I’m going to look at some relievers that are on postseason teams who have what I’d call an 80-grade offering in their pitch mix. This is by no means a comprehensive list and I decided to only include relievers this time around.
An ’80-grade’ offering in my eyes is a pitch that is undoubtedly one of the best of its kind in baseball today. An 80 is a pitch that the hitter can be sitting on and know is coming and the offering is still able to generate whiffs. There’s obviously not an overwhelming amount of 80-grade pitches in baseball, but they have a tendency to jump out at you when you see them, especially in-person looks.
Here are the five relievers I’m going to look at in no particular order:
Emmanuel Clase (Cleveland) (Cutter)
I actually saw a lot of Clase in my 2019 pro coverage when he was pitching for Texas’ AA club. He had his current velocity back then, but has shored up his control/command significantly, which has only made the pitch more of a weapon for him.
In 2021 his cutter averaged 100.2 mph, and 99.5 mph is what it averaged this season. It’s truly mind-boggling that Clase maintains such elite velocity on a pitch that also has so much movement. In 2022, he’s thrown the cutter 59.7% of the time, which is down from 69.2% in 2021. Clase posted a 29.7% whiff % with the pitch in 2021, along with a 22.5% in 2022. Although the whiff % has decreased, the overall effectiveness of the pitch certainly has not.
Hitters in 2022 posted a measly .212 wOBA against the pitch along with an 84.9 average exit velocity. Both of those are improvements from 2021, when batters posted a .255 wOBA and 86.8 average exit velocity. As all 80-grade offerings, Clase’s cutter eats up both LH and RH batters and has very late teeth to it. Below are two examples of him doing just that. The video on the left is the cutter missing a LH bat and the video on the right is a swing and miss from a RH hitter. Neither hitter stood a chance:
Jordan Romano (Toronto) (Slider):
Romano has been nails now for three years in Toronto’s bullpen, the last two as their primary closer. Much of that success stems from how good and effective his slider is. Romano is by no means a one trick pony, with his four-seamer also being an electric pitch, but it’s his slider that especially stands out to me.
In 2022, Romano threw his slider 51.8% of the time with an average of 87.3 mph. It’s not an offering that has a high spin rate (2082) but don’t think Romano’s slider lacks sharpness or bite, because it certainly does. The offering has two-plane break with significant depth and the aforementioned bite occurs very late, which results in a swing and miss 34% of the time.
Romano has some feel for landing the breaking ball in the zone, but is also extremely effective at expanding the zone with it and getting batters to expand their zone. Romano’s slider is an elite weapon for him and a main driver in success as a closer.
The video on the left is a Romano slider making an elite contact hitter, Nick Madrigal look silly, and then one against a left-handed hitter who doesn’t fare any better.
Trevor Stephan (Cleveland) (Splitter)
Stephan was kind of a new name to me when he came on the scene in 2021 and tossed 63.1 frames for the Guardians. His split is an elite pitch for me and he throws it 28% of the time. He carried a 54% whiff rate this year with the offering, which is safe to say speaks volumes about how tough of a pitch it is to hit.
Stephan’s splitter averages 87.9 mph and the bottom drops out of the pitch incredibly late. He only throws the pitch in the zone at a 29.5% clip, but due to how late the action is on the pitch and how much it looks like a fastball throughout its path, hitters can’t help but believe their lying eyes. There are times when Stephan gets significantly less depth than usual, but maintains the late action so even when the movement is subtle it’s effective.
It’s a pitch that dominates both LH and RH batters and it’s not hard to see why:
Tommy Kahnle (Dodgers) (Changeup)
It’s such a good sight to see Kahnle bounce back after missing nearly all of 2020 and the entire 2021 season after Tommy John surgery. Kahnle is on this list for his bread and butter offering, a changeup. It’s an offering that tends to have more subtle movement, but due to how late that movement occurs and how exceptional he is at selling the offering, it’s a top-shelf pitch.
Kahnle’s changeup has averaged 89.8 mph in his abbreviated 2022, which obviously doesn’t have a large velocity separation with his fastball at 95.5 mph. I don’t think there’s anyone in baseball who sells a changeup as well as Kahnle does. He’s throwing the pitch 76.4% (!!) of the time but continues to get one ugly swing after another with it, and a lot of that has to do with the deception he creates when throwing it.
Kahnle’s changeup features late depth along with fading action that consistently slips under LH and RH bats and has a 36% swing and miss rate in 2022. It’s also worth noting that his last full season (2019) he threw 523 changeups and a 49% swing and miss rate. Kahnle has plus feel for the cambio and ever since he’s been throwing this power changeup, it’s been one of my favorite pitches in the league.
Ryan Helsley (St. Louis) (Four-Seam FB and Slider)
Helsley is another arm I’ve seen several times in-person, having the whole Cardinals organization in my pro coverage in 2019 when he was a starter in AAA. He’s a name I actually put a future 60 on as a starter and although my starter projection didn’t happen, it was obvious Helsley had electric stuff. I’m putting him on this list for both his four-seamer and slider.
Helsley’s averaged 99.6 mph on his heater during the 2022 regular season and batters posted a minuscule .212 wOBA against the offering. Helsley throws from a high slot and generates plus backspin on the pitch, giving it even more fuzz than what the radar indicates. He averaged a 2643 rpm spin rate on the four-seamer and also has solid extension out front, all of which contribute to the effectiveness of the pitch.
His fastball is in a league of its own and routinely bullies some of the league’s top hitters in the zone. Here’s an example of him doing that against Aaron Judge:
Helsley’s command isn’t pinpoint or plus, but he has more than enough control of the offering which is all he needs with the traits that make up his four-seamer. Here are two more examples that further illustrate the dominance of this pitch:
Hesley’s slider also makes my 80-grade pitch list. He threw the slider 32.1% of the time in the 2022 regular season with an average velocity of 89.1 mph. It’s generated an impressive 53.5% swing and miss rate and opposing hitters have posted a .209 wOBA against it.
There’s no doubt that some of the sliders effectiveness comes from him having a 100+ mph heater that batters have to cover too. The pitch has two-plane, downer shape with top-shelf bite to it and paired with his four-seam give hitters nearly an impossible combination to handle.
He lands the offering in the zone right under 50% of the time, and induced hitters to chase 41.3% of the time it wasn’t in the zone. Here are two videos of the slider to showcase just how unfair of a pitch it is, especially when you know it’s not even the headliner of his pitch-mix.