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Pablo Lopez may be seen as a pitcher in a similar mold to his new rotation counterparts. He, Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, Kenta Maeda, and Joe Ryan are all seen as solid number two or three starters but are a rung short of landing on the ace level of the pitching ladder.
Lopez, however, may have the best chance of taking his game to the next level if he can find a way to ride his already-lethal changeup.
If the Twins can work with him to maintain the effectiveness of his off-speed offering while improving the shape and efficacy of his four-seam fastball, they could finally find their long-awaited ace.
Hitters already had a hard time squaring him up last season, as evidenced by his overall chase rate (70th percentile) and Hard-Hit percentage (71st percentile). The changeup is a major part of that. In 2022, he threw that pitch 35.3% of the time and saw strong results. Opposing hitters batted just .220 (.233 expected) with a .374 slugging percentage (.366 expected) on his changeup, making it an ideal chase pitch when the count reached two strikes. When he got to that point in an at-bat, he threw his changeup 39% of the time, which is second-most among all qualified starters.
There’s a good reason for that.
Rylan Domingues of Tread Athletics pointed out that their grading program ranked Lopez’s changeup as being 16% better than an MLB average changeup when it comes to pure wStuff+. That uses pitch metrics such as movement, shape, and velocity without knowing the pitch location. Beyond that, Lopez’s changeup was elite when the location was considered. Tread Athletics rated it as an eye-popping 64% better than the league average based on wExecution+. Overall, they rated Lopez as having the fourth-best changeup in all baseball in 2022. It averaged 17.3 inches of horizontal break, which is 2.5 inches (19%) above average. No wonder he used it so much with two strikes.
That’s got to have Twins fans rubbing their hands together and licking their lips. A legitimate, elite out pitch can be extremely hard to develop and maintain, but the club feels like Lopez has a chance to take it to the next level.
To do that, Lopez will have to rework his four-seam fastball so it can be as effective as it was in the first half of the 2022 season. For the changeup to be most successful, it needs to deceive the batter into thinking that they’re getting a different pitch so that they either miss the ball entirely or make weak contact.
Esteban Rivera of Fangraphs described the issues that Lopez’s fastball faced after a liner struck him on his right wrist in mid-June. From that point on, Lopez started using a slightly lower release point, which caused him to lose active spin on his heater. Was he pitching hurt, or was this a subconscious result after the injury? Either way, the event changed the shape of his fastball and, in turn, made it easier for hitters to identify the subtle differences between that pitch and his changeup. When he lost that deception, he lost the swing-and-miss stuff that made his off-speed so successful.
If pitching coach Pete Maki can reestablish the proper release point on that fastball, or at least find a way to shape it so that it tunnels with the path of his changeup, they could rediscover what gave Lopez a sterling 2.86 ERA in the first half of last season.
That ceiling has been seemingly absent in the last two seasons. Gray, Ryan, and the rest have shown the capability of being quality starters in that time, but they’ve stalled out before reaching that last rung of the ladder. Don’t be mistaken; their presence is incredibly valuable in a rotation. But Lopez’s changeup gives him greater reach when he stretches toward the top level.
And if he can’t get there? Fans always have the option to watch those old Johan highlights.
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