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Chris Paddack burst onto the scene in 2019 posting a 3.33 ERA in San Diego over about 140 innings. He paired a dominant mid to high-90s fastball with a plus-plus changeup and fantastic command to put together a rookie campaign that hinted at a future ace-level pitcher. Over the next two years, however, Paddack came to find that the MLB is unforgiving toward starting pitchers with only two pitches. And so he went to work.
Contrary to popular belief, Paddack wasn’t quite a two-pitch pitcher in 2021. He had incorporated a curveball 12% of the time and had fantastic results on the pitch. His 5+ ERA finish was instead a result of an underperforming fastball, although you could argue that Paddack wasn’t throwing the breaking ball nearly enough which could have helped the performance of the rest of his repertoire. Luckily, Paddack appears to have made significant adjustments to both pitches.
This small change should pay off twofold. On one hand, getting the fastball away from the heart of the plate is always a good idea. Also consider the fact that he’s upped his breaking ball usage to over 20% so far, meaning it’s harder to look fastball. Mixing in more breaking balls typically makes any fastball more effective, but now that he has one to pair with a devastating changeup, his fastball at the top of the zone should be that much harder to get around on. We’ve seen early signs of hitters already having difficulties with this change.
While it’s admittedly a small sample size, Paddack’s better overall performance appears to be tied to his once broken fastball making a huge rebound. After batters hit .314 on the pitch in 2021, they’re posting a .250 mark so far this year. More impressively, after allowing a .531 slugging % on the pitch last season, hitters have posted a .357 mark so far in 2022. This is all despite the fact that his average fastball velocity is down from 94.8 to 92.9 this year after a shortened spring and pitching in colder weather. It’s possible the pitch may actually improve as the season rolls on.
The biggest Chris Paddack storyline to keep an eye on however is his development of yet another pitch. As a fastball/changeup pitcher for most of his career, Paddack has posted fantastic reverse splits as we often see with pitchers whose primary offspeed is a changeup. Holding left-handers to a .226/.273/.408 line is impressive for a right-handed pitcher, but in Paddack’s case his lack of an equalizer for right-handed hitters has resulted in them posting a healthy .742 OPS against him. Luckily it appears the Twins were two steps ahead on this one.
In his third start with the Twins, Paddack threw what Statcast calls a cutter seven times. Whether it’s a cutter or a slider, this would really round out Paddack’s repertoire with a pitch that traditionally stifles right-handed pitching. It’s too small of a sample to draw any conclusions from the pitch, but the fact of the matter is if Paddack can make any strides in limiting right-handed hitters, it’s not hard to see him being one of the leaders in the rotation for the next three years.
It was easy to question parting with Taylor Rogers for a struggling Chris Paddack at the time, but it’s become very clear in this early season that the Twins did so with a very specific plan in mind. At 26 years old after a few tough seasons, Paddack appears to still have the raw talent that once earned him the reputation as one of the up-and-coming stud pitchers in baseball. With a change in scenery, a change in pitch sequencing, and possibly a new trick or two up his sleeve, Chris Paddack could become the high-end pitcher fans were calling for all offseason. Do you agree?
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