After watching a few Mets games where Adam Ottavino made a late inning appearance, I’ve really been impressed by his ability to utilize the elite movement on his sinker to the glove side to combat both RH and LH batters. So far in 2023, Ottavino’s sinker is averaging 93 mph with 26.3 inches of vertical break and 18 inches of horizontal movement.
Due to this movement profile, starting his sinker in the left-handed batters box makes right-handed hitters give up on it out of the hand, and it locks left-handers up because it looks like it’s headed straight for their front hip out of the hand. Lets take a look at a couple of videos to further illustrate this point:
Year | Velocity | V-Break | H-Break |
2023 | 93.0 mph | 26.3 in | 18.0 in |
2022 | 94.2 mph | 24.7 in | 16.4 in |
Ottavino did not fare well in 2022 against left-handed batters who posted a .301/.358/.480 slash line with 2 HR’s against him over 81 plate appearances. Out of the 344 sinkers Ottavino threw in 2022 though, only 33 of them were to left-handed batters. Even though he’s only thrown 40 sinkers as of this writing, 17 of those have been to left-handed batters and I have a hunch his usage of the pitch will follow that upward trend given how well it tunnels with his slider, but also because the unique movement profile isn’t as vulnerable to lefties as most RHP sinkers are.
Here are another two examples of the effectiveness of Ottavino’s 80-movement sinker when he’s working to the glove side against both right-handed and left-handed batters. The first one locks up Trent Grisham and comes all the way back to the heart of the plate for a called strike, while the second is painted on the outside corner to RHH Luis Campusano to get a called strike on a 2-0 count.
With the evolution of Ottavino’s sinker to show more effectiveness against left-handed hitters, he’s the relief pitcher in the Mets bullpen I think is most likely to step up and meet the moment of handling the highest leverage situations in the absence of Edwin Diaz from the back of their bullpen.