Robert Stephenson has had some bad luck in the past couple of years. The former first-round pick played most of 2018 in the minors and got injured in August. This past season, he pitched on an elite level but didn’t produce those types of results. However, the 2020 season (if it happens) is Stephenson’s year, as he can truly be an elite reliever in the big leagues.
Stephenson throws three pitches: a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a change-up, with the slider being the best of the group. Here is the movement profile on his pitches (Brooks Baseball) and how the moved relative to the league* (Baseball Savant**):
*Dotted circles are league average, solids are Stephenson (Red: fastball, green: change-up, yellow: slider)
**Baseball Savant’s movement graph is a bit different than normal as it does not take the effect of gravity into its vertical movement calculation
His fastball is very close to league average with just a little bit more of arm-side movement, the change-up is a little bit different and has more hop than average, and his slider appears to be pretty much average, but this is due to the gyroscopic nature of sliders in general and his slider is much better than it shows here. In 2019, the whiff % on the slider was 52.1% and had an xwOBA of .198. Those are insane numbers and they’re a big reason why he used the slider 57.1% of the time last season. His usage of his fastball has gone down in recent years as a result, as it has gone down from 63.5% in 2016 to 36.1% in 2019. The pitch was pretty average last year with an xwOBA of .338, but it was a lot better compared to the .499 he posted in 2018. The usage of the pitch didn’t vary a ton between the two seasons, but the reason it may be more successful is due to the uptick of sliders. Stephenson’s change-up was actually very good last year when he used it, as it had an average exit velocity of 83.6 MPH, a whiff % of 46.9%, and an xwOBA of .298. He’s used it less almost every single year, from 2016-2019 the usage percentage went like this: 21.3%, 17%, 17%, 6.8%. The reason it may have gotten really good is that it can keep the hitter guessing and surprise them when it gets thrown. A curveball used to also be in his arsenal, but he ditched it in 2019 after it continually got worse from the start of his career.
In 2019, hitters looked pretty bad against Stephenson. They combined for a total whiff % of 39.3%, a chase rate of 34.8%, and only made contact on 34.4% of pitches outside of the zone. Stephenson made hitters swing more often too compared to 2018, as hitter’s total swing % went up about 5% against him. Along with the high chase rate, hitters swung more at pitches in the zone too, going from 64.5% to 68.6%, they hit those pitches at a 77.6% clip. The charts show below show where he throws his pitches and gets his total whiffs (Savant):
He is able to use his high whiff % arsenal to his advantage as he throws most of his pitches where he gets those swings and misses. This helps him maximize how often batters miss and also generate weak contact
Hitter’s contact against him changed tremendously in 2019, his hard-hit % against went down to 26.8% (98th percentile), his average exit velocity went down to 86.7 MPH (81st percentile), and his barrel % against went down about 5% to 5.1%. These softer hits have also lead to a better batted ball profile as well, hitters hit about 12% fewer line drives, 5% more pop-ups, and either topped or gotten underneath the baseball 12% more too. Stephenson’s total batted ball profile is elite and those numbers should translate to elite results, but in 2019, they didn’t.
All of his expected statistics are very good, the biggest difference in his expected to actual stats is his xERA compared to his ERA as they’re 2.7 (98th percentile) and 3.76. This shows that he was very unlucky in if a ball dropped for a hit, the defense wasn’t very good, etc.. His xwOBA was 2.5 (98th percentile) and was very similar to his actual wOBA which was .262 (90th percentile). He also had a very good xBA of .194 (95th percentile) and xSLG of .311 (96th percentile). The charts below show a visual of where those stats, as well as hitter’s batted ball tendencies, ranked last year (Savant):
In these rankings, Stephenson was at least in the top 78th percentile for every single one of them. This shows that his just above average results in 2019 are not what type of pitcher he actually is, he is actually an elite pitcher and should be able to get those results whenever baseball is played again.
If Stephenson is able to repeat what he did last year, he will be one of the best relief pitchers in baseball and will help an up and coming Cincinnati Reds team. He doesn’t throw extremely hard, but his great slider and average fastball will help him gain success in the big leagues.
Sources: Fangraphs
Baseball Savant
Brooks Baseball
MLB.com
Yorumlar