Junkballers

Two of my favorite MLB players this year are Tyler Rogers and Cesar Valdes. Both are junkball pitchers who are succeeding because of their own unique weirdness.

Rogers, of course, is the SF Giants’ submarining knuckle-scraper, who gets movement on pitches that move in unusual directions, because there are currently very few submariners in today’s game. Darren O’Day was the only other one I could find on a cursory search. However, O’Day’s submarine is quite a different angle from Rogers’ how-low-can-go.

Both Rogers and Valdez throw strikes and keep the ball down. Those are two qualities the pure junkballer needs.

I recent read an excellent blogpost on Cesar Valdez and the Dead Fish. Valdez in 2020 threw his change-up 80%+ of the time. His changeup has the steapest downward break in MLB. It is 78 MPH, which he mixes with an 86 mph sinker. The blogpost includes excellent footage of Valdez’s dropping changeup.

Pitchers like Rogers and Valdez are born to be relievers at the major league level. The less other teams’ hitters see them pitch, the better — relievers can get by on one really great pitch and/or mixing it up.

Rogers has, pending today’s game stats, a 2.58 career ERA in 59 career games and a pitching line of 59.1 IP, 50 hits, 3 HR, 12 BB and 51K. He has a 5-3 record and, although he gave up an earned run today, he picked up his 5th career save. He’s essentially the Giants 8th-inning-lead man, setting up Jake McGee.

These guys don’t get much respect. Rogers came up as a 28-year old rookie in 2019, about a year later than his performance at AAA merited.

In fairness, Cesar Valdez didn’t really put it together until years spent pitching in the Mexican League and the Dominican Winter League, where he showed year over year that he’d figured something out. It’s a long way from the Mexican League to MLB, and Valdez was 35 when the Orioles took a shot on him in 2020.

Since the start of the much-shortened 2020 season, Valdez has pitched 23.2 IP across 17 appearances in which he’s picked up seven saves and, at this moment, is the O’s closer for as long as he can continue to be effective.

So far, so good. He’s got an ERA over this period of 1.14 and a run average of 1.90. He has allowed 14 hits, 0 HR (!), 4 BB and 22K. That’s why he’s now the O’s closer.

Because Valdez is now 36, I don’t see him being the next Trevor Hoffman, who also made his living off his changeup. Still, it’s going to fun to watch Valdez for as long as he can continue to flummox hitters geared up to hit the 95 mph heater.

Rogers still has a chance to be the next Brad Ziegler. Like Rogers, Ziegler came up in his age 28 season. Ziegler pitched 11 seasons, recorded 105 saves, and finished with a 2.75 career ERA.

Needless to say, Brad Ziegler is Rogers’ best career arc, at least based on the data now before us. Here’s video of Ziegler pitching. He looks more like Darren O’Day than Tyler Rogers. Rogers looks even lower than Dan Quisenberry.

Explore posts in the same categories: Baltimore Orioles, San Francisco Giants