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.

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.