Matt Shoemaker Revisited

Yesterday I wrote about Matt Shoemaker, highlighting how crucial it is for him to keep the ball down. One commenter on Twitter wondered if that wasn’t just the case with every pitcher, thus kind of an obvious point, but plenty of pitchers thrive up in the zone. Steven Wright throws a whopping 44% of his pitches in the upper third, far and away the highest among qualified starters this year. Others who live north of 30% include Steven Matz (37%), Justin Verlander (35%), Rick Porcello (33%), Jacob deGrom (33%), Aaron Sanchez (31%), Stephen Strasburg (31%), and Danny Duffy (30%).

Verlander, Porcello, Duffy, and deGrom are also among the top 20 in OPS (meaning they’re among the 20 lowest) in the upper third of the zone along with the likes of J.A. Happ (.375 OPS – leads the league), Jose Quintana (.414), Clayton Kershaw (.506), and Madison Bumgarner (.553) to name a few. In short, no, not every pitcher thrives by staying down in the zone.

He left a fat pitch to Robinson Cano in the first inning which he promptly took 419 feet the other way and I was wondering if this was going to be a long night for Shoemaker.

Yeaaahhh, can't leave it there pic.twitter.com/PlMtHrUmpk

— Paul Sporer (@sporer) August 19, 2016

This is what happens: https://t.co/1zmSHCHOmH

— Paul Sporer (@sporer) August 19, 2016

But he really settled down from there and stayed on point for seven strong. This start was a great example of how you can execute like you want and not necessarily rack up the strikeouts commensurate with the production. He fanned five in the seven innings, but he had a 17% swinging strike rate overall. Only five of the 16 swings-and-misses came in two-strike counts, though. The bottom line is that it was a really good start and he deployed the splitter perfectly.

Comparing his splitter on Thursday night to the one from his May 16th – July 16th run shows little difference:

If you split zone into upper half/lower half, he put 87% of his splitters in the lower half of the zone yesterday, even more than the 82% from the 12-start run that ended July 16th. Speaking of thriving up in the zone, Shoemaker does so with the fastball when he’s really at his best. In the 12-start run, his fastball yielded just a .477 OPS with a 48% strikeout rate in 27 PA.

In the five starts leading up to Thursday, the fastball was bashed in the upper third to the tune of a 1.015 OPS and just a 13% strikeout rate in 24 PA. Notice that he has nearly the same amount of plate appearance just 40% the sample size of starts. Less is more with high fastballs for Shoemaker, at least in the long term. In an single game, he can have consistent success with it, but leaning on high fastballs too much often comes back to get him.

On Thursday, the Mariners went 0-for-7 on high fastballs with a couple strikeouts. The plan was fastball-splitter against Seattle – even more than normal with just eight sliders thrown. Working a high fastball in, especially after burying so many splitters, can leverage the benefits of effective velocity, too. That is key for Shoemaker since he doesn’t have the natural velocity to just blow it by hitters up in the zone.

We haven’t seen Shoemaker eclipse five strikeouts in any of his last six starts and only once in his last nine, but he’s still pitching well more often than not. If you’re in need of some good-not-great pitching to solidify your stretch run, Shoemaker is an interesting target. A bottom line 4.14 ERA and a lack of big strikeout games has almost certainly lowered his price, but on the whole he’s just not that different than he was at his peak earlier this season and we could see another surge before the season’s over.