Three Appearance Analysis with Tanner Houck: Part 3

Had you been rostering and starting Tanner Houck on April 14th, you likely wouldn’t have started him in his next outing on April 20th, assuming you were paying attention. On the 14th, he got blown up by the Tampa Bay Rays and exited the game early in the third inning after 11 earned runs crossed the plate. If that performance deterred you from staring him on April 20th, you were likely doubly annoyed when he turned in a decent outing against the White Sox. But look a little closer, and you will see pitches that should have been down, left up in the zone. You’ll see strikeouts on pitches that hitters who are not on the White Sox may have put over the fence. Who am I to call a good start bad? Houck got it done, but in this article, I’ll dive a little deeper to put it in context with his previous two starts in this final installment of The Three Appearance Analysis.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

April 9th qui-cap:
-Only threw two four-seamers in total
-Relied on soft contact and balls in play, but got away with a few sweepers/splitters in the zone
-Located sweepers down and away to righties, but not consistently
-Sinker performed well inside against righties

April 14th qui-cap:
-death by a thousand cuts, Houck gave up too many singles
-pitch-to-contact went wrong with poor locations
-continued to throw sweepers to lefties
-luck was not on his side

A game score in the 60s is “good” by definition. With only two runs given up in six innings, Houck was able to turn in a solid outing. Limiting hits, striking out batters, and pitching to contact, Tanner Houck reverted back to the good times in this game against the White Sox. What did he throw, and how did it do? Take a look at his overall pitch mix:

The four-seamer is back, baby! Houck earned one swinging strike on the pitch at the top of the zone. Unlike his April 14th performance, where he saved the four-seamer for lefties, Houck threw the sneaky fastball to both lefties and righties:

You may think…wow, great four-seam location at the top of the zone!…and your thinking would be correct. Houck struck out Luis Robert Jr. with one of those four-seamers at the top of the zone, but the one that snuck into the zone was smacked for a two-run home run by Matt Thaiss with two outs and a runner on first base. It feels terribly annoying to write about what Houck should have thrown in this situation, but I’ll do it anyway; neither his sinker nor splitter had given up a hit to a lefty in this game. The four-seamer, even if it was intended to be way up in the zone, seems odd. Doesn’t anyone take Michael Bauman’s advice anymore? In my game two analysis, I suggested he throw the four-seamer in place of some of those sweepers to lefties, but he may not have the ability to locate with the pinpoint accuracy his version of the pitch requires.

With his sinker, Houck returned an incredible 36.7% called strike rate, a mark that averages around 22.0% amongst pitchers with at least 200 sinkers thrown. The combination of sinkers earning called strikes and sweepers getting swinging strikes helped Houck earn the seven strikeouts he recorded in this outing.

Much like he did during his April 9th start, Houck utilized a sweeper against opposite-handed batters (lefties) more than 30% of the time. During that April 9th start, he left a few in the zone, and they did not give up much damage. In his April 14th start, he gave up a home run with the pitch to a lefty and began backing off its usage. In this start, April 20th, its usage was back up and despite leaving a few in the zone, hitters mostly rolled over on it. Here’s an example:

But this is the reason the three-game analysis can be useful for your starting pitcher decision-making when it comes to your fantasy baseball team. Looking closely reveals too many sweepers to the lefties that were left in the zone. Houck’s attempts at backdooring his sweeper returned positive results on April 9th, poor results on April 14th, and positive results again on the 20th. Sometimes it worked, heck, he struck out two lefties with it during this third analyzed start. But sometimes it didn’t, and when it didn’t, it really didn’t. Zooming both in and out can be a useful feature, just take a look at the five right-handed pitchers who have thrown the sweeper to lefties the most in 2025:

Houck’s version is the worst by every measure, and it warrants a deeper dive into why that is. Still, its usage should be dropped to more of a pitch that keeps hitters off guard than one that either does or doesn’t sweep into the zone a third of the time. In other words, he should throw it less. It will be interesting to see what he features to lefties when he returns to the majors, he’s currently in AAA.

His better pitch to lefties is his splitter, and it performed well against lefties in his 4/20 start, even if he left a few up in the zone:

Sinkers worked well on the inside to righties once again, but his sweeper wasn’t located well, and he got away with more than a few. Even still, he earned a strikeout with it. You can’t argue with results, but you can argue that the results won’t keep coming in this way. Leaving average stuff sweepers in the zone is not recommended. The pitch has a big, sweeping motion to honor its name, but that 50.0% Zone% is more than hitters would expect on average. Take a lineup better than the Chicago White Sox, feed their right-handed batters, and left-handed batters for that matter, loopy sweepers a third of the time and leave it in the zone half of the time, and things will go awry.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Next Game

In Bauman’s Houck piece (referenced above), he wrote, “Stop throwing the four-seamer.” But, what if that “Stop” includes the sweeper to lefties? What would Houck throw then? A changeup? Bring back the cutter? Maybe up the splitter usage even more? I don’t have all the answers, I don’t even have an answer. It’s hard to stop analyzing game-by-game, but the idea for this series was sparked by my own desire to have a continuous three-game analysis on each of my rostered starting pitchers. I know, you’ve read all three, right? So, with this information, would you have started Houck in his next start at Cleveland? Go ahead, view the results , and then answer. It would have been hard not to after this “good” April 20th performance. Houck performed well in game three, but after viewing these charts, I may have decided to keep him on the bench. Regardless, I plan to keep working on automating the three-game analysis and testing its usage, because parting ways with Houck in fantasyland after this game would have been a great decision.