It’s well documented that Yasiel Puig has been having a rough second half to the season. FanGraphs’ own Jeff Sullivan covered Puig’s troubles in a great piece here, and other articles like this one, and this one, and this one, continue to pop up. Further, a recent dugout altercation with veteran Matt Kemp have only made the media scrutiny on baseball’s most volatile player tighter. Jeff discussed Puig’s inability to do anything but roll over inside pitches of late, and his failure to lift fastballs as well. Let’s keep that information in the back of our mind for a second and look at Puig’s L/R splits for 2013 and 2014.

Notice the drastic drop in Puig’s performance against left-handed pitching. Now both samples are limited in terms of plate appearances, but I don’t think you can attribute this drop in performance entirely to luck. First, see the difference in how right-handed and left-handed pitchers have attacked Puig by location in 2014.

Left-handed pitchers have made a significantly more concerted effort to pitch Puig inside, the same area that Jeff acutely pointed out Puig has been struggling. However, this isn’t much different than the way left-handers pitched Puig a year ago. See below for 2013 chart:

What has changed though is Puig’s ability to hit left-handed change-ups, and off-speed pitches in general. In 2013, Puig swung and missed at a lot of change-ups (28% whiff rate), but when he did make contact he did damage (.539 SLG in 26 AB’s where he put a change-up in play). In 2014 though, Puig has cut down on the misses (20% whiff rate), but also lost his ability to impact the baseball against the pitch (no extra base hits vs. lhp change-ups). A similar trend, but not as exaggerated one, can be found if you look at Puig vs. breaking pitches.

This isn’t a secret either. In last night’s contest, during his at bats against the Cubs lefty Tsuyoshi Wada, 4 of the 7 pitches Puig saw were change-ups. Wada did let one creep over the plate in his second at bat and Puig was able to hit a grounder through the left side.

But let’s go back to the examples in Jeff’s article. In the at bats where Puig is successful he gets to the ball out front and is able to get extension through his swing. Yet, in the examples where Puig is unsuccessful he rolls over the ball, is late, hits the ball deeper in accordance to his body, and cannot get the same extension. Granted both of the examples are against righties, but it illustrates the greater point of how Puig’s timing right now is off against fastballs (particularly fastballs on his hands and up).

And the problem with being late against the fastball is the rest of the game starts to speed up. To try and account for his deficiency, Puig has likely started to to cheat (start his swing earlier), leaving him more vulnerable to off-speed pitches away. And if you’re a lefty with a good change-up, you have a serious advantage versus Puig right now.

The question you might be asking yourself is why can’t righties take advantage of the same flaw. Well, since August 1, they have to an extent, and against right-handed four-seam fastballs Puig is a mere 5 for 35.

However, against off-speed pitches it’s a different story. For his career Puig recognizes and hits breaking balls considerably better than change-ups. Against sliders and curveballs, he’s batted .327 and .298 respectively, compared to a lowly .219 against change-ups.

And given that Puig is right-handed he’s a lot less likely to see change-ups from right-handed pitchers. Per Max Marchi’s data, pitchers are more than twice as likely to throw change-ups to opposite-side hitters than same-side hitters. This holds true for Puig, who in 2014, has seen 16% of pitches from left-handers be change-ups, compared to only 7% of pitches from right-handers. So while the advantage is still there for righties, it’s less likely they’ll get to it, or can do so within the limits of their arsenal.

What’ll be interesting to see is if a team will actually bring a lefty out of the bullpen to face Puig in the postseason. If it happens, one likely scenario would be Marco Gonzales of St. Louis (if he makes the playoff roster), whose profile suggests him being Puig’s kryptonite. He throws over 30% change-ups against right-handers and 51% of his fastball to righties have been located inside.

Another poor match-up would be if the Dodgers face the Nationals and Gio Gonzalez is on the mound. Gonzalez has upped his change-up usage against right-handers to 23% in 2014, and has limited hitters to a .230 average against the pitch with a 23% whiff rate.

I also think it’s important to watch how Puig handles inside fastballs the remainder of the season. It’s conceivable the adrenaline of a playoff series could help him regain his timing against the pitch and get him back in sync. Like any hitter his swing is constantly adjusting, and it could start clicking for the Cuban slugger at any point in time. The Dodgers are hoping it clicks soon, or else they’ll be stuck searching elsewhere for offensive production when October rolls around.

Data courtesy of FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball

Featured Image courtesy of USA Today

There’s no doubting that Kevin Gausman is a talented pitcher.  He features a fastball in the mid to upper 90’s, a split-change to fluster lefties with, and a slider with good depth to attack righties.

He even looks the part too, with a 6’3’’, 190 lb. frame, an athletic delivery, and an incredibly fast arm.  And therefore, it was for good reason that the Baltimore Orioles made him the 4^th selection of the 2012 Amateur Draft and he’s risen quickly to the big leagues.

However, Gausman’s career up to this point, at the major league level, has seen its fair share of ups and downs.  He struggled in a brief 47.1 IP in 2013 and in 2014 has hovered around mediocrity.  His ERA is alright at 3.83, but a mere 6.82 K/9 and 3.27 BB/9 is likely not what Baltimore was hoping to see from their former elite pitching prospect.

Heading into the postseason, Baltimore can expect solid performances from Chris Tillman, Bud Norris, and Wei-Yin Chen, but Gausman could be there biggest X Factor.  His stuff gives him a chance to dominate a playoff game and serve as a stopper down the stretch, but he’ll need to be more than a one-dimensional pitcher to get there.

By one-dimensional I’m referring to Gausman’s strong tendency to pitch only down and to his arm-side. See his FanGraphs pitcher heatmaps below vs. lefties and righties.

Notice, despite batter handedness, Gausman’s pitch location tendencies stay the same, as he works down-and-away from left-handers and down-and-in to right-handers.

Some of this is by probably by design. With Gausman and the Orioles trying to expose holes underneath righties hands and staying away from the lefty power zone of down-and-in.

However, a large reason for this tendency is Gausman’s inability to consistently pitch to his glove side.

In the video linked here, watch how Gausman reaches on the back side of his arm action. This reach makes it more difficult for him to command his pitches by limiting his ability to stay tall on his back side, keep a loose arm, and maintain balance.

Second, watch how he steps across his body.  By having a “crossfire delivery”, in order for Gausman to get a pitch to his glove-side, he must over-rotate and power his arm across the rest of his frame.

Gausman has the arm speed to do this, but the process of doing so, inhibits his ability to command pitches to that side of the plate, and he often misses in the strike-zone where hitters can do damage.

A great example of this was during the third inning of Gausman’s start Saturday afternoon versus Tampa Bay.

With 1 out and Ben Zobrist on 3^rd, Gausman tried to beat David DeJesus with a fastball low-and-in.  But Gausman’s fastball was never able to get to the inside part of the plate, and the left-handed DeJesus roped a single.

Now with 1^st and 3^rd, Gausman faced Evan Longoria and after throwing two split-change-ups down, he tried to beat the right-hander away with a fastball. Once again, Gausman couldn’t get the pitch to his glove side and Longoria smoked the ball to center for a sac fly.

Left-handed hitting James Loney came to bat next and immediately lined the first pitch fastball down-and-away to left field for a single.  The ease at which Loney stroked Gausman’s mid to upper 90’s fastball on the low, outside corner to left indicates he likely was cheating on a fastball there.  And judging from Gausman’s heatmaps and the previous two sequences, there was little reason for Loney to believe Gausman was going pitch him anywhere else.

This was a particularly unfortunate series of at-bats for Gausman and there are going to be times he can better locate to his glove-side. He’s a good enough athlete to overcome his delivery and arm action for periods of time, but consistent command to his glove-side is going to be difficult to achieve.

A simple question to ask at this point is why can’t Gausman make the mechanical adjustments to fix these issues?

Yet, changing a pitcher’s arm action and delivery at this stage of his career is extremely difficult. Gausman has likely been pitching this way his entire life and any changes now would probably result in a major setback first before progress could be made (and if progress could be made is even debatable).

This delivery and arm action is what Gausman is comfortable with and it’s worked well enough to make him a successful professional pitcher. Most major league pitchers do not have perfect mechanics, but rather are athletic enough to make up for mechanical flaws.  Gausman fits into this category.

However, there is an adjustment Gausman could make without changing his mechanics, and that’s better utilizing the top part of the strike zone, even if he stays arm-side. Let’s return to the heatmaps shown above once again. Take a look at the red on the bottom part of the zone and blue on the top.

Kevin Gausman has elite fastball velocity and life. His four-seam fastball has averaged 95.9 mph in 2014, which would put him 3^rd amongst starting pitchers if he qualified.  Compare his FanGraphs heatmaps to those of Yordano Ventura and Nathan Eovaldi, the starting pitchers with the most similar average fastball velocities to Gausman.

More-so Ventura than Eovaldi, but see the increased use of the upper part of the strike-zone, as well as the more diverse use of the entire plate. Ventura has been rewarded accordingly as per Brooks Baseball, hitters are only batting .196 against pitches he’s thrown in the top third of the zone in 2014.

At the very least an increased use of the upper third of the strike-zone will give Gausman another dimension to his arsenal. Hitters, like James Loney, won’t be able to cheat to get to certain pitches in specific locations.

Gausman has the dynamic stuff to be a front-line starter, it’s just about expanding the ways he can deploy his weapons and becoming more consistent in his ability to command them.

The Orioles are hoping he can improve at a rapid rate, as he could be the key to their potential success in late September and October.

Stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball