A couple of months ago, I watched a baseball game on TV. It was the final of an international tournament. In that game, a starting pitcher frequently threw his fastball, and it worked very well. Opponents just couldn’t hit well against his fastball.
After watching the game, I began to think about a question. In the 2023 season, which pitchers did heavily rely on fastballs?
To understand a little bit more, I decided to check on the statcast website.
According to the statcast website, 4-seam fastball, sinker (2-seam fastball) and cutter are included in fastballs.
In the 2023 season, Caleb Ferguson made 7 starts (as an opener) and 61 relief appearances, posting a 3.43 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP over 60.1 innings, which is his career high. This season, Ferguson threw his 4-seam fastball 66.5% of the time and used his cutter 30.7% of the time. Hence, more than 95% of the time, Ferguson was using his fastballs during the regular season.
Bryan Woo made his MLB debut on June 3, 2023. In his rookie season, he made 18 starts, posting a 4.21 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP across 87.2 innings. During the regular season, Woo used his 4-seamer 46.9% of the time, threw his sinker 25.6% of the time and used his cutter 15.1% of the time. In particular, his 4-seamer’s average velocity was over 95.1 mph and opponents only batted .207 against his four-seamer.
In addition, Bryse Wilson was traded to the Brewers in January 2023. He made 53 relief appearances this season and owned a 2.58 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP through 76.2 innings. In 2023, Wilson’s cutter usage increased from 3.9% to 34.7% and opponents only hit .165 against his cutter. Meanwhile, his sinker usage increased from 32.8% to 34.9%. However, he only used his 4-seamer 16.3% of the time. In total, Wilson used his fastballs more than 85% of the time in 2023.
Moreover, let’s take a look at Lance Lynn. During the regular season, Lynn threw his 4-seamer 43.4% of the time, used his cutter 23.2% of the time and his sinker usage was 12.7%. Nonetheless, Lance Lynn’s fastballs were not very effective because opponents crushed 37 home runs against his fastballs this year.
Finally, Josh Winckowski and Javier Assad each threw fastballs more than 77% of the time. Winckowski mainly used his sinker and cutter during the regular season. At the same time, Assad used his sinker more than 30% of the time in 2023 and threw his cutter more than 25% of the time.
When we look at those pitchers who used fastballs more than 77% of the time in the 2023 season, it seems that Bryse Wilson might find the best way to use his fastballs. It’s the first time that he tossed at least 70 innings and finished a season with an ERA below 3. Nonetheless, for Lance Lynn, it will be extremely important for him to identify why his fastballs weren’t so effective, in particular, he gave up too many runs. Furthermore, Bryan Woo heavily relied on his fastballs in his rookie season, in his sophomore season, will he still do the same?
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