Finding Giolito: Intro & Freddy Peralta
I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked this offseason, “Who is this season’s Giolito?” So I’m supposed to know of a pitcher who was completely useless the previous season but is going to throw harder, find the strike zone, and rework his repertoire. Yea … I wish. But we can start diving in and I’ve found 10 arms who may pull it off.
The elusive list of 10 pitchers came taking anyone on Jason Collette’s New Pitch Tracker with anyone who saw a velocity increase in the first Spring Training. Initially, 12 pitchers made cut.
| Name | FB Velo up | New Pitch |
|---|---|---|
| Alec Mills | 0.8 | New 2 seam grip |
| Danny Duffy | 0.6 | faster slider |
| Devin Smeltzer | 0.4 | Adding a slider |
| Freddy Peralta | 1.4 | bringing back a slider |
| Garrett Richards | 0.4 | Bringing back his change |
| Jacob deGrom | 0.6 | Improve slider |
| John Means | 1.7 | Improving his curve |
| Kenley Jansen | 1.0 | New slider grip |
| Logan Webb | 0.1 | Adding a cutter & moving to a slurve. Lower arm angle |
| Nick Pivetta | 0.9 | New delivery and change |
| Sean Manaea | -0.4 to +1.7 | Refining slider and looking to add a cutter |
| Tyler Mahle | 0.7 | Adding slider |
I’m not going to dive into deGrom and Jansen. deGrom will likely be the first or second pitcher drafted and while Jansen has aged over the past few seasons, he’s still got the Dodgers closer. I’m going to try to dive into the other 10 longshots before the season starts, beginning with Freddy Peralta.
I know some of the changes and velocity bumps are small, but I’ve got to start somewhere. With two parts of a pitcher’s profile heading up, why not dig for more?
Freddy Peralta
Gains
- +1.4 mph
- Added a slider
Games Watched
- 3/5/20 – Seasick edition. The home plate camera was constantly moving a little bit.
- 3/11/20
Notes
- A thrower. Just flings it across the plate as hard as he can.
- Throws a straight rising fastball that hitters just can catch up with.
- He seems to throw two curves. A 12-6 hard curveball and one that’s a little slower and loopier. Both he can throw for strikes. While I didn’t count each curve, he seemed to increase the usage over the 20% from last season.
- He had no faith in and/or control of the slider. He threw it off the plate and broke away even further.
Fastball
Curves
Possible Slider
Overall
I don’t think it’d be worth paying up for him right now (396 ADP). Nothing has changed from last season, maybe a bit of velocity and reliance on the curve. I don’t see any progress so why pay a premium for it. Pass.
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.
John Means is an interesting one – can you do a deeper dive on him? If he really is getting his velo up, he could have a breakout.
Considering how much time there is, and the difficulty in producing content right now, I’m assuming he’s going to do a separate article for each pitcher sans deGrom and Jansen. Having said that, I too am gaining more interest in Means.
Correct, I’m just going to work my way through them. Probably two an article.