Three Key Questions About Randy Dobnak for 2020

Will batters start to pick up Dobnak better in his second trip around the league?

With the schedule compressed to include just 60 games, there’s little time for teams to make big adjustments against pitchers. However, that compression also brings the Twins’ total number of opponents for the season down to nine, and four of those teams saw him down the stretch in 2019.

That matters, because Dobnak isn’t a model of release-point matching and tunneling. He tweaks his arm slot and release point to maximize his control and command of each of his four pitches. Here are his average release points for each pitch type in 2019.

On its own, that graphic isn’t overwhelmingly damning. We can see the distinctions between the points clearly, but that’s partially because I’ve zoomed in to allow us to do so; the sheer separation between each point is a few inches.

However, there are two things that make it somewhat more telling in Dobnak’s case than in others. One is that he doesn’t vary his arm slot or delivery on any particular pitch, so if batters do start to figure out the keyhole for a given pitch, they can be pretty confident about what they’re looking for. His fastballs all look roughly the same out of the hand; so do his sliders.

The other problem for Dobnak is that, with his low arm slot, left-handed batters get a long look at his arm action. That will make the small differences between certain pitches easier to see for them. Last year, Dobnak got good mileage out of his changeup, but that pitch doesn’t have a big movement or velocity differential from his fastball. If hitters start to recognize that change more readily as they get more looks at Dobnak, he might suddenly see opponents chase and whiff on the offering less often. In fact, more broadly, Dobnak relies on deception that might turn out to be fragile, because of his arm slot and release points.

Can Dobnak change eye levels effectively?

Given his low arm angle, it’s no surprise that Dobnak relies more heavily on his sinker than on his four-seamer. Some pitchers can offset that reliance by having fastballs that ride more than they appear to, even when studying the numbers. Almost any rising action on a four-seamer from a low three-quarter delivery can fool a batter.

Alas, Dobnak doesn’t even have that. He has fringe-average velocity, a low average spin rate on both his fastball and his sinker, and relatively heavy action on each. That’s not bad, when he’s executing and locating both pitches effectively, but if he struggles with either on a given night, the pressure on the other becomes more than its quality can handle.

Dobnak’s four-seamer is too slow, comes from too low a release and has too little rise to miss bats or induce pop-ups when thrown above the belt. He has to locate the pitch from the belt down, and keep it on the corners, except when he’s able to set it up with his other offerings. That’s the first test he’ll face, in this regard, in 2020: Can he pitch backward? If Dobnak can start lefties with the changeup or righties with the slider at times, or find counts in which they anticipate those pitches especially confidently, he should be able to sneak a fastball in at the top of the zone without having them hammer it.

If he can steal strikes that way, terrific, but merely showing that pitch to opponents (without getting hurt in the process) would be huge for Dobnak. Once he’s established the ability to go up there, he can more effectively throw the turbo version of his sinker, the one that tumbles and runs right out of the strike zone. He can get called strikes with the slider. He can force hitters to cover the entire strike zone, instead of keying in on something down.

Will Dobnak find both corners of the plate with his hard stuff?

The other axis of movement and command is at least as important, though. Last year, Dobnak showed little ability to command his four-seamer to his arm side (inside to right-handed batters, away from lefties), and even less comfort using the sinker over the opposite edge of the plate. He needs to get more comfortable with each, in order to keep inducing weak contact and getting ground balls the way he did in 2019.

Vertical movement tends to help generate whiffs; horizontal movement tends to help generate bad contact. Dobnak doesn’t have exceptional movement in either direction, but his pitches form a much more interesting and difficult array for hitters in terms of horizontal movement, which is why he allowed just one home run in 28 innings last year.

However, batters will only ever need to pay cursory attention to the top half of the zone when Dobnak is on the mound. That makes it especially important that he make them guard all 17 inches of home plate, and a couple on either side. His slider works well in contrast with both his fastball and his sinker, in terms of tempting opponents to expand the zone, but they’ll have too many opportunities to square up his straight stuff if he doesn’t keep them guessing about where to hunt for it.

Throwing any pitch to both sides of the plate with equal comfort and command is hard for any pitcher. It’s even harder for guys like Dobnak, who throw from a lower angle and have to wrestle with horizontal movement than others. He already sets up on the first-base side of the rubber, giving his sinker room to work back toward right-handed hitters, and that’s why he’s been able to locate his four-seamer to the opposite side.

His next step will need to be finding the release point that allows him to start an occasional sinker heading right at the hip of a left-handed batter, only to run back over the inside corner, and to start painting the outside corner (to lefties) with the four-seamer. For a guy who has demonstrated excellent control, it’s possible, and neither pitch has to be one to which he turns very often.

The four-seamer won’t sneak past righties on the inner part of the plate; it isn’t hard enough. If a lefty sits on the front-hip sinker, or if Dobnak misses even a bit and it wanders over the middle of the plate, it becomes a go-fer ball. Situationally, though, the ability to throw each pitch a time or two per outing, locating and sequencing them well enough not to get hurt with them, will keep hitters off-balance and unprepared when Dobnak goes back to the pitches and locations with which he’s more comfortable.

With Jake Odorizzi’s back barking, Jhoulys Chacín having taken his release, and Michael Pineda still suspended, it’s not hard to imagine Dobnak being needed as a starter, and soon. In the meantime, he’ll be a key source of long relief innings. No matter which role he fills in a given appearance, these dynamics will come into play, and in a 60-game season, even small things like these could determine a division title.

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