Kyle Wright is becoming a Cy Young Award candidate after changing his pitch combination.
*This story was published on May 22th 2022 in Japanese.
Kyle Wright is in great shape.
Kyle Wright of the Braves is on a roll. In seven appearances, he has a 2.79 earned-run average (2.47 FIP), which is the third best FIP among pitchers in the National League.
This article will look for the secret to Wright’s success. Before we do that, let’s look back at Wright’s career.
Wright was selected with the 5th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He debuted in 2018 and had a small breakout year in 2020.Wright earned the trust of his team as the 60-game season progressed. His ERA was 5.11 in August, dropped to 3.91 in September, and Wright was selected to the playoff roster. Wright was a member of the starting rotation in the playoffs. In the series against the Marlins, he pitched the third game, striking out seven in six innings to lead the team to the series win.
I probably don’t need to write about what happened in the following league championship series against the Dodgers. Wright started Game 3 and gave up seven runs in 0.2 innings. The Braves suffered a historic loss in that game, giving up 11 runs in the first inning. The series went on to the seventh and final game, but Wright never took the mound again.
After ending the season in a stressful fashion, Wright showed seemingly no signs of emerging in 2021. Wright was not considered a force in MLB that year and spent most of the season in AAA. He made only two MLB starts during the season. Those starts lasted less than five innings, which may have been an unexpected stumble for a player who entered the professional ranks as the fifth overall pick in the 2017 draft and was on an elite path.
But at the end of a year of suffering, a surprise happened. Wright took the mound in the big game of the World Series. Game 4 with the Braves leading 2–1. Dylan Lee, who started as the opener, had trouble controlling his pitches and was out after getting only one out. Wright took over for him, and after getting out of a first-inning jam, he pitched well, allowing only one run over the next five innings. The team won the game in a come-from-behind fashion.
And this season, he has continued to pitch well, keeping up the momentum from last year. There may be various reasons for this good pitching performance. But, as Braves manager Snitker and his colleagues say that he is pitching with confidence, he must be mentally tougher than ever.
Even to my untrained eye, he seems to have changed his game behavior compared to a few years ago. It is no exaggeration to say that Wright has been reborn as a pitcher as he has changed his mind. In this article, I want to look at Wright’s change as a pitcher.
Wright is now able to strike out swinging outside the strike zone.
First of all, the biggest reason for his success this season is that he has been able to get many strikeouts on balls outside of the strike zone. The graph below shows the swinging strike rate for pitchers inside and outside the strike zone. When limited to pitches inside the strike zone (blue), this season’s figure of 12.65 is certainly a career best. However, it is not an outstanding figure compared to the past few years.Swing%Miss% by inside and outside the strike zone
On the other hand, if we look outside the strike zone, we see a jump in percentage (from 9.38 points in 2020 to 15.88 points this season). This ability to strike out on so-called ball pitches outside the strike zone is why this season’s breakthrough.
Drastic Change in Pitch Combination
So how did Wright come to be able to strike out swinging on balls outside the strike zone? It is by changing the combination of pitches.
Here are the Pitch % by season.
When Wright was first drafted and in his MLB debut, he was expected to develop like an elite MLB-type player who struck out using a fast 4-seam and curve/slider combination. Bleacher Report’s comparison of Wright to Stephen Strasburg at the draft also indicates his high expectations.
However, Wright will have to give up this pitching style, as his 4-seam will no longer work in 2019. He threw 150 pitches and hit .480 with a dismal +7 Run Value (the more significant the plus, the worse for the pitcher).
In reaction to this, Wright increased his sinker. In the pitch ratios above, we can see that the sinker increased in 2019 and 2020 and finally became the number one pitch in the 20 years (and in contrast, the 4-seam decreased).
In the 20-year season, the sinker held hitters to a .211 batting average. But the sinker was targeted in the playoffs against the Dodgers: in a 0.2 inning, with seven runs batted in, five pitches were hit by pitches. Four of those pitches were sinkers. After this loss, Wright began to reevaluate his pitch mix. The following are two changes that Wright has made in 2022.
Changes in 2022
Mainly a curveball with a sinker and slider (against right-handed hitters)
Here is the first change Wright made. He has dropped the fastball base that has been considered the foundation of his pitching and instead focuses mainly on the curve (similar to the pattern of Yu Darvish throwing more cutters than 4-seams for several years now). Wright makes the right-hander very aware of his curve, which disappears in the out-course, and then uses a sinker that comes in on the inside pitch to get outs. He surprises opponents with a slider that moves to the out-course but does not move as sideways as the curve. This mix of pitches allows hitters to get their hands on him outside the strike zone and get him to strike out.
He mainly uses a high 4-seam and a changeup that sinks well (vs. left-handed batters).
Here is the second change Wright has made: he collects his 4-seam high, and where he has the batter’s eye up, he throws his changeup low to delay the batter’s reaction and get him to strike out. Comparing the first image below (2022) with the second (2020), we can see that he is gathering his 4-seam higher than ever this season. Also, the vertical variation of the changeup has increased significantly from 29.0 inches in 2022 to 34.7 inches this season. When caught high, batters cannot handle a low (out of the zone) changeup.
Increased vertical variation in changeups
One of the significant characteristics of Wright this season is that he adopts different approaches to right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters, and his pitching ratio varies according to the left-right ratio of the opposing batting lineup. This is shown in the following pitching ratios by pitching day. Again, the sinker and curveball move in tandem, and the 4-seam and changeup also move in tandem.
In the game, this trend was broken against the Mets and the Red Sox. His sinker and curveball pitches were not in sync in those two games. While he allowed 16 hits in those two games, he struck out only 7 batters, which is not typical of Wright this season, and his low dominance in those two outings may have demonstrated the effectiveness of his last pitches this season.
In fact, in his next outing against the Padres on the 15th, he returned to using his sinker, curveball, 4-seam, and change-up in tandem. As a result, he pitched well, striking out 9 batters. Having once again produced results, I believe he will continue to take a different approach to right-handed and left-handed hitters in the future.
Summary
Despite being an elite who was selected 5th overall pick in the draft, Wright has experienced multiple revisions in his pitching style. However, he has been performing well this season, and I expect him to move up in the Cy Young Award race like Corbin Burns (MIL), who has also experienced a significant overhaul of his pitching style.
Photo BY: Jeffrey Hyde
