The short answer for why we missed on Jacob deGrom on the way up was that he improved each of his pitches as he ascended through the minor leagues, often by changing the grip. He’s back to his old tricks, as only Anthony DeSclafani’s slider has gotten harder this year, and the other guys throwing the Dan Warthen-branded Mets slider are all doing pretty well with that pitch.

So let’s look at movement and velocity changes on pitches and see if we can spot the next deGrom, hopefully in time to have him on our roster before the true breakout.

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Dynasty leagues are great. In a time of year where standard leagues are losing interested members by the bushel, dynasty leagues have one last big question that keeps everyone at the table. Is it time to sell? Do I look to the future right now, or do I buy? What should the buying look like?

These things are hard to prove with numbers, but maybe some recent experience, and some help from our readers, can flush these out better for those of staring at that very decision. It’s really a look at two essential questions that face us when we’re not in the top three slots in our league, in the end.

For those of you not in dynasty leagues, the first part will still be useful — we’ll look at what sort of numbers you’ll need to show in your rate categories if you want to undo the terrible that you have done so far. If you can’t push that boulder, maybe you should re-focus on other parts of your standings.

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In pitching, you have your Matt Cains and you have your A.J. Burnetts — there’s no one way to be a good starting pitcher. Sometimes you have a wide arsenal of representative pitches, sometimes you have one excellent pitch and you find a way to keep throwing it over and over again.

Today, let’s give some love to the Matt Cains and find pitchers with many good pitches. Maybe we’ll find an undervalued guy or two.

First, we’ll use the “above-average” benchmarks set up here, with a low minimum to allow for short-sample pitchers to get into the list. If you’ve thrown your pitch 20 times so far this year, that pitch is eligible for this list. Then, the simple question is, is your pitch over the benchmark? Let’s sum the starters for swinging strikes first.

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Hitters have to be jealous of pitchers in at least one respect. A pitcher can add a new pitch — maybe by fiddling with the grip or the release — and that new pitch can make them into a totally different guy. Hitters can fiddle with their mechanics, but it’s rare that there’s a readily available obvious and easy change they can make that rises to the level of a New Changeup.

Speaking of new changeups, check out Carlos Martinez.

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There is no ideal batted ball mix for all players. Run the numbers, and there’s no strong correlation between things like pull, opposite-field, ground-ball and fly-ball rates and weighted on base average or similar production stats.

That said, there is at least one “bad” batted ball type, the infield fly. And there is a decent relationship between fly balls and power, and between oppo% and BABIP. So you can feel your way to the ‘right’ mix for each player type.

And the players do themselves, as well. In general, they hit fewer ground balls as they approach their peak, which is a way for them to increase their power. And there are plenty of anecdotes from hitters about either leveling their swing plane to get on base more, or trying to hit more fly balls in order to hit for more power.

It’s clear that batted ball mix is a source for improvement in younger hitters, and that — if you’re careful — you can use it to try and figure out the future for a young player. So let’s turn this spotlight on two very different players, Manny Machado and Billy Burns, to see what we can learn.

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Where have Collin McHugh’s strikeouts gone? Only Shane Greene, Jesse Hahn, Alex Wood, and Phil Hughes have seen a sharper decrease in strikeout rate since last year without a change in role. We’ve covered most of those guys in one way or another over the last few weeks at The Change. Now it’s time to focus on McHugh, to see what we can learn.

McHugh is still top 30 in swinging strike rate. He’s 65th in strikeout rate. Something is amiss here.

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When I comment on the shape of a pitch, I try to put it into two pieces of context: the league average movement on a pitch like that, and the rest of that pitcher’s arsenal. More on the second bit later.

Today, let’s look at some young pitchers with small track records — guys like Eduardo Rodriguez, Chi-Chi Gonzalez, Vincent Velasquez, and Lance McCullers — up against the average movement of the league’s pitches. Because we may not know a ton about outcomes right now, but the movement of a pitch probably only takes a few games to stabilize. It’s an aspect of the pitch, much like velocity, which stabilizes in three games.

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Most of you know that I love tracking pitches as if they were players. Jeurys Familia‘s slider just got overtaken by the one by thrown by Sergio Santos in whiff rate! David Robertson‘s knuckle curve is now number one in the game by whiffs, not Craig Kimbrel’s! With at least 20 balls in play, no pitch has a bigger grounder rate than the sinkers by Javier Lopez, with Chad Qualls, Charlie Morton, Brad Ziegler and Brad Hand rounding out the top five.

Anyway, I fired up my favorite query for you, and thought I’d point out some notable pitches.

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Yes, the best in-season ERA estimator is strikeouts minus walks. You can use that tidbit to find a few sleepers in season, for sure.

But when you look at Matt Shoemaker and Phil Hughes right now, you realize there are perils when it comes to using the stat in the offseason. And really, you may start to see some of the limits of the stat even when it comes to in-season work.

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It’s tricky to write about batted ball mix changes, for the most part. If you’re talking push and pull, adding the ability to go the other way can increase your batting average, sure. But it can also decrease your power output. Ground balls and fly balls act the same way — there’s really an ideal mix for each hitter, and we’re trying to figure out just as much as they are which is the best way forward.

There’s one batted ball type that just plain sucks, though. The pop-up. The infield fly.

98.5% of the time, that’s an out. It’s a bad idea, plain and simple.

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