Tonight, the Yankees conclude their most important series of the year. A win in this tilt against the Red Sox would pull them to within 3.5 games of the AL East with a month left to play and maintain–or improve–their wild card lead against the annoyingly hard-charging Minnesota Twins. It’s a game in which you’d love to have your best on the mound and, fortunately, the Yankees do in Luis Severino. A year ago, if I told you that you’d want Severino starting the biggest game of the biggest series of the year, would you have believed me?
Severino has been nothing short of super this year. If it weren’t for Chris Sale being Chris Sale and Corey Kluber being, well, Corey Kluber, Severino might have a shot at the Cy Young Award, something inconceivable last season. Looks like he’ll have to settle for a top-5 (hopefully top 3) finish, barring any big changes from either pitcher. The promise we saw back in 2015 is finally coming to fruition. So what happened? More of the same, in a way.
His arsenal hasn’t changed from 2015-2016 until now; he’s still throwing a fastball, a slider, and a changeup. His usage for this year is slightly different. Like most Yankee pitchers this year, he’s dealing his fastball a little less, which has led to a necessary bump in usage of his other pitches: around a two percent increase in changeup usage and around a one percent increase in slider usage. The results form this change have been fantastic.
He’s getting batters to chase those same pitches more, with a career high 33.3% O-Swing rate. He’s getting batters to miss those pitches more with a career low 74.6% contact rate; his slider has been the main cause of this, jumping from a 24.78 whiff per swing rate in 2015-16 to a 34.02% rate in 2017. That same slider has also seen a massive jump in ground ball rate, from an already solid mark in the mid-50’s all the way up to 63.64. Perhaps the most important factor, though, is an obvious one for 2017, given the context of the majors: home runs.
In 2015 (1.30 HR/9) and 2016 (1.39), the long ball was a big problem for Luis. But, even with struggles in 2016, he’s managed to drop his HR/FB% from 17.3 to 16.4 to 15.1. That leaves his HR/9 this year at 1.05, still perhaps a touch high, but not too bad considering the rest of his stellar numbers. Despite a slight increase in HR rate with his slider (8.62 up from 8.00 in ’15-’16), both the fastball and changeup have seen drops. All three have become positive pitches.
We knew Sevy had a great fastball from day one and that it was his secondary stuff that would dictate his success. Despite it being his roughest pitch, Severino is 9th in the majors this year in terms of run value per 100 pitches with his changeup. He ranks 14th with his slider. We could argue, then, that his ‘lesser’ pitches have surpassed his calling card.
Luis Severino has been nothing short of incredible this year, especially in the light of a horrific year in 2016. He’s turned himself around and made himself into one of the best pitchers in the AL, despite not changing all too much about himself as a pitcher. Here’s hoping that tonight is his signature performance in an already amazing year.
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