Today, a few notes on three recent pitcher debuts.
Remember him?
Forrest Whitley was drafted about eight years ago. On Tuesday night, he took a deep breath and then threw his first major league pitch:
Eight years of build-up to an outing that meant nothing to the Astros and everything to him. Injuries. Surgeries (elbow, lat). COVID-19. Drug suspension. As his dad said after the game: “It was time, man.” Whitley’s wife said, “This is way better than getting married.”1
Whitley quickly reminds us how hard pitching the big leagues is. Target and location on a 96 mph 1-1 fastball to Ronald Acuña Jr.:
Pretty good. And the result:
Foul, though - it’s fine.
And now one pitch away from an Acuña punchout:
That was a split-change that slipped out of Whitley’s hand. Heavy perspiration, maybe. Hard to blame him.
It wasn’t all negative for Whitley. In addition to the 96-98 mph fastball and split, he has this turbo-cutter that he landed through the backdoor:
This next cutter ran through the backdoor and into the kitchen. Whoa:
Final line: 0.2 IP, 0 ER, 0 K, 1 BB. Whitley is going to work as a reliever for a while. Working cutter-first could serve him well, I think.
When dad is in the New York Mets Hall of Fame
Jack Leiter debuted yesterday. His dad was there, too:
Jack is 23, and he doesn’t quite look major-league-ready yet. He navigated 3+ innings with buckshot command that doesn’t seem entirely debut-induced (he’s walked 5+ per 9 IP at each minor league stop). He consistently missed to his arm side; at 97 mph, he can get away with that sometimes:
This next one’s not his fault. It’s his catcher’s fault. It’s a down-in (arm side) target to Javier Báez. A note to Jonah Heim: in 2023, only one player chased non-strikes more often than Báez (Salvador Perez)2.
Throw Báez a first-pitch chase pitch, one that works strike-to-ball, and maybe (probably) he swings. If he puts it in play, it’s unlikely to be hit hard. If he doesn’t swing, Ball 1. Not a big deal.
But if you throw him a fastball down-in on purpose, some would say you deserve this outcome:
One of a few unforced errors for Leiter and Heim. Another came on a Leiter slider, a pitch that looks “muscled” to me3. Leiter overexposed it in a sequence to Mark Canha:
Slider, missed plate wide (1-0)
Slider, missed plate wide (2-0)
Fastball, chased up/away and fouled off (2-1)
Slider, hung up/away and fouled off (2-2)
In this situation, Leiter has boxed himself in. It’s hard to justify a fastball in a 2-2 count when you don’t know where it’s going. Because he apparently doesn’t throw his changeup to right-handed hitters, Leiter is left with his slider as his only option.
It doesn’t help that this one came out like a cement mixer.
About that changeup, though. It’s a weapon, and it could find its way into situations like the Canha at-bat above. It’s so pretty that it brought Kerry Carpenter down to one knee:
Leiter’s final line: 3.2 IP, 7 ER, 3 K, 3 BB. He’s got a chance to be much better than that line. To do so, he’ll have to pitch less like his dad did in the 90s, when the down-in fastball target was in vogue.
When no one’s heard of you (or your dad)
Ever heard of Landon Knack? Probably not, unless you’ve read nos. 20-49 of FanGraphs’ “Los Angeles Dodgers Top 49 Prospects.”
Knack’s debut on Wednesday came with less fanfare than Leiter’s or Whitley’s. His dad described the day like a typical debut dad: “surreal.”
The (relative) lack of expectation surrounding someone like Knack makes you want to pull for him, and so I did. Plus, he pitched in front of a crowd of 44,000+.
Knack jumped out on the attack. Pitch 2:
Bummer.
He might have been nervous and he might not have blow-you-away stuff, but he threw strikes anyway.
It’s common for young pitchers to get so self-involved or overwhelmed that they forget about baserunners. Not Knack. He checked in with Freddie Freeman early and often. He emptied the tank in one at-bat, using his two free pickoffs/disengagements.
Later on, when he had a second thought about a 3-2 pitch, he just stepped off:
The pitch he wanted, by the way, was this one:
A Bugs Bunny changeup, thrown right-on-right. Not the location he wanted, but it’s good enough not to matter. Leiter’s changeup is that good too4, by the way, and he could follow Knack’s lead in using it to same-handed hitters.
Knack put together some nice sequences with well-placed fastballs, a curveball thrown for strikes, an average slider, and that changeup. He pieced his way through 5 innings (2 ER, 4 K, 1 BB).
Knack’s debut didn’t look like a debut at all. Just like a guy doing his job and taking care to make the most of his 93 mph fastball. Surreal.
Have a great weekend!
per FanGraphs/Pitch Info
A snappy breaking ball looks like it jumps from a pitcher’s fingertips. A muscled breaking ball looks like it’s being pulled by a pitcher’s biceps. Think “Ben Roethlisberger golf swing.”
Leiter’s in more of a “sink and run” kind of way.