Jack Flaherty (Topps A&J, 2018)
Chris Carpenter won the NL Cy Young award in 2005. In that season, he pitched 21-5 with ERA 2.83 and 213 strikeouts. It was the last time that a Cardinals pitcher won the Cy Young award. Last season (2019), Jack Flaherty finished the season strong, post all-star, his ERA was only 0.91 while WHIP was only 0.71. Batters truly had no idea on how to face him, hitting only .142 against Flaherty. Flaherty finished 4th in the Cy Young voting.
Jack Flaherty was called up in September 2017. He tossed 21.1 innings in the 2017 season, allowing 15 runs (all earned). On May 20, 2018, Flaherty recorded his first career MLB win, tossed 7.2 innings against the Phillies and allowed only 1 run while struck out 13 times. In 2018, he threw 151 innings. His record was 8-9, ERA 3.34, WHIP 1.11 and batting average against him was only .199. It looked that he’s totally qualified to have a role in the rotation. He was a little bit shaky in the first half of the 2019 season. Pre All-Star, he only got 4 wins while had 6 losses, his ERA was 4.64 with WHIP 1.23, BAA was .237. However, the story became different after the all-star game.
Flaherty changed his pitch mix post all-star, compared to the first half, he used more slider, sinker and curve while decreasing in throwing fastball and changeup. In May and June, more than 50% of pitches were his four-seamer. In September, the percentage dropped to 40.4%.
Pitch Velocity (*MPH)
In addition, his pitch velocity went up slightly. Average pitch velocity of his 4-seamer and sinker reach to 95.1 mph and 92.8 mph each.
Spin Rate (*RPM)
Spin rate of 5 pitches all increased from July to September. Curveball spin rate (average) reached 2544 rpm in September.
The outcome of these changes, swing and miss rate against his 4-seamer increased to 26.2% and against sinker grew to 29.1%. Flaherty’s curveball became even tougher for hitters. His curveball and slider cause more than 40% swing and miss.
Hard hit rate against him dropped dramatically. Hitter against Flaherty, less than 10% hard hit rate against his slider and 15% against his 4-seamer.
xwOBA against his 4-seamer was .215 in September, only .166 against Flaherty’s slider and his curveball was unhittable, xwOBA was 0.048 and only 1 hit allowed.
Flaherty’s xwOBA (post all-star) was only .229 and only behind Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander and NL CY Young winner Jacob deGrom. He has shown that he can dominate on the mound and he’s the Ace of the Cardinals.
Meanwhile, Flaherty led in ERA, WHIP and BAA after all-star. That truly demonstrated that he is one of the elite pitchers in the league. If Flaherty can replicate his performance as he did post all-star last season, he will definitely be a very strong Cy Young contender.
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