Ryan Pressly Pulls the String

You all understand how playoff aid pitchers work lately. A starter comes out, maybe sooner than he would within the common season, after which the parade begins. A 23-year-old who throws 99 with a mind-bending slider. A former starter who pops 100 with ease. A artful lefty is subsequent, a humiliation to his friends because of a mere 97-mph radar gun studying. Then it’s time for the massive cheese, the bullpen anchor; he throws 100 as properly, solely with a secondary pitch that will get him convicted of witchcraft in an earlier period.

That’s simply the best way baseball has gone lately. Pitcher coaching is best than ever and velocity misses bats, so the development is inexorable. In 2014, the typical fastball thrown by a reliever within the playoffs checked in at 94.1 mph. In 2022, it hit 95.9 mph. In the not-so-distant future, it would absolutely high 96. If you may construct the complete bullpen out of fireballers, why not do it?

It feels unusual to name Ryan Pressly a junkballer. He sits 94-95 mph with a backspinning four-seamer. He threw a pitch 98 mph this season. He’s lived up close to 100 at varied factors in his 11-year main league profession. But in fashionable baseball, he’s downright quaint, a four-pitch reliever who doesn’t depend on gamebreaking velocity.

Combine his unconventional strategies with the truth that he’s a aid pitcher, and Pressly drew the ire of some Astros followers this yr. He posted his worst ERA since 2017 (a still-solid 3.58) and appeared worse down the stretch, significantly when you’re solely taking a look at that ERA; three blowup video games led to a 4.76 mark after the commerce deadline. Everyone thinks their very own group’s bullpen is dangerous, it’s only a truth of life, however would possibly Pressly be Houston’s undoing come playoff time?

Right, yeah, no. Pressly confronted six Minnesota batters within the group’s four-game ALDS victory. He retired all six, 5 by strikeout. You simply can’t do a lot better than that. In the Astros’ final three playoff runs, he’s thrown 22.2 innings throughout 21 video games and allowed a solitary earned run. That was in 2021, and he bought the save anyway. Seems just like the outdated man nonetheless has it.

Judging relievers by their success is at all times going to be futile. Pressly is the nearer for a group that has gone to 2 straight World Series, and even then, he’s barely cracked 20 innings throughout three years of labor. The samples are essentially tiny. A single dangerous recreation – or just not having a nasty recreation – could be the distinction between an ideal line and a poor one. But I believed Pressly’s recreation plan in opposition to the Twins did a superb job illustrating why he’s so lastingly nice regardless of an atypical pitch combine.

Before we get to a pile of GIFs, let me level out one vital factor: Pressly won’t throw significantly laborious within the context of at present’s recreation, however all of his pitches are nice. His fastball will get extra experience than you’d anticipate and has just about no east/west motion. His bullet slider is available in at 90 mph and has somewhat wiggle in it. His curveball? It drops off the face of the earth with nasty two-plane break. Even his changeup is nice; it mirrors his slider velo-wise however fades greater than a foot in the other way.

Our pitch fashions agree with my subjective evaluation. Stuff+ provides the fastball, slider, curve, and changeup grades of 127, 179, 156, and 134 respectively. 100 is common, simply so we’re clear. Per that mannequin, he has the third-best fastball on the group behind Bryan Abreu and Ryne Stanek, the most effective slider, the most effective curveball, and the most effective changeup. The PitchingBot mannequin is on a unique scale, nevertheless it agrees with the final magnitude. It thinks Pressly has the third-best fastball, fifth-best slider, second-best curveball, and third-best changeup on a group stuffed with spectacular pitches.

As Matt Trueblood identified earlier this month, the Twins have a singular two-strike method: don’t change something. They have the bottom in-zone swing price with two strikes, hit for energy once they join, and usually deal with it like simply one other probability to place one thing in play relatively than an entirely totally different rely. They led the majors in known as strikeouts this yr by a giant margin. The hole between them and the second-place Reds is as massive because the hole between the Reds and the Twelfth-place Cardinals. They had the best in-zone whiff price once they swung; they take huge hacks the place many groups shorten up.

That team-wide tendency implies that an ordinary pitching method won’t fare properly in opposition to the Twins. If you’re bouncing breaking balls hoping for a chase or ripping four-seamers above the zone, you’re liable to get a sequence of takes. And in case your counter is to throw some fastballs within the zone and hope they take, that’s dangerous too; they’re swinging aggressively once they supply. But Pressly has the right instruments to counter that. He can command all 4 of his pitches for strikes. He did simply that:

That cluster of secondaries on the backside of the zone is ludicrous. It’s completely designed to counter Minnesota’s tendencies. It’s typically accepted knowledge that leaving a sluggish pitch within the zone with two strikes is dangerous. The hitter might be defending the zone, so he’ll nearly actually be swinging. He’ll in all probability be making an attempt to place one thing into play. A sluggish pitch within the zone is liable to get blooped someplace. Even worse, perhaps the hitter is trying breaking ball and hoping to foul off a fastball that he will get fooled on; which may result in some loud contact in opposition to your in-zone 80 mph providing.

Pressly is aware of that, and he doesn’t often pitch this fashion. Only 1 / 4 of his two-strike pitches have been in-zone breaking balls this yr. The similar is true for his profession as a complete. He throws lower than half of his two-strike pitches within the strike zone. Against the Twins, he deserted all of that and tailored to what they have been giving him.

That location chart really undersells Pressly’s calculated aggression. Here’s his 0-2 pitch to Royce Lewis from final night time:

That post-pitch crawl isn’t the latest dance craze sweeping the nation; he misplaced his footing and couldn’t full the pitch. That location clearly wasn’t a part of his plan; typically, you simply slip. He took some time making an attempt to re-find the zone after that mishap. Here are the subsequent two pitches of the sequence:

Just take a look at that physique language after the 2-2 fastball he yanked huge. “Dangit, hand,” he appears to be telling himself. “Throw strikes.” So naturally, he regrouped and had simply the appropriate weight on his 3-2 curveball:

Go again up and try the situation chart from earlier on this article. Those three balls – all as a result of he slipped off the mound – are the one two-strike pitches he threw exterior of the strike zone. Maybe he was planning on bouncing that first pitch anyway. And loads of these two strike counts have been of the 3-2 selection, which argues for in-zone pitches no matter opposition. But the sport plan appeared clear, and it labored to perfection.

Check out this sequence from Pressly’s first save of the sequence. Jorge Polanco managed to foul off a tricky two-strike curve, so Pressly got here again with a nastier and decrease one, however nonetheless stored it within the zone:

The Twins have been wholly unprepared for this plan of assault. How might it’s another method? They did issues a method all yr and rolled to the playoffs, then waited out the Blue Jays (28.9% two-strike zone price) within the Wild Card spherical. Pressly merely had all of the solutions for the questions the Twins have been making an attempt to pose.

I don’t suppose that we’ll see this method in opposition to the Rangers subsequent week. They look way more like a mean group once they attain two strikes; they shorten up, swing pretty typically within the strike zone, and have been significantly deadly in opposition to in-zone flexible stuff with two strikes. They have been 30 runs above common in opposition to such pitches, behind solely the mighty Braves. The Twins, alternatively, have been 36 runs under common. Hitters aren’t a monolithic group; convey the identical plan of assault in opposition to a unique group of opponents, and also you would possibly run into hassle shortly.

That’s a part of what makes Pressly so nice. He has the instruments to adapt to his opposition. It’s not a matter of utilizing his third-best pitch to assault their weak spot, both; all of his pitches are nice, and he can throw his breaking balls for strikes if needed. The Twins have been a tailored matchup for his distinctive talent set. The Rangers might be a very totally different problem, however I wouldn’t wager in opposition to him being up for it. After all, he has a protracted historical past of determining the appropriate instruments for the job and making use of them successfully. He would possibly simply begin a brand new development whereas he’s at it, too: