Three Appearance Analysis with Tanner Houck: Part 1

Come with me, for a moment, down into the clubhouse of your favorite MLB team. Walk through the concrete halls and into the press room. Take a seat and wait for the manager to come in. Listen, you can hear it. Pencils, pens, iPad taps, all preparing to ask questions that press the manager, while also making the person asking them sound cool and trustworthy, like, “You can talk to me, it’s me! I’m cool. I’m not like these other press passers.” Here it comes, the classic question:

Press: What did you see out there with your starting pitcher today?

Manager: Well, I thought he looked good, you know, he’s really been working on getting ahead in the count early. Just trying to establish the zone and utilize that big breaking ball. I thought the splitter looked good. He might have gotten away with one or two, but all in all, it was a really good outing, and he put us in a place where we could win a ball game.”

As cliché as the question is, it’s always a good one, and it’s never easy to answer. Can you answer it for your team? As a fantasy manager, you probably rarely get to watch the game in which your streamer for the week is starting. If things go well, you’ll probably roll them back out next week. If things go wrong, you’re cursing the name of whichever podcaster told you to stream said pitcher. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to figure out what went right and if that pitcher will be able to replicate it in his next outing. Without having the lifetime experience of a baseball manager and watching from the dugout, it’s very challenging to answer the question, “What did you see out of pitcher X today?”

I’m on a mission to automate this process. The end goal: analyze a pitcher from the perspective of his three most recent appearances to determine what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and how likely it is that the pitcher will be able to either replicate that behavior or turn things around in their next start. Throughout my next three articles, I’ll analyze Tanner Houck as if it were in real time. I’ve chosen Houck in particular because he’s had a few decent games and a few definitive stinkers. He’s had some sneaky good starts that would have made the average fantasy player think, “Yeah, he’s worth starting next week.” I’ll also be conducting this analysis with the ultimate goal of future automation in mind, so the data I use needs to be accessible through API calls instead of manual downloads. That puts the more advanced game-by-game Stuff+ and PitchBot data out of reach. Besides, I like the idea of focusing the analysis on very explainable, viewable outcomes such as:

1. What happened in the game? (Gamelog)
2. What did he throw to all hitters, and how did his pitches perform?
3. To lefties?
4. To righties?
5. What recommendations would I make if I were a real, non-fantasy analyst, and people actually cared about what I thought?

Let’s begin.

Tanner Houck vs. the Toronto Blue Jays @ Boston: April 9th, 2025

Gamelog

Michael Bauman recently wrote about utilizing game scores to measure Pitcher Consistency, and I really liked what he was putting down. I used an altered version of his work to find pitchers who have been inconsistent in 2025, and found Tanner Houck. In this April 9th appearance, Houck’s game score measured smack dab in the middle of the “good” (60-70) category at 65. How good was it? It’s time to dive deep.

Performance Against All Hitters

For all hitters, Houck was sinker-heavy, and it was his second-best pitch for earning swinging strikes. This season, pitchers who have thrown at least 200 sinkers have earned a 5.4% swinging strike rate on average and Houck was exactly average in that measure during this performance. The 61.1% Zone% on his Splitter stands out as his season-long mark is 40.8% and the average among pitchers who have thrown a splitter at least 100 times is 39.1%. Still, only one of the five splitters that were put in play resulted in a hit, a single. Take a look at all the in-zone splitters Houck served up on April 9th:

That’s a lot of in-the-zone splitters for only having given up one hit, and I don’t think Houck and pitching coach Andrew Bailey talked about how they’d like to keep locating those splitters there after the game. You may notice that Houck only threw the pitch to lefties, opposite-handed hitters. It seems like he intended to work the splitter down and away like a more traditional changeup, but he had trouble locating it.

Your eyes may also be drawn to those two four-seamers. Either those were sinkers that didn’t sink, or Houck keeps the pitch in hiding for when he needs to catch a hitter off guard. His four-seamer’s movement profile is very much like a sinker as it has more drop than most modern-day four-seamers. Of the two he threw, one was way outside the zone, and one was hit for a single.

Performance Against Left-Handed Hitters

Besides the splitter, Houck threw sweepers and sinkers to opposite-handed batters:

Again, looking at these charts must make a pitcher nervous and a hitter excited. Those sweepers swept their way right into the heart of the zone or missed it by a large margin. There wasn’t much in between. Still, not too much damage was done as two of the five sweepers put in play landed for hits, both singles, and one of his sweepers forced a walk. Hitters weren’t able to do much with his sinker either, as the only ball put in play resulted in an out, though he did walk one batter, missing arm-side.

Performance Against Right-Handed Hitters

Now, to the other side of the dish. The sweeper’s command was off and on. That pocket of pitches down and away looks like a thing of beauty, but on the other hand, there were a few mistakes in there that did not get hit. Only two of Houck’s sweepers to righties were put in play, and both were taken care of by his defense for outs. Houck’s two strikeouts on the day came from two of the pink swinging strikes down and away.

Houck’s sinker worked inside to righties effectively. Each of those called strikes came in 0-0 counts or in a three-ball count when Houck needed to get one over the plate. Of all six sinkers put in play, only one resulted in a hit, another single.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Next Game

What went well? Houck was very effective with his sinker inside to righties and in the zone to lefties. While he did not locate his sweeper in the zone, he was able to get a few swing and misses when he located it down and away from righties.

What went poorly? He left too many splitters out over the plate, and without a solid four-seamer to keep hitters honest, it’s hard to believe in the pitch without it inducing more swing and miss, particularly from hitters chasing it.

Houck should continue utilizing the sinker and sweeper against righties, keeping his sinker working inside and his sweeper down and away. He must avoid leaving the sweeper over the plate to right-handed batters, and he should continue using the sinker as a way to get ahead in the count or back in it when he falls behind.

As for lefties, the splitter seems effective if it’s located down and away or at the bottom of the zone. Without a four-seamer to pair with, his splitter won’t be fooling too many hitters into swinging outside of the zone, so he needs to move it away from hitters and cannot continue to miss in the middle of the zone. Overall, it seems like Houck could benefit from developing another breaking ball that he can throw to lefties.

Next up, I’ll analyze Houck’s next appearance when he took on the Rays in Tampa five days later.