Player Breakdowns: March 30th
I'll go over Shane Bieber, Jason Foley, Aroldis Chapman, Ricky Tiedemann & Owen Caissie
I’ll go over video from opening day and break down some notable performances as well as two minor league performers from last night that I want to touch upon.
Shane Bieber (CLE):
Are you telling me that a 28-year-old who saw his FB velocity decline steadily over the last three years was being overlooked and undervalued coming into February? That’s the story of Bieber. Not only did his velo dip over the last three years but his K/9 with it and his underlying results.
I wrote in February after a video surfaced of him going to Driveline which is Hogwarts for Pitchers if you aren’t aware by now, that he was going to outperform his ADP — potentially shatter it. Bieber isn’t a guy who was throwing 96-98 when he was having elite seasons. All it’s going to take for him to succeed with his pitch mix is an above-average fastball and he showed that in his first start Thursday night.
Here is what I wrote about Bieber on February 13th:
I’ll keep this one short. Shane Bieber is still only 28-years-old. He was one of the best pitchers in the league from 2019-2021 despite averaging 93.2, 94.3, and 92.9mph on his fastball, respectively. What happened in 2022-2023 — we’ll his fastball dipped to below 92 mph and he effectively sat between 90-92. Fast forward to just last week and there’s a video from Driveline that showed Bieber throwing 93-94 again. No, it wasn’t a pulldown or from flat ground. It was an indoor mound with a live hitter. There are plenty of stories of pitchers going to Driveline and not being able to maintain the velocity gains by mid-season but with Bieber, I’m willing to buy it because his ADP is nowhere near the potential value if these velocity gains do stick. He was a CY candidate nearly every year when he averaged 93-94 — and he’s still young enough for me to not overlook this. Don’t jump the gun and draft him 10th overall or anything — but just make sure you land him slightly ahead of where he’s going so you can potentially benefit from these velocity gains.
I know all the rage is going to be around Bieber and his velocity but the story was much more than that on Thursday night. The secondaries looked sharp and his command looked second to none. There were a few favorable calls in the 6th inning but let’s break down his first 3 innings and then get to the rest of his start.
1st Inning: 20 pitches thrown — 1 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 3K
The 93 mph fastball plays up given the command of his secondaries and the command he had all night was excellent. You can see he drops Ryan Noda to his knees swinging late on a 93 mph fastball middle-up in the zone on a 2-1 count which is then followed by his 89 mph power changeup at the knees which he gets a swinging strikeout on. Speaking of his power change: he’s throwing that a bit harder too this year and the Velo separation isn’t much but it has legitimate fade and downward and arm-side movement. He’s pairing those two with a slider and cutter which both look downright filthy, dotting corners and generating whiffs. He struck out the side in the first inning. The classification of the slider is one thing but at times when he’s throwing the slower iteration of it, it comes across as more of a slurve or a curveball. Either way, the pitch command was on display in the first inning.
2nd Inning: 14 pitches thrown — 1IP 1H 0ER 0BB 3K
If you’re concerned about his fastball — he threw 6 in the 2nd inning with his first two coming in at 91.0 and 91.4 mph. The final 4 fastballs he threw were 92.7, 92.2, 92.2, & 93.1. He’s going to be fine. Take a look at that at-bat against Shea Langeliers. A Cutter dotted outside. A fastball looked at middle-away. And another Cutter away that just drops out of the zone eliciting a swinging strikeout. 3 pitches - 3 quick strikes to handle Langeliers. Again, a lot of those classified cutters looked like potential sliders to me but they were heavy and mid-80s regardless. The movement profile on the pitch is still excellent. Through 2 innings Bieber had 6Ks.
3rd Inning: 11 pitches thrown — 1IP 0H 0ER 0BB 1K
Bieber made quick work in the 3rd inning getting two soft outs and a strikeout on just 11 pitches. He threw 6 cutters, 4 fastballs (Avg: 93mph), and 1 slider. The cutter was working for him all night as you can see.
I’m going to mash up all the film together from the 1st inning through the 6th, excluding the 5th (it wasn’t that exciting) so you can see all the called strikes and whiffs generated by Bieber on Thursday night as well as see what pitch mix was working for him.
Overall, it was a great start for Bieber. He went 6IP 4H 0ER 1BB 11Ks. I’m more encouraged by the command of his breaking stuff than the increase in his velocity because I already saw the velocity coming this off-season. It’s a good sign that he’s holding onto it deeper into starts but the command looked peak Bieber.
There’s an argument to be made that this was against the A’s and I’ll offer two points:
Bieber looked great but it was against the A’s or It was against the A’s but Bieber looked great. I’m going to go with the latter although it is the A’s and I guess you have to take that into account.
Overall, this is what Bieber was averaging on his pitch mix and velocity for the night according to Baseball Savant:
1 tick up on the fastball average although we saw it more than 2.5 ticks up when he wanted to reach back. 2 ticks up on that changeup which is creating less separation overall but looks to have more downward and arm-side movement.