Spencer Strider Is Comically Overpowering

I don’t assume you perceive. You most likely assume you perceive, however you don’t perceive. Oh, you understand that Spencer Strider is a bolt of lightning, a strikeout pitcher so overpowering that he would possibly as nicely have been created in a lab. You know that he’s having a very good season, absolutely; he’s locked in a good race for NL Cy Young with Zac Gallen and Blake Snell. You know that he’s the logical continuation of the high-strikeout ace lineage, Bob Feller or Sandy Koufax or Roger Clemens for a brand new age. But I doubt you grasp how a lot of an outlier Strider’s 2023 season is, as a result of I didn’t both till I took a better look.

We have pitch-by-pitch information for each main league sport on our leaderboards beginning in 2002. That means we are able to calculate swinging strike fee, the share of pitches that end in a swing and a miss, for all of these years. I’ll let you know proper off the bat that the single-season chief on this class is Jacob deGrom in 2020. In truth, 4 of the highest 5 seasons on the listing are from 2020; they’re outliers that had been doubtless aided by the inherent randomness of a shortened schedule, in different phrases. For a fee statistic, that is smart; the less innings you’ll be able to throw to qualify, the better it’s to place up a wild quantity.

Notice how I stated 4 out of 5, although? Strider’s 2023 season is the opposite one within the group. Batters have come up empty on 19.7% of the pitches Strider has thrown this 12 months. I can’t stress sufficient how outrageous that’s. One mind-set about it? Here’s an entire listing of each non-2020 season the place a pitcher recorded a swinging strike fee inside three proportion factors of Strider’s mark:

That’s it! Gerrit Cole completed the 2019 season 2.9 proportion factors shy of Strider’s present tempo. By approach of comparability, right here’s a listing of all of the seasons inside three proportion factors of Cole, who was the earlier document holder for this specific leaderboard (once more excluding 2020):

What a enjoyable journey down reminiscence lane, in addition to a reminder that I most likely underestimated Matt Clement on the time. But the purpose is, that listing is 67 pitcher-seasons lengthy. The race in direction of lacking extra bats was contested, a gradual upward climb with tons of contenders for the highest spot. Then got here Strider, and nicely, I don’t assume we’re going to see lots of people jostling with him atop the document books any time quickly.

I discover this tough to fathom. After all, we’ve seen seasons like Strider’s in the case of strikeout fee. Shane Bieber and deGrom exceeded Strider’s present 38.1% mark in 2020. Cole exceeded it in that superlative 2019 season. Heck, Randy Johnson put up a 37.4% season in 2001. That’s spectacular firm, little doubt, however Strider isn’t lapping the sphere like he’s in swinging strike fee.

In truth, he stands out within the reverse approach right here: you would possibly count on him to get extra strikeouts given how continuously batters are arising empty. Here’s a scatterplot of each qualifying season since now we have pitch-by-pitch information, excluding 2020:

Strider is that dot out on the far proper. It’s not truly that far off of a easy regression line, which might predict a 40.2% strikeout fee as a substitute of his 38.1% quantity. Cole, in the meantime, is the best dot; his “predicted” strikeout fee is a mere 34.3%. A one-factor linear regression is clearly far too simplistic – command artists get extra referred to as strikes, and so forth – however it’s fairly clear that these two abilities go collectively. And it’s simply as clear that Strider is nice at each.

One underrated facet of Strider’s season: He’s remarkably constant. It would possibly really feel like he’s a growth or bust sort; the Pirates tagged him for six runs in 2.2 innings earlier this month, for instance, and he had a handful of different poor performances earlier within the 12 months. But his poor performances aren’t about him failing to overlook bats; they’re about the whole lot else going flawed.

The highest swinging strike fee in a single sport this 12 months? It’s not Strider; it’s Shane McClanahan, with a whopping 35.2% mark (31 of 88 pitches) towards the White Sox in April. Freddy Peralta is second on the listing; Trevor Richards is third. Emmett Sheehan and Lance Lynn each have top-10 efforts. One fast word right here: I’m utilizing the conference that we use on FanGraphs, which doesn’t rely foul ideas as swinging strikes. Baseball Savant defaults to counting them, so in case you have a look at their leaderboards, issues is perhaps barely totally different. But it’s not like Strider’s peak is on a distinct stage than the remainder of baseball, nonetheless you rely.

His consistency, although, my goodness. Strider is fourth on the listing – a 29.7% mark on April 24. He’s additionally sixth on the listing – 29.1% on May 12. He’s eighth, fifteenth, twenty sixth, and twenty eighth, too. That’s six of the highest 30 performances this 12 months by swinging strike fee. Peralta has three, and nobody else has greater than two. Strider has 9 of the highest 100 video games; Peralta and Snell every have 4. There’s nobody loopy efficiency driving Strider’s dominance; he’s simply doing it practically each outing.

Here’s one other approach of placing it: Strider’s worst begin from a swinging strike perspective got here on June 3. It was a superbly serviceable begin; he struck out seven Diamondbacks over six innings, walked 4, and allowed two runs. He threw 99 pitches and garnered 13 swinging strikes, a 13.1% fee. That’s the 1,096th-best swinging strike begin (minimal 50 pitches) on the 12 months, out of 4,057 begins (final place: one swinging strike in 97 pitches from Noah Syndergaard on May 31).

That’s Strider at his worst – and it’s extra swinging strikes than the main league common. Most pitchers have the occasional clunker on this class. McClanahan has a 6.6% sport. Peralta has a 5.9% sport. Snell has a 7.8% one. Some days you simply don’t have it, or the opposite guys are seeing the ball nicely, or any variety of different causes issues don’t break your approach. There are simply so many baseball video games. But in each one he’s appeared on this 12 months, Strider takes the mound and guys begin swinging.

Is that sufficient to provide him this 12 months’s Cy Young? I don’t know. I’d vote for him proper now, however I don’t assume his case is overwhelming. But no matter whether or not he wins it, what he’s doing is unprecedented. Strider’s 2022 season already felt like a strikeout cheat code – and he had 9 totally different video games with a decrease swinging strike fee than his worst effort this 12 months. It’s merely laborious to wrap your head round how constant he’s been.

So subsequent time you could have an opportunity — like say, tonight towards the Dodgers — try a Strider begin. I can’t assure that he’ll shut the opposite staff down, however I can just about say for sure that no matter he does, he’ll make loads of hitters look silly whereas doing it. That’s the closest factor you may get to a assure within the round-ball, round-bat sport.