Chris Paddack is back
Chris Paddack was a great rookie in 2019 but has struggled since. There are early signs that he's finally figured out how to get back to his rookie level output.
Let’s ignore, for today, the fact that the San Diego Padres offense is really great when their backs are up against the wall and otherwise putrid. I’m not ready to dive into that.
Instead, I want to talk about something I saw. I even tweeted about it:
That’s right, I want to talk about Chris Paddack and his scoreless outing against the San Francisco Giants yesterday afternoon.
More speed?
It wasn’t quite as dominant as it might be made out to be, Paddack gave up 4 hits and a walk in just 3 innings, but he had some stuff that he hadn’t shown in a while. Mainly, Paddack showed an ability to pitch himself out of jams.
Just about everyone noticed the increased velocity on his fastball, although it won’t show up in the aggregate. His fastball average for the game (95.3mph) is about the same as his previous start (95.2mph) but he was touching 97mph, especially up in the zone.
Same guy
If you remember, my stance on Chris Paddack has been that he’s a relief pitcher.
It’s a pretty simple argument. He has two pitches and he throws them to the same location (fastball high, changeup low), which means he’s too predictable to face batters more than once per game. This part of his game didn’t change much yesterday.
His changeup is more in the zone here than it’s been in a while, and he was using it on pitch 1 against a lot of batters, and I love both of those things. I think those things helped!
But he still can’t seem to throw the fastball anywhere but up in the zone, although that may be a choice. The 2019 Paddack got by with a “rising” fastball and the only way he can get anything close to that movement now is by throwing it near the top of the zone.
He threw 4 curveballs and got 1 swing (a strike), but it was otherwise ignored by the Giants he was facing.
So, where did the improved performance come from? Well, there are three theories and I’m going to quickly dig into each of them.
Death of the ego
Leave it to Chris to try and make it seem like the big change was in his head. I want you to know that he said this while looking like this:
I’m not sure I buy this argument, but I appreciate that Paddack realizes that having a persona so early on into a career is maybe not the best idea.
The reliever
Hmm, maybe I was right about Paddack being a relief pitcher?
Like most pitchers, Chris Paddack gets worse when he faces hitters more than once in a game. At least this year.
Want to know something weird? This is only really true with the “new Paddack” that we’ve seen in 2021. “The Sheriff” had a very strange ability to get hitters out the first and third times he faced them in 2019.
And, since sample sizes are small and ERA is dumb, he did the opposite of this in 2020. His best time through the lineup was the 2nd time.
I’m definitely not shutting down the idea that Paddack had his best outing because he only went through the lineup 1.5 times, but the stats don’t necessarily say that he gets worse the longer he stays in.
The sticky stuff
Now, this is what I was talking about when I tweeted that Chris Paddack was cheating yesterday. (It was not a criticism, by the way!)
Paddack was pretty damn good against Arizona before going on the Injured List, and there are some statcast metrics that could explain why. They’re the same ones that showed up yesterday.
Take a look at this:
There are Paddack’s fastest pitches against the Brewers, his last start before the Diamondbacks one. As you can see, he has been throwing 97 for a while, but focus the spin rate. 2000-2290 is his range, and he’s mostly in the lower end of that range.
To put it simply, the higher the spin rate, the harder the ball is to hit. Just to show I’m not cherry-picking, here’s his previous start against the Pirates:
Velocity is down but the spin rate is still in that 2000-2200 range. You can see how it compares to opposing starter Clay Holmes since he shows up in this list too with numbers Paddack can’t touch.
Now, let’s look at yesterday:
Well, hello there. After not really being close to 2300rpm this season, he threw 9 fastballs (and 2 curveballs) yesterday that were over that mark.
So, either his stint on the IL gave him time change his grip or throwing motion in a way that made a difference there, or he’s starting toying with the same sticky stuff that other elite pitchers have been using to increase their spin rates.
But wait! He was this guy against the Diamondbacks. The same guy. Maybe even more extreme.
Woah. Something changed before that start against the Diamondbacks and it stayed true when he pitched three innings against the Giants yesterday. This is probably the Paddack we’re going to see for a while.
I don’t really care what Paddack did, whether it was a new grip or a new sunscreen, but I’m pretty sure a new persona didn’t add the RPMs to his fastball. I’m also almost certain that this guy can pitch deeper into games, like the 2019 Paddack, although I’d still love for him to find a reliable third pitch.
I am, however, happy to see the improvement. This has made me more confident that the back end of the Padres rotation is rounding into shape before we’ve even reached the summer months. That has to be music to the ears of A.J. Preller and Jayce Tingler.