Buck is a good friend of mine, and a Cardinals fan. When Michael Wacha powered the Redbirds into and through the playoffs (and past my Dodgers) in 2014, he could not have been more excited: his team's never-ending conveyer belt of pitching talent had produced another ace, the heir apparent to Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter. Not so fast, I cautioned: he's a two-pitch pitcher who can struggle with his control. This won't last.
Lo and behold, Wacha was worse in 2014 than he had been in 2013! No matter, Buck said, he was dealing with injury and was good early on—he'll be better in 2015. “Of course not,” I retorted, “and let me pull up some numbers to show you why this is his true level.”
Twenty minutes of desperate searching later, I couldn't find any. Let this be a lesson: do not allow fan prejudices to bias your analysis. Buck, mea culpa: Michael Wacha is going to be good in 2015.
St. Louis selected Wacha out of Texas A&M at 19th overall in the 2012 draft. Scouting Director Dan Kantrovitz praised his size, mid-90's fastball, and his plus changeup. It was that changeup that allowed him to blast through the minor leagues in under a calendar year, and that changeup that allowed him to dominate major-league competition. In a game with playoff implications against the Pirates on September 8, 2013, he threw 7 scoreless innings and only allowed 2 hits. His last regular-season start saw him throw 8.2 innings of no-hit ball before Ryan Zimmerman singled for the Nats' only hit. Then the real fun began. He one-hit the Pirates in Game 4 of the NLDS, then outdueled Clayton Kershaw twice in the NLCS and was named series MVP. He won Game 2 of the World Series, though in Game 6 the tables finally turned and he was knocked out after 3.2 innings, having given up 6 runs. Though his 2013 didn't end perfectly, expectations were understandably high for this boy wonder going into 2014.
At first glance, Wacha appears to have fallen short those expectations. Attempting to pitch through a shoulder injury in June, he underperformed. Subsequently, he went on the DL with a shoulder stress reaction. He didn't pitch again until September 4, was put on a tight leash, and ran worse FIPs than before the injury. But I think there's more to the story, and it's related to Wacha from March through May, before he was hurt.
In 2013, Wacha was a two-pitch pitcher, relying on a plus fastball and plus-plus changeup to get outs. Clearly, that was successful, but it could also become a weakness on days when he wasn't 100%. In Game 6 of the 2013 World Series, Wacha's fastball command was slightly off—he either missed off the plate, or threw directly down the middle. He also was making more of an effort to throw his curveball, presumably to give batters a different look than what they faced in Game 2. But the curveball wasn't as good a pitch as the changeup, and he fell behind more often. The Red Sox let him fall behind, and sat on fastballs down the middle, as shown in the chart below. The resulting line: 3.2 innings, 6 earned runs, 4 walks against 5 strikeouts.
I think Wacha (and/or the Cardinals organization) took that experience to heart. For his long-term future, Wacha needed to develop a true starter's arsenal. The curveball needed to move beyond a “show-me” pitch and take shape as a true weapon, and a fourth pitch needed to be worked in. Wacha had dabbled with a cutter in 2013, but threw it less than 2% of the time. An article from 2014 Spring Training by Jennifer Langosch notes that, in 2013, he “threw the cutter sporadically in his starts—though almost always in situations where he couldn't be hurt by it. Now he is using it to challenge hitters.(1)”
(1): http://m.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article/69333444/wacha-growing-more-confident-with-cutter
This meshes with what we saw during the season. Compare Wacha's 2013 and 2014 below, and notice how his cutter is used almost equally with the changeup and curveball.
This strikes me as a young pitcher (remember, Wacha was only 21 when he pitched in the World Series) improving with, and growing to command, his pitches. In terms of improvement, look below at the spin rates he was able to create in 2014 as compared to 2013, especially on his cutter. Spin rate is dependent on grip: we would expect a difference in spin rate between a pitcher “tinkering” with grips and one who has settled on a way to do it.
This command has translated into tighter pitch clustering. The gif below shows Wacha's clustering in 2013 and 2014.
The following changes are noticeable:
- The fastball has tightened in the horizontal dimension, and may be in the process of splitting into a fastball and a sinker. A lot of the pitches that broke farther down were thrown at slower speeds. A four-pitch Wacha is scary enough, so a fifth would be downright terrifying.
- The changeup tightened and separated itself from the fastball—it has a bit more arm-side run than last year.
- The curveball didn't so much tighten as it did shift a couple inches glove-side, though there's now a more solid central cluster.
- Finally, the cutter developed and laid claim to a great spot a couple inches off of the fastball, breaking as far glove-side as the changeup does arm-side.
Those changes, quantified:
Wacha's season line is not all that great. But breaking it down month-by-month, an interesting pattern appears. From March until his last start of May, Wacha's FIP was 2.78. From the first of June to his last start in late September, it was 4.02. During that injured time period, his K/BB was a very poor 5.08/3.74. Before then, however, it was a 9.2/2.33, both of which are better than the 9.05/2.64 from his phenomenal 2013.
In other words, before being injured, Wacha was not only pitching as well as he had in 2013, he was actually slightly better. He ran completely normal BABIPs and LOB %s, which mostly removes luck from our possible explanations. His HR/FB% has been far under 10% during his entire career, but it doesn't seem unreasonable that a starter with his kind of velocity and his arsenal could run that consistently. Make of it what you will, but when you list pitchers by HR/FB% over the last two years, the name next to Wacha is Clayton Kershaw.
So what's the takeaway? Michael Wacha is an immensely talented pitcher. He was dominant when he only had two pitches in his arsenal, but knew he needed to add something to improve. So he upped his curveball from a show-me offering and developed a cutter, giving him at least four pitches, with a fifth (a sinker) potentially on the way. Had he not been derailed by injury, his 2014 was shaping up to be just as good as his 2013. I'd imagine this year's offseason has been focused on increasing his stamina, as a way to combat injuries like that. If Wacha can stay healthy the entire season and truly command his arsenal...
Put it this way. In 2010, another young pitcher added a pitch to his already brilliant fastball/offspeed combo, and turned into the best pitcher in the game. That young pitcher was Clayton Kershaw. Perhaps it's unfair to place that level of expectation on Wacha—then again, after outdueling Kershaw twice in the 2013 NLCS, it might be that even being compared to the best pitcher in baseball doesn't faze him. Only time will tell, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Wacha can do given a full season of a full-sized arsenal.
NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 02/13/15
By Sam Whitefield
AriBall.com
