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Anybody following baseball is aware of the struggles that Justin Verlander has had during the first half of the 2014 season. Just three seasons ago, Verlander had a 24-win season with a 2.40 ERA. Through 19 starts this year, he sits at an 8-7 record with a 4.84 ERA and has given up the second most earned runs in baseball.

One thing that stands out from years past is that Verlander is not striking out nearly as many batters than what he used to. During his best years, he had a total K% (strikeouts/total batters faced) around 25%. In 2014, his total K% had dropped to 17.2% and only 9.6% when throwing a fastball.

Why is Verlander striking out fewer batters? For one, his fastball velocity has decreased over the years. At his peak, Verlander was averaging a fastball around 95.5 mph, but is only at 93.3 mph this year. With a drop of only 2 mph, batters have increased all major batting statistics well above from years past. These statistics have increased in the batters favor due to the result of batters making contact with Verlander’s fastball more than they used to. For all of MLB, the average contact percentage against a fastball is 79.5% and 87% when in the zone. Against Verlander, the average contact percentage against his fastball is 87.5% and 90.1% when thrown in the zone.

Source: FanGraphs

Another issue Verlander has shown in 2014 is the velocity of his changeup, which has slightly increased throughout his career even though his fastball has decreased. According to a professional scout, the difference in velocity between a fastball and changeup should be about 10 mph. At one point in Verlander’s career, this difference was over 11 mph, but is currently only around a 7 mph difference. Shown below is an illustration demonstrating the difference of Verlander’s changeup in 2010 compared to the same pitch in 2014. As he throws his changeup with more velocity, the pitch gets less vertical break and results in a pitch more like a batting practice fastball than a true off speed pitch.

Source: FanGraphs

With nearly the same amount of changeups thrown in 2014 than that of 2010, Verlander has given up an extra 14 hits and has less than half as many strikeouts from that pitch. The changeup is Verlander’s second most thrown pitch, meaning it is an important part to his success, but he must get his fastball velocity back up to where it was a few years ago in order to fool batters with any of his off-speed pitches. Even though there are plenty of games left in the current season, it will be interesting to see if Verlander makes adjustments in the offseason and comes back stronger in 2015.

NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 07/12/14

By Danny Malter
AriBall.com

Follow @AriBall Follow @DanMalter