Caleb Thielbar's Secret Weapon (Free Preview)

13 minutes ago, Mark G said:

While I love the increase in his fastball and slider, I kind of liked that 68 mph curve ball.  ?  When you know he has a fastball in the low to mid 90's, and can put it right up at your letters, how do you not buckle when that curve comes floating in?  All he needs is to spot his pitches and mix them up right, and he is really good.  

With his story, I just can't help but pull for the guy.  I hope he has a great year, because if he does we just might too.

The interesting thing about Thielbar's curveball is that during his pitch design process while out of the Twins system, he tried to design it to mirror Kershaw's breaking ball -- and got pretty close!

Thielbar actually matched the movement closely. In 2020, it had more inches of break but was thrown above 5 mph slower on average.

Over the next two seasons, Thielbar added more horizontal movement (sweep) to the pitch. That's a big component of the Twins' pitching department -- getting horizontal movement on breaking pitches. They like late movement -- sliders, cutters -- and want more sweep with most of their curves now. 

This past year the two left-handed pitchers shared the same average velo (73.0 for Thielbar, 73.2 for Kershaw) but now Thielbar's curve moves more horizontally (10.5 inches of break for Thielbar, 4.9 for Kershaw).

Is it better? For Thielbar, the performance on that pitch has actually gotten worse. It's possible that the new shape has helped the fastball or slider.

15 hours ago, roger said:

Question, Parker?  
 

I often read that player X made Y adjustments over the winter and reports to Spring Training as a better player.  My question, why aren’t the large group of coaches each team has finding these adjustments to make the player better?

Really good question.

A lot of organizations have coaches/staff that are working on identifying things they can improve. I know from the Twins' pitching side, they do extensive research in trying to figure out optimal pitch selection or go over biomechanical reviews to see if they can improve a pitcher with some movement work. (I discussed some of this in my Jorge Lopez piece.)

The other side of the coin is that they have to get players to embrace these changes. There are some that are very interested in changing and, notably a free agent acquisition a few years ago, some are not. So it's a two-way street. 

In addition to what a team provides, players are often using the offseason to train at professional facilities that have equal amounts of technology and their own ideas of how a player should improve (Thielbar's time at Driveline is a prime example). I work at a facility that has multiple pro guys at it and there is a big difference between how they handle their pitchers.

The Twins and Brewers have people that check in on the work their prospects are doing during the offseason. They give them detailed plans. I also know that not all organizations do the same. One local pitcher from another organization said that his org provided no direction on what to work on. He was on his own to make improvements and adjustments. Good luck and get better. 

So there is a lot that fans do not see in terms of the process.