MLB Pitchers: Slow and Steady Wins the Game for These Arms

Slow and Steady MLB Pitchers: Zach Davies

In his fifth season as a member of the Brewers rotation, Zach Davies is off to a 4-0 start with a National League leading 1.54 earned run average. In his eight starts, he has yet to allow more than two run; in three of his starts he held his opponents scoreless.

And he’s making it appear effortless.

Davies doesn’t even throw a 4-seamer; his highest velocity pitch is his cutter, and that only gets to 88.4 mph. That ranks him in only the 5th percentile among major league hurlers for velocity. Yet the 85.9 mph exit velocity opponents average off Davies ranks among the game’s best. Beyond that, Davies displays an utter aversion to fat pitches. Only 3.9 percent of his pitches find the middle of the strike zone.

Contrast that with his 49.7 percent “edge” rate. As a result, only 3.5 percent of opponents get solid barrel contact off Davies. Nearly 30 percent of all Davies at bats result in weak ground balls to an infielder.

Davies is 6-feet tall but only 155 lbs., so he has the body of a finesse artist. The one element his game has lacked to date has been durability. In his first eight starts, Davies has averaged a fraction less than six innings per start, low for a pitcher who’s never been knocked off the mound.