(Photo: Erik Drost)
By Kyle Showalter
Every year, winter gives way to spring. It represents the dawn of new beginnings, a time filled with a frenzy of excitement, adventure, and endless possibilities. The ice thaws, the birds sing, and baseball begins.
And baseball never arrives empty handed. No, every year the game comes bearing gifts that can be appreciated by all who love it. We are allowed the opportunity to become acquainted with some of the stars of tomorrow. We hear countless tellings of the classic “best shape of his life” story (and maybe a few on the opposite end of the spectrum). We are captivated by incredible hot starts that make us wonder in amazement whether a player has taken a leap or is simply having a Ruthian stretch.
Usually the latter of those is the case. It is not uncommon to see an average player channel his inner Mike Trout for a month long stretch. Every once in a while, these hot starts cease to be just that, a flash in the pan, and instead we see a player take their game to the next level for good. On the mound, the 2018 season saw the emergence of Gerrit Cole and his remarkable K rate, which jumped even higher in 2019 and earned him a second-place finish in the Cy Young Award voting and a $324 million contract in pinstripes. Jack Flaherty was the golden arm of 2019, posting a .91 ERA in the second half of the season, the third lowest by any pitcher since 1920.
Shane Bieber is making his case to be the breakout pitcher in 2020.
Bieber has been electric in his four starts this season, posting a 1.63 ERA in 27.2 IP while striking out 43 batters and only surrendering 5 walks. His strikeout total is the best in the league, as is his number of innings pitched, and his ERA ranks 7th in baseball. These numbers are impressive, but a deep dive into the advanced statistics behind Bieber’s impressive start are enough to knock you out of your seat. Bieber owns a K/BB ratio of 8.6, an ERA- of 38, and a WPA of 1.05, all top 10 marks in the league among pitchers with at least 20 IP. His 1.71 xFIP, 13.99 K/9, and 1.91 SIERA are all the top marks in the league among the same group.
Bieber has improved in virtually every statistical category from his all-star 2019 season that saw him finish 4th in the AL CY Young Award voting. How is he getting it done?
Bieber wields a five-pitch arsenal that primarily features a 4-seam fastball, a curveball, and a cutter while also utilizing a slider almost exclusively when facing right-handed hitters and a changeup used the same way against lefties. A tweak in the usage of these pitches is undeniably fueling his fast start in 2020. For starters, his fastball usage has fallen from 46% in 2019 to just 36% in 2020. Throwing less fastballs has meant a higher dosage of curveballs for opposing hitters, and it has fared Bieber well. Taking a look at the pitch, it isn’t hard to see why:
This pitch, which is among the best individual pitches in baseball, has fueled Bieber’s breakout. According to Statcast’s pitch tracking data, Bieber’s curveball has 7.3 more inches of vertical movement than other curveballs thrown around the same speed. This helps illustrate why the pitch is nearly impossible to square up. Opposing hitters have only been able to manage a paltry .091 average against Bieber’s curveball in 2020. The pitch owns a whiff rate of 57%, and hitters are averaging a -3 launch angle on batted balls against it. When paired with his mid 90’s fastball and pinpoint control, this pitch is enough to give hitters nightmares.
Run prevention is the central goal of pitching. Much as the aim of hitting is to score runs, your job as a pitcher is to stop them from scoring. It is a simple concept, really. However, run prevention wears many faces. There are pitchers that induce weak contact and frustrate hitters with their ability to locate along the edge of the strike zone. Greg Maddux is legendary for his ability to place any of his pitches wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. There are pitchers who rely on movement to get batters out, such as Tampa Bay Rays reliever Chaz Roe, who averages 22.4 inches of horizontal break on his devastating slider. There are the power pitchers that simply try to overpower every hitter they face with incredible stuff and rack up tons of strikeouts. Nolan Ryan, who threw a record seven no-hitters in his career, is the most famous of this bunch.
Shane Bieber has shown that he can strike batters out with the best of them. Since his Major League debut on his 23rd birthday, Bieber has a K/9 of 10.6, tied for the 9th best mark over that span. His already highlighted uptick in curveball usage has seen his K% jump from 30.1% in 2019 to a league leading 42.6% in 2020. The common bug that plagues strikeout artists is a high walk rate, but Bieber has avoided walks exceptionally well in his career. His career BB/9 mark of 1.72 is just as impressive as his K/9. Since Bieber’s debut, the only pitchers that own a K/BB ratio greater than 6 are Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander, and Shane Bieber. That is elite company.
Strikeouts and walks are one way to evaluate how good a pitcher is at preventing runs. Another is to analyze the types and quality of batted balls surrendered. Baseball Savant uses information provided by Statcast to create percentile rankings that help quantify the quality of batted balls pitchers allow. However, analyzing Shane Bieber’s percentile rankings seems to lead to more questions than answers. Despite ranking in the 13th percentile for hard hit rate (meaning his hard hit % places him in the bottom 13% of all qualified pitchers), 28th percentile for barrel %, and 32nd percentile for exit velocity allowed, his expected numbers are remarkably favorable. He ranks in the 53rd percentile for xSLG, 70th percentile for xwOBA and xBA, and the 71st percentile for xERA. Translation: despite giving up hard contact at a well above average rate, he is doing a good job of preventing runs, and the predictive algorithms used by Baseball Savant suggest that it should continue to be this way.
(Photo by Erik Drost)
How is this possible? A deeper look leads to an unsurprising conclusion: luck is on Shane Bieber’s side. This is not to say that Bieber has lucked into an incredible season, it means bad luck has not derailed him. When analyzing the 25 hard hit balls surrendered by Bieber in the 2020 season (Statcast defines a hard hit as a batted ball with an exit velocity of at least 95 MPH), it is found that opposing hitters are slugging an even 1.000 when hitting the ball hard. On batted balls that do not qualify as hard hits, however, opposing hitters are slugging a measley .115. To put it simply, Bieber is not simply succeeding because of batted ball luck like we have seen from pitchers in the past, he is getting punished when he gives up hard contact and rewarded when he induces weak contact.
So what does this all mean in the matter of predicting Bieber’s long term success? It’s hard to tell. Bieber has been able to offset his massive hard hit rate by simply striking out a ton of batters and refusing to walk anyone. In order for Bieber to sustain a level of production similar to what he has done in 2020 so far, he would either need to continue striking out over a third of the batters he faces while preventing walks, or he’ll need to decrease the frequency in which he gives up hard contact. Luckily for Bieber, the latter seems more likely. His hard hit rate has spiked 5% this season, and while a 43% hard hit rate still ranks well below average, Bieber has shown that he can lean on his ability to strike batters out enough to offset the potential damage. If he can do this while sustaining his strikeout and walk numbers, perennial Cy Young Award contention is in his future.
In one 60 game season, anything can happen. The Miami Marlins currently lead the NL East. Charlie Blackmon is hitting .500 more than a quarter of the way through the season. The Cardinals have still only played 5 games all year. By the end of this season, it shouldn’t surprise you if Shane Bieber has inserted himself into the conversation for the best pitcher in the world. He’s already began.
All statistics provided courtesy of Fangraphs unless otherwise stated
Credit: Jason Nicols contributed research for this article
