It’s just random. I was wondering which pitchers use sliders more often during the game this season. At the same time, I was also thinking whether their sliders are effective. So I went to the statcast website and did a quick search.
Minnesota Twins pitcher Matt Wisler heavily relies on his slider. When he’s on the mound, more than 80% of the time, he throws a slider. San Diego Padres pitcher Dinelson Lamet also frequently uses his slider, more than 50% of pitches. 3-time Cy Young Winner Clayton Kershaw and 2-time Cy Young Winner Jacob deGrom both throw a lot of sliders as well.
Most of these pitchers’ sliders are quite effective. Batters cannot hit their sliders well. Among these 10 pitchers, 6 pitchers have a BAA below .200. 9 of them have a BAA below .250. Brady Singer made it to the big league this season. Batting average against Singer’s slider is .280.
Looking closer at xwOBA, among these 3 pitchers, Kenta Maeda, Garret Richards and Brady Singer, each has a xwOBA over .300. Batters probably don't have much to do when Wisler, Lamet or Sheffield throws a slider, xwOBA against their sliders? Below .250. Particularly, xwOBA against Lamet’s slider is only .207.
Most of these pitchers increase their slider usage this season. The only exception is Carlos Carrasco, his slider usage drops from 34.1% to 30.8%. Matt Wisler did throw a lot of sliders last season. This season, he relies even more on his slider, his slider usage nearly rises 10%. After coming back from Tommy John surgery, Dinelson Lamet didn’t throw many sliders in the 14 starts last season, only 12% of pitches were sliders. This season, he throws sliders more than any other pitches. He’s also the pitcher who throws most sliders in the majors so far.
We should not be surprised. Batters basically have a really hard time against these pitchers’ sliders this season as we can see that batting average against these nasty sliders drops. Justus Sheffield’ only pitched 8 games last season, his slider did not really work. Batters hit .302 against his slider last season. This season, his slider has become very effective. Batters only hit .157 against his slider. Do batters hit better against Maeda’s slider or deGrom’s slider? Well, batting average against Maeda’s slider reaches just .200. Meanwhile, batting average against deGrom’s slider is above .200 so far this season. However, their sliders are still effective.
It’s worth watching that among these 9 pitchers who did pitch last season, 5 of them see a rise in xwOBA against their sliders. xwOBA against Maeda’s slider reaches to .309 from .218. xwOBA against last year’s Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom increases from .232 to .279. The quality of contact against their sliders is going up, thus, it will be definitely interesting to see whether these pitchers’ sliders would be still very effective in the final month of this season or even in the playoff.
The slider is one of the most popular pitches in the history of baseball. Some pitchers use sliders to create swings and misses. Some pitchers’ sliders are able to generate a lot of weak contacts. This September, it would be worthwhile to watch if these pitchers will keep throwing nasty sliders or if they will change their pitch mixes.
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