MLB’s best pitches (and the best hitters against them)

Slider: Dylan Cease & Aaron Judge

Another appearance for Aaron Judge! But let’s talk about Dylan Cease first. Cease’s slider ranks as the best pitch in the majors with a Run Value of -31, eclipsing Verlander’s 4-seamer by 10. The slider is Cease’s bread and butter, throwing it 42.5% and allowing just a .121 batting average against (.172 wOBA). It’s also his best putaway pitch, using it as a putaway pitch over 30% of the time. It’s resulted in 110 of his 182 strikeouts and has a 47.3% whiff rate.

Judge is just as good against sliders as he is 4-seamers, coming in with a Run Value of 21. Given that a fastball/slider combo is one of the more popular combos for pitchers in today’s game, it’s not a bad thing at all for Judge to be a gargantuan for both these pitches. He’s hitting it for a .449 wOBA, which is a crazy number (and even crazier to think it’s nearly 100 points worse than his wOBA against 4 seamers).

Cease and Judge faced off in May this year and while the Yankees got the best of him, Judge went 0-2 with a walk and 2 Ks vs Cease (both Ks on fastballs);