the rest, a fastball he threw as a result of it’s a must to throw some minimal variety of fastballs. Second, his curveball was extra fairly than efficient. It’s a kind of beautiful low-80s rainbows that appears higher than it’s as a result of our eyes love the enormous arc however don’t understand the dearth of velocity. It didn’t pair significantly effectively with the remainder of his choices, both. Main league hitters are outrageously good as of late; you may’t simply throw them so-so pitches and get away with it.
The Rays had a number of options. The primary one was easy: Ditch the curveball. He’s thrown solely three this 12 months, and as befits a Tampa Bay reliever, he’s as an alternative throwing a sweeper that has comparable depth however way more glove-side motion. To be sincere with you, I’m not wild about that pitch both, however he’s utilizing it sparingly, as a shock to indicate righties each every so often.
The second resolution is one I’m shocked nobody landed on earlier than: Add a cutter. Once I prepare dinner, I’ve a secret: If one thing doesn’t style proper, I simply hit it with slightly acid. Since I’m a good prepare dinner and in addition actually annoyingly obsessive about baseball, I say I’m “sprinkling in a cutter” after I do it. Like acid in meals, cutters appear to be a magic ingredient. They bridge motion profiles and repair platoon deficiencies. In case you don’t know what a taco wants, it’s in all probability lime. In case you don’t know what a pitcher wants, it’s in all probability a cutter.
This 2-D illustration doesn’t fairly do justice to what’s modified, however right here’s a graph of his pitch motion from 2022:
And from 2024:
His curveball was simply too completely different from his different pitches, too straightforward to determine. It fell 30 inches greater than his sinker on its path residence, and he appreciated to find that sinker low within the zone. You are able to do the mathematics: A curveball on aircraft with the sinker was typically a bouncer, and when he needed to throw it for a strike, it needed to pop excessive out of his hand on a relative foundation. It’s laborious to mix two pitches after they’re so completely different.
The cutter lives in that center zone that drives hitters loopy. It’s not like you may cowl the cutter and the changeup with a single swing, any extra so than you would the curve and alter. Certain, the cutter and changeup are a lot nearer in velocity, but when Uceta aimed the 2 on the identical spot, the cutter would find yourself one thing like 10 inches increased and a foot farther to his glove facet. The identical is true of the sinker/cutter combo; we’re speaking eight vertical inches and an analogous quantity of horizontal hole.
Oh yeah, there’s one thing I ought to inform you about Uceta’s sinker. It’s not likely a sinker, despite the fact that that’s the nomenclature we use to explain it. Right here’s a method to consider it: He throws it about 94 mph on common. A pattern cohort of 94 mph sinkerballers: Bryan Hoeing, Reese Olson, Framber Valdez, and even Chris Sale. However Uceta’s sinker doesn’t seem like these 4. It falls six inches lower than any of theirs, and with far much less arm-side run. It’s nearer to being a four-seamer than a sinker when it comes to motion profile — extra induced vertical break than horizontal motion.
One other means of placing it: 339 pitchers have thrown 50 or extra sinkers this 12 months. Solely 13 induce extra upward vertical motion than Uceta. Two of these are Aroldis Chapman and Josh Hader, which ought to offer you an concept of what big-vertical sinkerballers seem like. There’s additionally Bailey Falter and Roansy Contreras, so it’s not like flamethrowers have a monopoly on this fashion of pitch, nevertheless it’s a bizarre one for certain. In case you examine his sinker to four-seamers with comparable velocity, it appears to be like quite a bit like Joe Ryan’s or Jake Irvin’s.
That brings me to the subsequent change Uceta has made in Tampa Bay: He’s redesigned his supply considerably to benefit from how his fastball works. He’s all the time been a low arm-slot man. Right here he’s in 2023:
And right here’s a sinker from 2024:
The digital camera angles aren’t excellent, however he’s undoubtedly throwing from a decrease slot now. His common launch level has fallen from a median of 5’0” to 4’7.5”. That arm slot doesn’t jive with the pitch motion; guys who throw from that low typically throw pitches that transfer horizontally. It’s like a toned-down model of Hader’s weirdo fastball; righties see the arm movement and instinctively suppose it’s tailing towards them, however as an alternative quite a lot of the motion is preventing gravity.
By dropping his launch level, he’s additionally making a phenomenally flat method angle. He throws the ball low and laborious, and it rides. The result’s a pitch that hits the strike zone at a really shallow vertical method angle, which is precisely what you need. Pitch fashions are drooling about this new pitch. PitchingBot offers his sinker a 59 on the 20-80 scale, up from 52 in his pre-2024 profession. Stuff+ thinks it went from 100 to 131. Yeah, that’ll do. Armed with this new, four-seamer-y fastball, he’s working increased within the zone, which implies hitters have extra to cowl after they’re attempting to determine a pitch out of his hand.
The reality is, a few of these adjustments had been already within the hopper final 12 months. His launch level was dropping, his fastball was getting flatter upon strike zone entry, and he’d just about ditched the curveball. However the brand new cutter has been a revelation, and his fastball has been downright overpowering in its current configuration.
It was no provided that Uceta would out of the blue flip into an amazing pitcher when he went to Tampa Bay. It’s hardly written in stone even now; a few of his largest previous struggles have been with command, and relievers lose their grasp of the strike zone on a regular basis. It’s not laborious to think about a world the place Uceta struggles to duplicate his success over a much bigger pattern, or after a winter off.
That’s not likely the purpose of this text, although. The purpose is {that a} man whose earlier main league expertise was largely a montage of packed suitcases and new locker rooms is now the most effective relievers in baseball. It’s not some mirage. It’s not some fluke of small samples and batted ball luck. He’s simply this good, at the least at this very second. What are you able to do apart from marvel?