Collette Calls: Eggs Over Easy

I made the bold prediction a couple months back that Jake Odorizzi would be a top-100 pitcher. That includes starters and relievers because making the top-100 starting pitcher list is rather easy if you can throw strikes. Odorizzi was going as the 142nd pitcher off the board in NFBC drafts in February coming off a disappointing season. 

To date, that prediction is working out nicely as Odorizzi is 6-2 with a 2.63 ERA with a 24 percent strikeout rate and looking more like the guy we got to like in 2014 before the last few years of disappointment.

The main foundation of that prediction was that I was convinced Odorizzi would have a better 2019 because new manager Rocco Baldelli would not expose him to the dangers of the times through the order penalty as Paul Molitor did all too often last year. However, Baldelli has not done that. To date, these are the batters faced totals for Odorizzi in 2019:

• 21
• 7
• 18
• 23
• 25
• 26
• 23
• 22
• 26

To be fair, Odorizzi has pitched extremely well lately, and it is understandable that Baldelli would want to get more out of him. The approach has mostly worked well until his most recent outing Wednesday against the Angels when the TTOP turned what had been an excellent outing for Odorizzi into an all-too-familiar bad line score, in a game where he still won.

That third time through the Angels' order yielded the following results for Odorizzi: single, walk, groundout (ended inning), pop out, single, home run, single, single. The end result was three runs and 11 baserunners in 5.1 innings, and and six of those baserunners came during the TTOP phase of the outing. 

Last season, the chart below shows just how awful the TTOP treated Odorizzi:

This year, this is how that same chart looks for him:

The TTOP shows up in the increased offensive output (wOBA), but otherwise has been non-existent until this most recent outing yesterday.  We are still dealing with small samples in each split based on the number of batters he has faced, but this has still been an encouraging development nonetheless. So, what is different this year?

The first thing to consider is that Odorizzi was extremely unlucky in the TTOP in 2018. Yes, most non-aces are going to have issues the third time through without a quality third pitch, but Odorizzi was severely punished last year. He and Tyler Mahle tied for the highest wOBA in the TTOP, and they were way out in front. This season, he has been closer to the middle of the pack, but those numbers came down after yesterday's outing. 

FanGraphs' Alex Chamberlain made this super-duper-awesome pitch tool that shows us a few things too:

Odorizzi is throwing a little harder across the board this year, thanks to some extensive work he put in at the Florida Baseball Ranch this offseason. This is the same place Kyle Gibson credited with helping him find success in 2018. That link is a long read, but worth it to see what Odorizzi did during the offseason with help from the staff to re-work his craft. There is a bit in there worth reading in which Odorizzi mentions a back strain from deadlifting in 2017 that nagged him and how trainers noticed his body was still working as if the strain was still present when it was not. It is rather fascinating to read about how the trainer corrected the issue. 

Every bit of velocity helps, so adding some over last year has bee noticeable. His fastball is behaving like a big-league pitch. It was already there with hits spin rate up in the zone, but now he is finding the zone with greater frequency and hitters are struggling with the pitch compared to last year. His breaking balls are playing up well as a whole, and you should look at those in that manner rather than get excited in the small sample size of the slider. The cutter has been more of a show-me pitch rather than any kind of weapon this year, while the split-change has mostly behaved as it did last year.

Historically, we have seen Odorizzi have bouts of success such as the run he is currently on, but never for this long:

Wednesday's results had to come at some point because Odorizzi was on such a hot run that Baldelli tested fate because he needed some more length to save the bullpen and it nearly cost them the game. Hopefully, those situations are fewer so Odorizzi's ratios can be better protected and he can continue on a successful path. He clearly is a different pitcher than he was the last few seasons, and as long as these new mechanics and the little bump in velocity allow his fastball to behave as it is, he should remain a valued asset in 2019.