Joe Musgrove's breakout season

Joe Musgrove is having his breakout season, in his first season with the San Diego Padres, and dominated the Brewers to a 7-1 win yesterday.

When talking about A.J. Preller, conductor of trade symphonies, it’s easy to have certain trades overshadow others.

Trading James Shields to the Chicago White Sox for Fernando Tatis Jr. and Erik Johnson was exquisite.

Trading Eric Lauer and Luis Urias to the Milwaukee Brewers for Trent Grisham and Zach Davies really seems to be working out for the Padres.

Trading a bag of baseballs and some old lotto scratchers to the Chicago Cubs for three years of Yu Darvish has bolstered the starting rotation, for sure, but maybe his finest offseason move is one that got the least buzz.

After trading for both Darvish and Snell in the offseason, the obvious #1 and #2 starters for the Padres going into the season, Preller went and got a solid #3 that some were predicting was ready for a breakout season.

Padres get: RHP Joe Musgrove
Mets get: LHP Joey Lucchesi
Pirates get: OF Hudson Head, RHP David Bednar, LHP Omar Cruz, RHP Drake Fellows from the Padres and C/OF Endy Rodriguez from the Mets

Joey Lucchesi and his 7-something ERA wasn’t good enough to get on the field last year, and his 7-something ERA is currently driving the New York Mets nuts.

David Bednar has turned himself into a fine relief pitcher, but fine relief pitchers are a dime a dozen these days.

The rest of what the Padres gave away could be described as “lower level prospects”, both because they were not the top prospects in the organization and because they were at the lower levels of the minors and won’t make it to the majors for quite some time (if ever). Hudson Head is the most notable one, and he’s currently batting .193 at single-A ball.

Joe Musgrove, San Diego Padre

One thing was obvious about Musgrove when he got here: He was going to stand out as a San Diegan and a life-long Padres fan. That made it all the more fun when he threw the team’s first no-hitter earlier this season in Texas, and it just generally makes it easy to root for him.

I remember hearing that Musgrove had been a good pitcher but there were signs he could be great soon. Preller must’ve heard the same.

We’re beyond the point where Musgrove’s overall numbers are skewed by the no-hitter. At this point, we can honestly say that these numbers represent who he has been this year.

Just look at how dramatically different his numbers have been in 2021 compared to the rest of his career. So far he’s posting a career best in ERA, ERA+, FIP, WHIP and Hits per 9IP. To put it simply, he’s pitching better than he ever has.

After digging into the success of all the pitchers that are new to the Padres, it has become obvious that selling Larry Rothschild as “the slider coach” is only telling half the story. In addition to slider rates going up across the board, most of these guys are replacing their 4-seam fastball with a cut-fastball that has more movement.

Looking at this chart, like when we looked at Darvish or Melancon, you can see a big jump in sliders and cutters this season from Musgrove. The fastball went from his most used pitch to his 4th most used pitch.

If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying

Musgrove coming to the Padres and being groomed by Larry Rothschild to be a dominant pitcher when he had been something of a letdown in Pittsburgh is a really nice story, but we’ve reached the point where it’s time to start getting serious.

Looking at spin rates across a team’s pitching staff, especially compared to past performance, is an easy way to see which teams are effectively boosting their pitching numbers by using substances like glue to give the pitchers more grip on the ball.

Now, the Padres aren’t quite the Dodgers, whose spin rates look absolutely alien next to the rest of baseball. That level of cheating seems to take the fun out of the whole thing, but I guess it’s a business and they’re just trying to win? In that vein, the Padres are trying to catch the cheatin’ Dodgers and I won’t criticize them for a second when I see the spin rates of Padres pitchers climbing.

Talking specifically about Musgrove’s slider here, although the same pattern exists for his other pitches too, here is the average spin rate by season:

2021: 2735 rpm
2020: 2677 rpm
2019: 2495 rpm
2018: 2415 rpm
2017: 2493 rpm
2016: 2474 rpm

Now I see why those that were paying attention in 2020 thought Musgrove was ready to break out in 2021!

Riding the wave

After throwing a no-hitter in his second start with the Padres, his first start being 6 dominant shutout innings, a lot of people (including me) were worried about Joe’s ability to recover.

In his next six starts, he gave up 14 ER over 29 difficult innings (4.34 ERA). He wasn’t bad, but he definitely wasn’t good.

But, since the Padres have been on such a tear and part of the reason why the Padres have been on such a tear, Musgrove has been a lot better recently. In his last three starts, he’s given up 1 ER over 16.2 innings (0.56 ERA).

Yesterday, taking the bump after a loss that broke the 9-game winning streak, Musgrove put the Padres right back in a winning position and the team walked away with a 7-1 victory and the start of a new winning streak.

If Musgrove is this guy for the rest of the season, attributing that brief spell to the early-season no-hitter when his arm wasn’t ready to throw 112 pitches and took time to recover after, he’ll be getting Cy Young Award votes right along with Yu Darvish.