MLB: 5 young pitchers poised for breakouts in 2023
By Scott Henry
MLB pitching breakout candidate: Nick Lodolo
Lodolo is another top prospect who debuted with the Reds last year with mixed results. The other similarity to Greene is that Lodolo finished 2022 very strong, providing optimism for his future.
Lodolo finished 2022 with a 3.66 ERA and 3.90 FIP over 103 innings. Honestly, those are very respectable numbers for a rookie and provide plenty of reasons to be excited. After the All-Star break, Lodolo hit another gear as he went on to throw 77 innings of 2.92 ERA and 3.57 FIP baseball. His second half FIP bested that of Gerrit Cole, Dylan Cease, and many more elite pitchers.
Lodolo was the seventh overall pick in the 2019 after playing ball at Texas Christian University. He ranked as high as #48 in MLB.com’s prospect rankings in 2020.
His prized pitch is his curveball, and he threw it 515 times for an opponents batting average of .136 in 2022 per Baseball Savant. That same curve had a whiff % of almost half at 46. His 4-seamer isn’t fun to swing at either, as it had a .210 opponent batting average. That can mostly be attributed to it’s horizontal movement, as it breaks horizontally 8.5 inches more than the average fastball.
The Cincinnati Reds haven’t had much to cheer about recently, but these two young pitchers might provide reason to buy some tickets!