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There was a lot of hype surrounding Bundy on his way up through the minors, reaching as high as the second-best prospect in baseball according to the 2013 MLB.com preseason prospect rankings, after he already made his MLB debut at the end of the 2012 season. However, Bundy’s career protectory was derailed later that summer, as he had to undergo Tommy John surgery. After more injury issues, Bundy didn’t make his return to the big leagues until the 2016 season.
Bundy’s four seasons in a Baltimore Orioles uniform were disappointing to say the least. While he was able to stay healthy, Bundy failed to have a season where he posted an ERA below four. In total, Bundy had a 4.69 ERA with an 8.8 K/9 and a 3.0 BB/9. This led to the Orioles decision to move on from Bundy this winter. Now, in an Angels jersey, Bundy is pitching better than ever.
While the season is still young, Bundy has been lights out to start the season. In four starts, Bundy already has a 1.1 fWAR entering play on Sunday. In 28 and 2/3 innings of work, Bundy has 35 strikeouts, while allowing just 3 walks. A big factor that is playing into this great start from Bundy is the change in pitch usage that he is using to start this season.
In the graph above, we can see that Bundy has ramped up his slider usage in his first four starts of 2020. Throughout his career, the four-seam fastball has been by far the dominantly used pitch in Bundy’s repertoire, in most seasons nearly doubling the usage of next closest pitch. This year, however, he has actually thrown a couple more sliders than fastballs thus far.
This is a move that seemed all too obvious for Bundy, who possess one of the best sliders in all of baseball. Just how good has Bundy’s slider been? Well, here is where Bundy’s slider ranks among the best starting pitcher sliders in Major League Baseball since he started throwing it with regularity in 2017.
In the above chart, we see the top five pitchers ranked by slider xwOBA since the 2017 season (min. 1500 sliders thrown). As you can see, Bundy not only tops the leaderboard in this all-important category, but he also maintains pace with these other pitchers in other important categories such as whiff rate and spin rate.
In addition to ramping up the usage of his slider, Bundy has also made improvements with his changeup over the last couple of seasons. In 2018, Bundy’s changeup was nothing more than an absolute liability pitch for him, as opposing hitters smashed it for a .356 average and a .724 slugging percentage. Those numbers where much improved in 2019, as hitters hit a more modest .254 and slugged .413. So far in 2020, those numbers have improved even further as opposing batters are hitting just .120 with a .240 slugging percentage against Bundy’s changeup.
There are a couple of notable differences in Bundy’s changeup that seem to explain the improvement in the pitch. The first is the drop-in spin rate, as seen in the chart below. Unlike breaking balls, where a higher spin rate is typically a good thing, for changeups a lower spin rate is usually better. The reason for this is the spin on a changeup acts against gravity, so if there is less spin, the ball will actually have more downward movement as it gets closer to the plate. This has helped improve the swing and miss ability of the pitch, as that has increased from 28.7 percent in 2018, up to 32.5 percent and 34.1 percent in the last two years, respectively.
The other big improvement that Bundy has made to his changeup has been his ability to locate the pitch. In the past, Bundy struggled to get his changeup down in the zone consistently. This allowed opposing hitters to tee off on the pitch. However, Bundy has remedied that problem, and is now getting that pitch down in the zone more consistently, as is illustrated in the chart below.
The effects of this improvement of Bundy’s changeup have been profound. Bundy uses his changeup as his go to secondary offering against left-handed hitters, and lefties are now having much less success against him. In 2018, left-handed hitters had an OPS of .938 against Bundy. In 2019, that number was down to a much more respectable .781, and so far in 2020 It has fallen even further, down to .627.
In addition to the improvements that Dylan Bundy has made to his game, he is also the perfect trade candidate from a contract perspective for the Twins. Bundy is currently in his second arbitration season, meaning the Twins will have team control for 2021. Additionally, Bundy will only have about $700K left on his deal for 2020 after the August 31st trade deadline, minimizing the payroll impact this season.
It still remains to be seen if the Angels are willing to move Bundy at the deadline, and if so, what it will cost to acquire him. If the asking price is too high, the Twins should probably hold back, but if they get a reasonable offer from the Angels they should jump all over it, as Bundy has the potential to be at or near the top of a Twins rotation that lacks a true frontline starter.
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