Some of the best MLB pitchers so far in 2019 are also the softest tossers. How they retire batters with negligible fastballs.
Baseball fans worship velocity. If the average fan knows only a couple of stats about their favorite pitcher, one is likely to be his fastball speed…and the closer to 100 mph, the better.
But this year, perhaps strangely, a lot of pitchers are achieving strong numbers with fastballs that barely register on the radar gun. Forget 95 or 100 mph, these guys have to muscle up to hit 90. Yet opposing batters find them baffling.
How? Simply put, they know how to pitch. They offset a lack of velocity with guile, precision and a strong sense of how to throw the pitch the batter isn’t expecting. As a group, they offer compelling evidence that you don’t have to be a flame-thrower to be a successful big league hurler.
Their teams are also finding success. With only one or two exceptions, the 10 pitchers featured below fill key roles on the staffs of some of the game’s most successful teams to date. Eight are rotation starters on either division-leaders or teams closely positioned in second. Their combined record is 36-15 with ERAs topping out at 3.51, yet there isn’t a 92-mph fastball in the group.
Who are these baseball counter-culturalists? Which pitchers are re-defining how the game is played, demonstrating that it isn’t necessary to strike everybody out, and that it’s possible to win at the game’s highest level with a heater that barely meets the definition of the term?
Here’s a look at them, and a dive into what, thus far in 2019, has made them successful.