Find Giolito: Means, Duffy, Pivetta, & Mills

by
April 6, 2020

Last week I started a series on finding the potential Spring Training breakouts based on increased velocity and a possible new pitch. I planned on going in-depth on a couple of guys but found no game footage for Nick Pivetta, Danny Duffy, and John Means. Instead, I pivoted to Alec Mills.

Alec Mills

Improvements

  • Fastball velo up 0.8 mph.
  • New two-seam grip.

Games watched

  • 2/26/20: 2 IP, Best game to watch. Good camera angle and pitch velos.
  • 3/7/20: 3.2 IP, Horrible camera angle.
  • 3/11/20: 1 IP

Notes:

  • The righty comes right at hitters and lives in the strike zone.
  • He can throw everything for strikes except the slider.
  • The sinker has some wicked movement. The report from Spring Training said he was working on a new grip but the pitch looked that same as it did early and late last season.
  • His change has similar movement to his sinker and just eats batters up.
  • A velocity bump won’t make a ton of difference since he’s living in the high-80’s.

Four-seamer

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Sinker (i.e. Whiffle Ball)

Change

Curve

Slider

Summary: He’s at least a Kyle Hendricks clone with a sub-90 mph fastball with several above-average non-fastballs. His change is near elite (26% SwStr%, 50% GB%) with the slider and the curve both posting a 15% SwStr%. The key for me is if can dump his four-seamer (7% Swtr%, 33% GB%) for the sinker (5% SwStr%, 62% GB%). The four-seam is too easy to square up especially compared to his sinker. Over his career, batters have posted a .262 vsISO on the four-seamer and just .095 vsISO against the sinker. Here in a list of results (fouls) from his sinker last season.

Besides dropping the four-seamer, he needs a starting job. He was fighting with Tyler Chatwood for the last starting rotation spot. Since he’s out of options, he’ll make the team. He’s not getting released but it could be in the bullpen.

Hendricks may actually be the downside. In 30 innings as a starter, Mills has a 3.23 ERA, 3.53 xFIP, and an 11.5 K/9. Those stats are close to what Lucas Giolito (3.41 ERA, 11.6 K/9) and Brandon Woodruff (3.62 ERA, 10.6 K/9) posted last season. Everyone wants a sleeper … here they go.





 

Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
NL Rules
5 years ago

It sounds like the Cubs are leaning towards Chatwood for the 5th spot (and he looked good this spring too) — but love the movement on Mills’ pitches, especially the whiffle sinker!

1
Cliff B
5 years ago
Reply to  NL Rules

That sinker is some Bugs Bunny stuff.

0