FanPost

Paddack to the Bullpen? Y’all Crazy!

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2020 is Over

Chris Paddack was terrible in 2020. I know it, you know it, he knows it. When he was tabbed to start Game 1 of the playoffs, Padres fans were terrified. Choosing a second-year pitcher coming off of a 4.73 ERA (5.02 FIP) season isn’t ideal. The result: 2.1 innings pitched, 6 earned runs, 1 strikeout. At the time, I’d rather we’d started just about anybody else on our roster (Garrett Richards, anyone?) because Chris Paddack was broken. But he can be fixed. Before we put back together the parts, let’s see what went so dramatically wrong…

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Not a lot to like there. He had a nice walk rate, but why wait for a walk when you can find a ball to barrel?

First let’s compare Chris Paddack’s 4-Seam fastball in 2020 to the fastball that worked much better for him in 2019. The pitches were dramatically different. His fastball was dropping a lot more and moving horizontally a lot more. Essentially, he started throwing a 2-seam/4-seam hybrid primarily up in the zone. Instead of creating the illusion of a rising fastball up in the zone, it was dropping right into the plane of the bat. Throwing a 2-seam fastball up in the zone is not a good idea. The worst part? Chris Paddack didn’t even realize anything had changed! He said he was "blown away" when the Padres explained the data to him.

Luckily, he gets it now. "Last year I was east to west. I was pulling off… I was getting two-seam run on my four-seam fastball. At the big-league level, the longer they see it in the zone, the harder they’re going to hit it."

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In addition to his struggles in establishing his fastball, hitters had a year to adjust to Paddack as a pitcher. Let's check out his pitch usage and pitch results...

Pitch-Usage.0.jpgPitch-Results.0.jpg In 2019, both his fastball and changeup gathered incredible results. A .204 batting average and .391 slugging on your fastball is incredible. But along with the decrease in his spin effectiveness with his 4-seam fastball came a decrease in his command of the pitch. While he wasn't walking people, he WAS letting the two-seam action create a pitch that would leak over the middle of the plate, especially to LHHs. What made this fault of his especially dastardly is that hitters knew his proclivity to be incredibly consistent with his pitch locations. Essentially, if a pitch was up in the zone, it was going to be the meatball fastball he was throwing in 2020. If it was down in the zone, it was going to be his consistently nasty changeup. If you were trying to hunt a fastball, it couldn't be easier... "If it's high, let if fly. If it's low, let it go."

The good news is that Paddack appears to be aware of this fault as well. In talking about his fastball usage in his first spring training appearance, Paddack said "especially at the bottom of the zone, we were able to establish that... I was very pleased with being able to execute that with getting ahead in the count. It's going to be a big factor to use that fastball in the bottom of the zone this year to set up my changeup."

I was ecstatic to hear the above quote. His fastball up in the zone is going to get more swing and misses, but a fastball down in the zone (especially early in the count) is going to help make his changeup even nastier (is that a fastball or a changeup?) while also likely buying him a few quick outs.

Here's a look at Paddack's stats in 2019...

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Even if Paddack just re-establishes his fastball and returns to his rookie numbers, those are the numbers of a damn good #3 starter who we are using as a #5 or #6 starter. They're numbers that will keep us in any game (remember the time he outpitched Jacob DeGrom in a 4-0 victory at Petco Park?) If he's able to spin in a good curveball or cutter once in awhile... even better!

I can't guarantee that Paddack will immediately get back to who he was in 2019, but I would put a great deal of money on the likelihood that he will get back to who he was in 2019 EVENTUALLY. He knows what he needs to improve and he's done it before, it's just a matter of time before he gets that fastball spin back and has two plus to double-plus major league pitches. If you can get 150+ innings out of a pitcher like that, you don't shunt his talent to the bullpen. You let it ride and see just how far it'll take you.

Spring training results don't matter much but if you look at the terrible swings he was able to generate from Anthony Rizzo and Javy Baez in his first outing, there is much to be excited about!

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Thanks for Reading,

John Precoda

This FanPost was written by a member of the Gaslamp Ball community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gaslamp Ball staff or SB Nation.