Three Appearance Fastball Velocity Risers and Fallers: May 16th, 2024

Welcome to another automated installment of fastball velocity risers and fallers. For reference, here are a few articles that explain both the process and the importance of increased or decreased velocity when predicting future success:

• Using Game-By-Game Fastball Velocity to Influence SP Sit/Start Decisions by Lucas Kelly
• MLB pitching models should incorporate recency, giving us an intriguing ranks update by Eno Sarris
• Baseball’s ‘Hot Hand’ Is Real by Rob Arthur and Greg Matthews

The data for this article reflects games played through May 12th and only displays Statcast’s four-seam fastball (FF) velocity. 

Sixto Sánchez’s average velocity (Statcast) was 98.5 in a short 39 innings in 2020. So far in 2024, he’s thrown 7.1 innings in relief, and the chart above represents his last three appearances, which all came as a starter. He’ll likely be adjusting for several appearances.

Albert Suárez has moved into the bullpen as a long-reliever but has lost a tick or two on his fastball. He’s also likely to show adjustments throughout the early going as he’s getting used to playing in the MLB again.

George Kirby went from a career-high 12-strikeout game to battling a knee injury to giving up three home runs in a single game with decreased velocity. Luckily, there has been no mention of arm issues, so hopefully, his last poor outing resulted from knee discomfort.

Austin Gomber has had home run issues while slowing up in fastball velocity. That’s a red flag.

Jack Flaherty has also struggled with the long ball giving up one home run in every appearance this season except for one. This season he has been slowly creeping back to where his velocity was in 2019 (94.3 MPH), but the dip in his last few games is concerning. Four of his seven home runs surrendered this season have come off the four-seamer. However, he ranks second in K-BB% at 29.4% among qualified starters.

Bryse Wilson is another pitcher who has bounced back and forth between starter and reliever in 2024. He has struggled with control as a starter with a 14% BB% (2.7% BB% as RP).

Hayden Wesneski’s four-seamer usage has jumped up nearly 10% points between this season and last season. Will he be able to maintain that balance between usage and velo?

Brad Keller’s four-seam velocity has decreased in each season since 2022. He’s working mostly as a long reliever for the White Sox.

Colin Rea’s velocity still hasn’t reached 2022’s 93.2 MPH consistently in 2024. His expected ERA (5.78) significantly differs from his actual ERA (3.29).

Triston McKenzie’s 6.3% K-BB% is the third worst among starters with at least 40 IP. He has serious control issues. That, coupled with a decreased fastball velocity should raise some red flags. However, all sources point to the Gurdians’ righty feeling healthy.

Tyler Alexander has been utilized both as a starter and as a reliever, though he hasn’t thrown any less than 4 IP in any appearance. His fastball average has never touched 91 MPH in any season, so this doesn’t seem like such a big deal considering he uses his cutter more than his four-seamer.

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Those are some big gains in velocity for José Berríos. His four-seamer usage has gone down, down, down as he has favored the sinker/sweeper combination more. So far, his four-seamer has been a secondary, but he’s locating it well and he continues to gain velocity getting closer to his 2020 max where he averaged 94.5 MPH.

Chris Flexen has moved back out of the bullpen and into the fifth starter’s spot for the White Sox. He has a 4.91 ERA as a starter.

Mitch Keller’s four-seamer is his best fastball by run value compared to his sinker and cutter in 2024.

Spencer Turnbull’s decreased usage of all his pitches in favor of more curveballs may be giving him more energy to increase velocity. Though he still only throws the curve less than 10% of the time, it’s 59.1 Whiff% and 55.6 K% rank the pitch among the best in the MLB in 2024. It seems to be playing well with his fastball. Don’t forget Turnbull’s 2019 season where he threw 148.1 innings for the Tigers and collected a 17 statcast run-value on his four-seamer, good for 13th among those qualified (minimum PA 10). In that season, Turnbull had poor performance on nearly all of his other pitches. Now that he has an effective secondary, Turnbull may be putting things together in Philadelphia. On the other side, he was moved out of the starting rotation and into the bullpen and it is unclear how he’ll be deployed moving forward.

Michael Wacha’s four-seamer has been getting crushed while his changeup has been doing the crushing. He finds himself atop the leaderboard in statcast run value with the pitch next to Tyler Anderson and Ranger Suárez. Wacha’s poor fastball performance has earned him a 5.15 ERA on the year.

Finally, Aaron Civale’s uptick still has him serving up home runs and his HR/9 has reached way above the league average (starters, 1.10 HR/9) at 1.74. His arsenal needs some help as his sweeper is the only one of his six pitches with a positive run value.