Spencer Strider's stuff was a bit different yesterday
The Atlanta Braves got back their strikeout artist yesterday, and he made a few subtle changes to what he does on the mound
Let’s get out ahead of this: Yesterday’s offensive performance versus the Toronto Blue Jays was pathetic. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about it, most of which I got out over on today’s episode of the podcast, so go check that out if you want to hear me rant about both the poor offensive showing and the team’s comments about it after the game.
I want to talk about Spencer Strider. ‘Quadzilla’ made his return to the mound yesterday for his first start in 376 days and wasn’t bad - two earned runs in five-plus innings with one walk and five strikeouts.
Comfortingly, Strider looked practically the same as he always does. Below is an overlay that Pitching Ninja created of fastballs in Rogers Centre that Strider threw to Vlad Guerrero Jr., one from 2023 (gray jersey) and one from yesterday (blue jersey).
But he wasn’t the exact same, and the differences are subtle but potentially impactful. Let’s talk about it.
Strider’s fastball isn’t quite there
We talked about this on the podcast yesterday, but Strider’s velocity isn’t quite where it was in his full season of 2023.
(To be clear, this is somewhat expected - not all pitchers are at peak form after spring training, never mind coming off of a major injury.)
After averaging 97.2 with the heater in 2023, Strider averaged just 95.4 yesterday. He flashed plenty of velo in the first inning, peaking at 97.9 and throwing five heaters over 97 mph, but topped out at just 96.1 in the second and 95.8 in the third. His slowest fastball was also his last, coming in at 93.4 for a swinging strike to Anthony Santander before the slugger walked on a slider out of the zone.
The locations were also different. In 2023, he liked to locate the fastball middle or down to righties so that it could better set guys up for the slider. Yesterday, he threw it up in the zone a lot. I'm not saying that’s better or worse; it's just different. 1
The slider and changeup are better
Another observation I made in the podcast yesterday was that the changeup was (surprisingly) used more than the curveball in Triple-A. I found it odd because Strider had talked about having maxed it out and being unable to significantly improve it based on his motor preferences and how his body works.
He found a way.
Strider’s armslot was 5° lower yesterday, from 2023’s 48° down to 43°. And while that can eat a little IVB away from the fastball, it did some good things to both his slider and changeup.
The slider added some horizontal movement, going from 3.6 inches gloveside to 6.9. The changeup also added drop, going from 10.6 IVB to 5.4 IVB. These changes pushed the slider from below-average break to above-average, while the changeup went from well below-average drop to close (but slightly below) average.
Here’s the slider - not a great camera angle (too wide, which minimizes the visual effect of the horizontal movement), but see how it bends outside?
And here’s a great shot of the changeup:
The slider was the real star yesterday, getting seven whiffs in eleven swings and adding five more called strikes. The changeup elicited only two swings, but one was a whiff and the other was a weak flyout to left.
However, Strider didn’t use his pitch mix optimally when you factor in these changes
Too many fastballs
Despite the fastball having less IVB and velocity, Strider threw it more than back in 2023, using it 60% of the time. The slider was the real victim here, losing 4% of usage from 2024, almost entirely pushed to the curveball. The breaker was thrown four times, three to lefties, and only drew one swing (a lineout to center).2
Now, it’s a small sample size of 97 pitches so let’s not make too big of a deal of it, but it’s something to watch for. The ideal mix is probably fastballs 50% of the time, using the slider 35%, the changeup 10%, and the curveball 5% or so.
Even this version of Strider is good enough, though. Having a series where you can set the rotation to be Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Spencer Strider gives Atlanta the opportunity to take down anyone in baseball…provided their offense brings bats with them to the yard.
The previous four-seam fastball ‘meta’ was to throw it up in the zone so hitters would swing underneath it, but Strider’s always been more willing to bring it into the heart of the zone and challenge you to make quality contact, for better or worse.
Interestingly, both the changeup putout and the curveball putout were off the bat of Andrés Giménez