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Joe Ryan was the Twins' Opening Day starter and will be an essential part of the team's pitching staff over the majority of the next decade. Like any pitcher, improvements and adjustments to his repertoire are needed to reach his potential ceiling. Ryan's fastball has continued to be great, but his secondary pitches are the key to unlocking his top-of-the-rotation potential.
When the Twins acquired Ryan, his minor league numbers were impeccable as he dominated the high minors with high strikeout totals. Most of Ryan's success throughout his professional career has been tied to his fastball usage. So far in 2022, he has used his fastball nearly 60% of the time, while hitters have a 25.1 Whiff% with a .343 SLG. Ryan's fastball will be a vital pitch throughout his career, but he needs to see improvement in his secondary pitches.
Ryan's second most used pitch is his slider, and that might be where he has the most opportunity to improve. He uses his slider nearly 22% of the time as batters have posted a .267 BA and .514 SLG when facing this pitch. Because Ryan is a righty, his slider is almost exclusively used (92.4% of the time) versus right-handed batters. Teams may put more left-handed batters in the line-up to face Ryan, and this takes away from the effectiveness of his best secondary pitch.
In Ryan's last start against the Royals, he only needed to throw nine sliders in the outing. Kansas City's line-up isn't exactly a murderer's row of sluggers, but it highlights how little Ryan relies on his secondary pitches. Minnesota's goal is to make the playoffs and win games with Ryan as a key starting pitcher. When facing playoff-caliber line-ups, he will need to rely on his slider more regularly, and it has yet to develop into a solid number two pitch.
Against left-handed batters, Ryan's most used off-speed pitch is his changeup, with some curveball usage too. His changeup is a below-average pitch, but there have been starts where he uses this pitch more than his slider. Batters have posted a .565 SLG against his changeup for the season because he has an 80% strike rate with this pitch. Overall, he has only thrown his changeup 13.3% of the time, but he's been forced to use it when his slider is off.
Ryan has never been a prototypical starting pitcher with the high percentage of fastballs that he throws. Before reaching the big leagues, many evaluations of Ryan pointed to the fact that he would need to rely less on his fastball and more on his secondary pitches. Ryan's slider is the key to reaching the next level in his career.
Do you think Ryan needs to see improved results from his off-speed pitches? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion.
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