Kevin Gausman’s One-Dimensional Attack

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 4th 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 TillmanBud 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.

Gausman vs. LGausman vs. R

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 3rd, 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 1st and 3rd, 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 3rd 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.

Yordano  Ventura heatmapEovaldi Heatmap

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





Alex Smith is a senior at Cornell University in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He's the founder of the blog www.battingleadoff.com and can be reached at aws77@cornell.edu.

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Rob Mainsmember
9 years ago

This is nice work, Alex. I was wondering if maybe Gausman is avoiding the up & in zone on LHBs because he’s gotten tattooed there, but he’s allowed a lower SLG in the 40% of the zone to which he doesn’t like to throw (i.e., the 10 upper-left zones in a 5×5 grid) than the 40% of the zone to which he does throw, .300-.388. Ventura, by contrast, is allowing a higher SLG in the upper left than the lower right. So Gausman really doesn’t have an excuse. So I think you’re on to something with his mechanics.

1908member
9 years ago

Gausman’s xFIP is 4.01, quite a bit worse than the league average of 3.76. Part of this is down to his surprisingly modest strikeout rate, but Gausman also has a microscopic HR/9 of .47, which can only be attributed to luck or his unusually close relationship with Cthulhu. Neither explanation is good for the O’s, and Alex is absolutely correct in observing that Gausman needs to expand the territory the hitter must defend in order to avoid becoming the next Sidney Ponson.