The following pitchers will be featured:
Justin Verlander (Cy Young Award Winner)
Sandy Alcantara (Cy Young Award Winner)
Dylan Cease (Cy Young Award Candidate)
Alek Manoah (Cy Young Award Candidate)
Max Fried (Cy Young Award Candidate)
Julio Urias (Cy Young Award Candidate)
Emmanuel Clase (Reliever of the Year Award Winner)
Edwin Diaz (Reliever of the Year Award Winner)
Shane McClanahan
Zac Gallen
Tyler Anderson
Aaron Nola
Carlos Rodon
Shohei Ohtani
Daniel Bard
Justin Verlander, Houston Astros
18-4 Record 1.75 ERA 0.83 WHIP
I don't think it was too much of a surprise to see Justin Verlander back as the best in baseball. At 39 years old, the now three-time Cy Young Award winner has been doing this for a long time. Over that period, however, he has had to reinvent himself quite a a few times. Despite his great season, he actually had his lowest K/9 since 2015, a drastic drop off in Whiff Rate, and a slight drop off in his spin rates. The ball is being put in play much more often, but Verlander has used that to his advantage. He attacked the zone effectively all season, resulting in the lowest walk rate of his career and the fourth best BABIP in the league.
vs. Righties: 4-seam Fastball 49.4%
Slider 35.2%
Curveball 14.4%
Changeup 1.0%
vs. Lefties: 4-seam Fastball 51.4%
Curveball 22.8%
Slider 22.1%
Changeup 3.7%
Throughout the playoffs, I was locked in to how successful he was with riding the fastball up in the zone. Throwing the slider or curveball off of that pitch was devastating for hitters. The former Astros ace did struggle during the playoffs, but that fastball up in the zone was the staple of his Cy Young season. He will don a new cap in the 2023 season. Will his success continue with the New York Mets?
Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins
14-9 Record 2.28 ERA 0.98 WHIP
This guy was an absolute workhorse. Alcantara pitched 8 innings or more in 14 of his 32 starts, a rate of 43.75%. The 27-year-old starter led the league with 6 complete games, 228.2 innings pitched, and 886 batters faced.
A big hallmark of this great season was the use of the changeup:
Batting Average Against | .145 (3rd among MLB pitches) |
Slugging Pct. Against | .194 (1st among MLB pitches) |
wOBA Against | .177(1st among MLB pitches) |
Put Away Pct. | 26.8% (T-10th among MLB pitches) |
Homeruns | 0 (T-1st among MLB Pitches) |
**Data only considers pitchers with more than 200 PA in which the pitch was used**
Alcantara particularly killed left-handers with this pitch. He threw it 37.3% of the time against them, yielding an average exit velocity of 83.6 mph and an average launch angle of -6 degrees. The average speed of the changeup was near the top of the league at 91.8 mph. This paired quite well with a 98 mph sinker and 4-seam fastball that were also very troublesome for hitters, both righties and lefties. It is very unlikely that we will see Alcantara in meaningful games late in the season unless he moves on from Miami, but we can appreciate his greatness nonetheless. Let's see what he has in store for us in 2023.
Dylan Cease, Chicago White Sox
14-8 Record 2.20 ERA 1.11 WHIP
Baseball Savant calculates a pitch's run value from the change in run impact for every time it is thrown. Dylan Cease's slider had the best run value by a wide margin at -36 runs. The aforementioned Sandy Alcantara changeup was 3rd on the list with -25 runs. Cease's slider had the best batting average against at .128, the 4th best whiff rate among any pitch at 43.3%, and the 2nd lowest hard hit percentage at 22%. To pile on to that his 4-seam fastball averaged almost 97 mph with great vertical movement and his curveball was among the best in baseball in vertical movement as well. From 2021 to 2022, the numbers are night and day. Much of that may be due to his pitch usage changes:
4-Seam Fastball: 2021 46.8% → 2022 39.8% -7.0%
Slider: 2021 30.6% → 2022 42.9% +12.3%
Curveball: 2021 15.2% → 2022 13.9% -1.3%
Changeup: 2021 7.4% → 2022 2.4% -5.0%
Sinker: 2021 0.0% → 2022 1.0% +1.0%
At just 27 years of age, the Cy Young runner-up has all the potential in the world to be a big name in the league. In past years, and even this year, the walks have been an issue. Quite often it limited how deep he could go into games. It is clear he has good stuff, but the command may hold him back from becoming a perennial Cy Young candidate. Only time will tell.
Alek Manoah, Toronto Blue Jays
16-7 Record 2.24 ERA 0.99 WHIP
Looking at Manoah's season profile, surprisingly nothing jumps off the page. Although his ERA this year was almost a full run less this year as compared to last year, the expected ERA's are almost identical. This by no means indicates that the Blue Jays starter should have had bad numbers. His hard hit percentage was in the top 8% of the league at 31.5%. He is not a huge strikeout guy and relies on a good pitch mix to generate soft contact. The variety in his pitches allowed him to keep hitters guessing. Three of is four pitches were thrown over 25% throughout the season, all being effective in different ways.
There is no doubt in 2022 that he was able to keep hitters off balance and get outs. However, based purely on the numbers, 2023 doesn't seem as if the same success will prevail. The former 11th overall pick in the 2019 draft had dashes of brilliance throughout 2022. Between the beginning of his season in March/April and his end in September/October, Manoah was 8-0 with a 1.09 ERA. He conceded 8 total runs in 66 innings pitched. At still a ripe age of 25, it will be very interesting to see how his career develops from here. There is no doubt he will continue to be effective, the question is, how effective?
Max Fried, Atlanta Braves
14-7 Record 2.48 ERA 1.01 WHIP
Max Fried has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since the start of the shortened 2020 season. The Braves starter in that time has the 3rd most wins, the 3rd best ERA, the 7th best WAR, the 5th lowest BB/9, and the 3rd lowest HR/9 among qualified pitches.
He does not win with over powering strikeout stuff, but rather attacks the zone to yield outs in the field. In a game now filled with homeruns, Fried has given up just 29 of them in 407 innings since 2020. He is able to attack the bottom of the zone with his sinker and off-speed pitches, while keeping being able to keep hitters off balance with a 4-seam fastball upstairs.
From Major League Baseball's Statcast data on Baseball Savant, here are Fried's pitch percentages by zone for 2022. A big chunk of his pitches were in that bottom half of the zone. He was able to yield the 6th highest groundball percentage in the league at 51.2% and 2nd lowest hard hit percentage at 24.5%. The homerun ball does not scare Max Fried. Hitters will need to beat him some other way.
Julio Urias, Los Angeles Dodgers
17-7 Record 2.16 ERA 0.96 WHIP
Spin rates. Spin Rates. Spin rates. Very early on in his career, Julio Urias has perfected the art of the spin:
4-seam Fastball | 17th in MLB in spin rate | 2nd among lefties |
Curveball | 20th in MLB in spin rate | 3rd among lefties |
Sinker | 2nd in MLB in spin rate | 2nd among lefties |
The high spin rate on the fastball gives a rising effect which resulted in Urias having the 2nd highest flyball percentage in baseball with 45.2%. The high spin rate on the curveball allows for the pitch to move drastically, having the 6th highest average horizontal movement among all pitches in the game. The sinker was only thrown about 1.5% and although it had a great spin rate, it wasn't used enough to have any statistical significance. The 4-seamer and fastball, however, had a combined usage of over 80% for the Dodgers southpaw.
His comparison to Max Fried is quite intriguing. Both are NL lefties who like to attack the zone and limit walks, while also not striking out batters at a very high rate. Max Fried on one hand, as we just spoke about, is able to get many groundballs and limit hard hit percentage. Julio Urias is quite the opposite as he gives up many more homeruns as a result of being a flyball pitcher. What is interesting, however, is Urias is able to be among the top of the league in yielding a low hard hit percentage in his own unique way. Baseball has a way of telling each player's story very differently.
Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland Guardians
42 Saves 1.36 ERA 0.73 WHIP
The Cleveland closer struggled a bit to start the season. In April, Clase appeared in 9 games, giving up 4 runs in 7.1 innings in those appearances. For the rest of the season, Clase pitched a total of 65.1 innings, yielding just 7 runs over that time. Clearly he was able to find his stride after April. For those that have watched him pitch, his cutter jumps off the table. The pitch has an average velocity of 99.5 mph, which is first among cutters, and has the 6th highest average spin rate among pitchers who threw a cutter more than 250 times in 2022.
What is surprising when looking at Clase's numbers is that his slider was actually his best pitch. It had more lateral movement as compared to the average, a better batting average against, a better wOBA against, and a significantly higher whiff rate. The combination of the two led to complete domination.
Using data from MLB.com's Baseball Savant, these are the percentile rankings for Emmanuel Clase in 2022. It is not often that we see such an overpowering relief pitcher with such great walk rate percentiles. I don't want to put too high of expectations on the guy, but I can think of a pretty good closer who loved to attack the zone with a cutter. Clase is 24 years old by the way.
Edwin Diaz, New York Mets
32 Saves 1.31 ERA 0.84 WHIP
From one great slider out of the bullpen to another. Edwin Diaz's slider was simply amazing in 2022. For pitchers with more than 100 plate appearances against them, his slider had the best run value per throw. The slider also had a .114 batting average against, a .147 wOBA against, and an off the charts whiff rate of 54.7%.
Diaz faced 235 batters in 2022. He struck out 118 of them. I am going to let that sink in for a moment.....
Using a Baseball Savant visual once again, here is the data for his K percent by plate region. Diaz really loves to attack that bottom glove side portion just below the zone. He threw 41.6% of his sliders in that region and over 30% of his total pitches overall. Of his total 118 strikeouts, 60 of them came on a pitch in that seemingly small portion of the zone. Unfortunately, for opposing batters, it wasn't too small for the Mets closer to hit with consistency.
Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays
12-8 Record 2.54 ERA 0.93 WHIP
A change in pitch mix can make all the difference. It worked for Dylan Cease and Shane McClanahan made a few changes as well that proved quite effective.
4-Seam Fastball: 2021 40.9% → 2022 35.7% -5.2%
Slider: 2021 34.7% → 2022 15.5% -19.2%
Curveball: 2021 16.3% → 2022 23.4% +7.1%
Changeup: 2021 8.0% → 2022 25.4% +17.4%
Looking at his 2021 pitch success, his slider was his most effective pitch in yielding the lowest batting average against. His changeup proved to be his worst pitch during that rookie campaign. It would be really interesting to see how the construction of his pitch strategy for 2022 came to be, but clearly it worked. Although the Rays starter still has quite a bit to figure out being so early on his career, he took a huge step forward in a short amount of time.
Statcast expected statistics using batted ball data from 2021 and 2022
| xBA | xSLG | xwOBA | xERA |
2021 | .263 | .436 | .328 | 4.60 |
2022 | .207 | .332 | .261 | 2.79 |
Zac Gallen, Arizona Diamondbacks
12-4 Record 2.54 ERA 0.91 WHIP
The go-to pitch for Zac Gallen in 2022 was the 4-seam fastball. He threw his fastball almost half the time, which ranked the pitch as the 12th most thrown pitch in all of baseball. Despite being used quite frequently, it was very effective, but not in the typical way we see in modern baseball.
For pitchers with over 100 plate appearances against using a 4-seam fastball, Gallen's ranked 13th in lowest batting average at .165, yet ranked 144th in Whiff Rate at only 19.7%. He was by no means lacking in strikeouts as a whole, however, as his K/9 was 12th in the league among qualified starters. When hitters did make contact, they hit to a .237 BABIP against the Diamondbacks ace, which ranked 2nd lowest behind only Julio Urias.
Looking at the full picture, he is one of the most full rounded of the pitchers we've looked at thus far. He did a great job of getting outs with the 4-seam fastball in play, using his secondary curveball to get swings and misses when he needed to, and pitching to all areas of the plate. In FanGraphs Baseball's Wins Probability Added (WPA), Gallen ranked 3rd, beating out Justin Verlander 4.09 to 4.04. He ranked behind only Sandy Alcantara and Max Fried. The Dodgers and Padres will most likely rule the National League West talking points, but this is a guy that needs to be watched in 2023.
Tyler Anderson, Los Angeles Dodgers
15-5 Record 2.57 ERA 1.00 WHIP
The Dodgers were Anderson's fourth team in four years. He hadn't had an ERA below 4.37 since his rookie season in 2016 with the Colorado Rockies. The now 33-year old starter was one of the great stories in baseball. He's been in the big leagues, but hadn't put together enough success to get noticed on a wide scale before this season. Anderson's new found success, however, is not due to overpowering hitters as we see with a few other guys on this list.
"The faster it comes in, the faster it goes out." We've all heard it before. In Tyler Anderson's case, the slower it comes it, the slower it goes out. In a league full of homeruns and strikeouts, Tyler Anderson was one of the best players in the game in 2022 with a 6.95 K/9 and a fastball with an average velocity just below 91 MPH. In turn, the average exit velocity against the LA southpaw ranked 7th lowest in baseball and 1st among starting pitchers at 85.0 MPH.
Anderson was a master of the strike zone. Almost half of his pitches landed in the four corner regions just off the plate. Anderson was in a very small group of pitchers that were in the 90th percentile or better in both walk percentage and hard hit percentage. The list includes Jacob DeGrom, Aaron Nola, Emmanuel Clase, Max Fried, and you guessed it! Tyler Anderson. Hopefully, Anderson and the other Angels additions are enough for us to see Mike Trout play in October. Fingers crossed.
Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies
11-13 Record 3.25 ERA 0.96 WHIP
Aaron Nola is one of the very few pitchers on the list that has Statcast expected statistics that are better than his actuals. Often when pitchers and hitters have great seasons, the expected statistics are worse, in some cases much worse, than the actual results. For Nola this was not the case.
| BA | SLG | wOBA | ERA |
Expected | .211 | .340 | .259 | 2.74 |
Actual | .219 | .347 | .264 | 3.25 |
Nola attacked the zone as good as any pitcher in baseball. He led the league in first pitch strike percentage, ranked 2nd in BB/9 among qualified pitchers, and was still able to strikeout 235 batters in 205 innings. His higher than expected ERA, however, is an interesting case, but I think it can be contributed, at least partially, to the poor defense behind him.
Phillies Defensive Rankings
Outs Above Average (OAA): 29th
Runs Above Average (RAA): 29th
Defensive Runs Saved (DRS): 25th
FanGraphs Def Rating (Def): 25th
Range Runs (RngR): 30th
Looking at Nola's Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), he ranked 5th in baseball at 2.58 despite ranking 23rd in ERA. I don't see the fielding improving a great deal in 2023. The biggest liabilities in 2022 were Rhys Hoskins, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos. All three of those players were vital parts of the Phillies lineup in 2022 and that should continue into next season. I thought the addition of Trea Turner may help, but to my surprise, the numbers indicate that Turner has not been an above average defensive player for several years. I like Aaron Nola in 2023, but only time will tell how much Aaron Nola likes the fielding behind him. Nonetheless, he is doing great things on the mound and I expect that to continue into 2023 and years to come.
Carlos Rodon, San Francisco Giants
14-8 Record 2.88 ERA 1.03 WHIP
Carlos Rodon was drafted 3rd overall in the 2014 MLB June Amateur Draft. By 2015, he was already in the big leagues and showed promise, but there was still much to be refined. It wasn't until last year, in what would be his final season with the Chicago White Sox, that he broke into the discussion of among the best in baseball.
2015-2020 29-33 Record 4.14 ERA 8.80 K/9
2021-2022 27-13 Record 2.67 ERA 12.23 K/9
The story of Rodon's success has been the dominance of his fastball-slider combination. The two pitches accounted for 92.3% of his total pitches this past season. In previous years, he was throwing his changeup at least 10% of the time, but in 2022 he cut it out almost completely. The fastball had an accumulated run value of -22 runs, which ranked 5th in baseball, but was actually lower than the 2021 total of -26 runs, which ranked 1st in baseball.
That electric fastball pairs perfectly with a slider that falls of the table and heads right toward the back foot of a right-handed hitter. Below I created an overlay of the fastball and slider from an at-bat against Dansby Swanson. A ball coming out of the same slot hits the outside corner up in the zone when it is the 4-seamer and the inside corner low in the zone when it is the slider.
Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels
15-9 Record 2.33 ERA 1.01 WHIP
Where do we start with this guy? The talent that Shohei Ohtani has is something we have never seen. To be able to highlight the pitching success of a player that also hit 80 home runs the last two seasons is truly amazing. All the talk on the pitching end when Ohtani burst on the scene was his devastating split finger. While devastating, he only threw the pitch 12% of the time in 2022. It has gone done slightly in usage every year as the slider has shot up.
4-Seam Fastball: 2021 44.1% → 2022 27.6% -16.5%
Slider: 2021 22.0% → 2022 39.1% +17.1%
Split Finger: 2021 18.3% → 2022 12.0% -6.3%
Cutter: 2021 12.1% → 2022 9.1% -3.0%
Curveball: 2021 3.6% → 2022 8.6% +5.0%
Sinker: 2021 0.0% → 2022 3.7% +3.7%
Each pitch in his arsenal has its own unique strengths to keep hitters off balance. The 4-seam fastball had an average velocity of 97.3 MPH and topped out at 101.4 MPH against the Astros in September of this year on a strikeout of Kyle Tucker. With the increased use of the slider, the pitch jumped to the second best pitch in baseball in total run value at -28, behind only the aforementioned Dylan Cease slider. The slider also ranked among the best in the league in horizontal movement. It moved 7.5 more inches on average as compared to other sliders with similar velocity across the league (see below). I mentioned that the split finger was used less, but it wasn't any less effective. Hitters batted .125 against Ohtani's tertiary pitch and whiffed at a rate of 48.8%.
Daniel Bard, Colorado Rockies
34 Saves 1.79 ERA 0.99 WHIP
For those that don't know Daniel Bard, he has a heavy sinker and great slider that allow him to induce groundballs at a high rate. The sinker was clocked at an average speed of 98 MPH and ranked among the leaders in average spin rate as well.
Using Baseball Savant's Illustrator, the heat maps for batted balls off of Daniel Bard show his ability to keep the ball in the infield.
What is interesting about Bard's story is that he is 37 years old and didn't play in the league between 2013 and 2020. He won the Tony Conigliaro Award for comeback player upon his return in 2020. Although he isn't like some of the others on the list that we will see for years and years, he is relevant right now and a great story for the game. With the Coors Field effect his ERA+ was 262 this past season. He didn't officially qualify to be considered in the category, but his total ranked higher than the league leading number of 220 posted by Justin Verlander.
“Baseball Savant Visuals.” Baseballsavant.com, https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals.
“Baseball Savant: Trending MLB Players, Statcast and Visualizations.” Baseballsavant.com, https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/.
“Major League Leaderboards " 2022 " Pitchers " Dashboard: Fangraphs Baseball.” Major League Leaderboards " 2022 " Pitchers " Dashboard | FanGraphs Baseball, https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0.
“Savant Illustrator.” Baseballsavant.com, https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/illustrator.
“Spin Rate (SR): Glossary.” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/spin-rate.
“Statcast Search.” Baseballsavant.com, https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search.
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