The Angels recently signed Robert Stephenson to a 3 year, $33MM deal.
That’s a lot of cabbage for a guy who has been mediocre most of his career. Reminiscent of rags-to-riches knuckleballer and ex-Mets Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey.
The Los Angeles Times noted that “Stephenson, 30, is coming off the best season of his eight-year major league career, having posted a 3.10 ERA over 52 1/3 innings in 60 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays despite starting 2023 on the injured list because of a sore elbow.”
Before the last 4 months of last year, he was 14-19 with a career ERA of about 5.00 and 3 saves. So, why so much money?
Apparently he converted his slider into a nearly unhittable, faster cutter. Voila!
Paul Casella, writing in MLB.com, noted the following:
"Opposing batters hit just .101 (8-for-79) with 42 strikeouts against Stephenson's cutter. He had a 59.9% whiff rate with the pitch -- a sizable jump from the 41.8% whiff rate he registered with his old slider."
Every pitcher ought to notice how one tweak might, just might, lead them to unimaginable riches, if, of course, that tweak occurs prior to free agency.
His last 4 months of 2023, he sported an ERA around 2.50 and fanned 60 in 38 innings, while going 3-1.
Before those last 4 months, in his career, he fanned roughly a batter per inning, a far lower rate.
Nice timing, indeed, and very lucrative - every pitcher, as did Stephenson, should be searching for the tweak to turn them from a Clark Kent into Superman, and get them rich in the process. Or, even turn an aspiring minors hurler into a viable major leaguer.
Tylor Megill added a splitter at the end of 2023. Maybe it morphs him into Superman, too. The Mets need all the Supermen they can find.
Hitters can do it too. Consider Daniel Murphy, who a few months prior to the end of 2015 (and his impending free agency) tweaked his swing to go from good hitter to lethal, and rang the cash register in a big way.
There’s gold in them thar hills - you just have to know where to tweak.
7 comments:
I was thinking yesterday about how Murphy transformed just before leaving to go to Washington and Sandy Alderson did not believe in him. Murphy is scheduled to do some spring training announcing for SNY, and I’d love to hear it.
With all pitchers seeing shorter stints, it is much harder for hitter to get a comfortable gauge on anything better than average, and so any plus pitch should have success.
The Mets signed a bunch of pitchers that need adjusting.
There is going to be a longer line than Katz's Delly at the Pitching Lab this spring
MeGill and Vientos, a lot is riding on those two guys.
Not signing Murph after the season/post season he had and for chump change has to be in the top 2 or 3 dum moves list and of course he goes to the Nats so double the dum on that one.
Hopefully we have smarter folks running the show y I
Incredibly dumb move by Mets not signing murph.
They tried QO which he rejected but then had to wait. No takers. last minute signing with nats.wasn't he low balled and actually signed for less than QO?? Weird start of his transformation into a top shelf power hitter
Hi Tom. It’s funny how successful certain teams are in helping pitchers make those adjustments that unlock hidden potential. That was never us. Hopefully, we’re on track to become one of those teams.
As to Murphy, if you look at his 2015, other than the two times he had to come back from injury that season, when he struggled more or less briefly, he actually showed exactly what he was becoming. Average up, power up. It shouldn’t have been a difficult decision to re-sign him.
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