It won't be a surprise to anyone who watched the Washington Nationals at any point over the last half-decade, but Patrick Corbin remains a free agent despite spring training being well underway.
The 35-year-old southpaw was tremendous in his first season with the Nationals in 2019, authoring a 3.25 ERA and 238 strikeouts in 202.0 innings. He struggled some in the playoffs, but as the tertiary member of the rotation's Big 3 (along with Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer), he played a key part in the team's World Series title run.
and on a thursday afternoon, nats park sends off patty ice 🫡 pic.twitter.com/9u4YBCKdgc
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 26, 2024
Of course, in the years since, Corbin has been an abject disaster. Since 2020, Corbin has led the league in hits allowed three times (2020, 2022, 2024), earned runs allowed three times (2021, 2022, 2024), losses three times (2021-23), and home runs allowed once (2021).
With his six-year, $140 million contract in the nation's capital mercifully over, Corbin is now a free agent. Though his recent track record hardly suggests it, the lefty starter could feasibly help a team in 2025 if he's willing to make some key changes to his repertoire.
Patrick Corbin must ditch his sinker in favor of throwing more cutters
Despite all his struggles, Corbin is still one of the most durable starters in the world. Since 2016, he has thrown 150+ innings in every season except the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
The issue hasn't been health — it's been his pitch-choices. Corbin's sinker, his primary fastball, averaged 91.5 mph in 2024, which actually was only 0.3 mph lower than his 2019 velocity. The issue is that his slider, which remains his best and most-used pitch, isn't as effective as it once was, thus making his sinker harder to differentiate to to opposing batters.
In 2019, his slider allowed a .204 xwOBA to hitters, while his sinker was responsible for a .366 xwOBA. For reference, Marcus Semien, who finished third in AL MVP voting in 2019, had a .363 xwOBA for that season.
Juxtapose that with his 2024 performance. His slider was again solid, yielding a .273 xwOBA, while his sinker was crushed to the tune of a .405 xwOBA. That figure on his slider was his lowest in years, despite his sinker's waning effectiveness.
That's because Corbin finally added a cutter to his arsenal, which served him far better against right-handed hitters than his sinker has in recent seasons. Because of the pitch's similar movement profile to his slider, it also made it harder for hitters to pick up on. His cutter generated a .327 xwOBA in 2024, which is better than any expected weighted on-base average his sinker has ever produced in a single season.
If a team can finally ween Corbin off his usually-awful sinker and convince him to lean into a cutter-slider mentality, he may finally be able to reclaim his old form. And, at worst, that two-pitch mix could key him for a useful role as a southpaw out of the bullpen.
Either way, Corbin is too talented to end his career off on the sour note he did in Washington D.C. A team that gives him a chance and attacks his weaknesses with a purpose could find a diamond in the rough for the 2025 season.