Matt Shoemaker’s Need For Speed

The last time Matt Shoemaker allowed more than two runs in an outing was June 19. Since then, he’s pitched 37 1/3 innings, allowing just seven earned runs. He has 35 strikeouts compared to just 11 walks, leading to a 2.88 FIP. He’s been even better when just isolating the numbers in his three starts since the All-Star break, with 27/6 K/BB and a 1.36 FIP, although, to be fair, that is an incredibly small sample. For comparison’s sake, his FIP through June 19 was 4.70.

So has there been a change in Shoemaker’s game, or has his streak been a fluke? Well, I wouldn’t be writing this if it was the latter, as I’m sure you could’ve guessed (although if you weren’t able to guess who the article was about after the first paragraph, perhaps I’m overestimating you). There’s been a significant change in the way Shoemaker has approached batters. Take a look at his pitch type chart through June 19, courtesy of Baseball Savant:

And then take a look at the data since then:

Through June 19, Shoemaker threw his fastball (four-seam and two-seam) 51.6% of the time. Since then, it’s been 56.9% of the time. Comparing these two proportions with a two-tailed Z test yields a p-value of .034, significant at the .05 level, showing that there has indeed been in a difference in the amount of fastballs he’s thrown.

Of course, throwing more fastballs doesn’t translate to a drop in FIP of over 3 points. That is, unless, those fastballs are of higher quality. And, class, what’s the most important aspect of a fastball? Hopefully you were at least able to guess this one: the velocity. Which, naturally, is the next thing I looked at.

Again, I used Baseball Savant’s PITCHf/x data. Narrowing the results to just fastballs, here are the velocities of Shoemaker’s pitches this year:

At the beginning of the season, Shoemaker’s average fastball velocity hovered right above 88 mph. Since then, it’s steadily risen, and there’s a clear jump about two-thirds of the way into the season (note that this time would be remarkably near June 19). After the jump, his average velocity has hung closer to the 92 mph range, further away from Jered Weaver status. FanGraphs data shows the same thing:

Note, this data also shows Shoemaker’s average velocity from 2014, when he had a 3.04 ERA and a 3.19 SIERA. This image confirms the steady increase in velocity of Shoemaker’s fastball, as it has recently resided at or even above its value from last year’s productive season. There have been clear results from this change, especially in the form of whiff rate, and predictably, strikeouts. Through June 19, Shoemaker’s whiff rate sat at a mediocre 10.5%.

Since the All-Star break, this is what that breakdown looks like:

You might notice that his whiff rate sits at 13.7%, which would be top-5 among starters if he managed it for an entire season. Now, I’m not naive enough to think that number is where is true value lies after just 3 games, but he’s certainly improved off his 10.2% mark he had earlier in the season.

I’m not suggesting Shoemaker is the next coming of Clayton Kershaw. I’m not even sure if he’s the best pitcher on his own staff. But one thing is for sure: Matt Shoemaker is throwing the ball harder than he has in the past, and it’s working. And while it may not continue at this level, there’s no reason it should stop.