Deep data dive shows why Cardinals believe Gray, Gibson and Lynn improve their pitching

Lance Lynn pitched the majority of the 2015 season with a known torn ligament in his right elbow that would eventually require Tommy John surgery.

With Adam Wainwright already out for the year with a torn Achilles tendon, Lynn deduced that his ability at diminished capacity would still be more valuable for the Cardinals than whoever they could dig into the depth chart to find as a replacement.

And so, that season, he threw 2,566 variations on a fastball and only 384 breaking balls. The fastballs didn’t hurt – for his team, they helped – and from there, Lynn embarked on a career where he became known as a pitcher who had a fastball for every occasion.

His reunion with the Cardinals, along with new and former teammates Kyle Gibson and Sonny Gray, carries with it a strong indication of an organizational philosophy that, in fact, cuts against Lynn’s previously best known work. The trio represent well-seasoned veterans who know how to carry the mail, but they’re also an indication of how the Cardinals plan to operate in MLB’s modern pitching environment.

The ball is going to move. It’s going to cut. If you believed the sweeper revolution was merely a passing fad, then it’s time to pull on your parachute pants and power up your Tamagotchi, because fad season has arrived in St. Louis.

The arrival of the three veterans came in the wake of the non-tender deadline, which saw Dakota Hudson and Jake Woodford not offered contracts in the (non-seam shifted) wake of their poor 2023 seasons. A glimpse at their pitch data, as recorded by Baseball Savant, identifies more of the rationale for their being let go than simply sits on the backs of their respective baseball cards.

Hudson did crank up a slider approximately 8% more frequently in 2023 than in 2022, and while it did generate better results than his frequently crushed sinker, it generated only a 39.1% whiff rate and hitters posted a .426 slugging percentage against the pitch.

Compare that, for instance, to Gibson’s sweeper, a slider thrown with a broader movement profile than the tight breaks which are now more designed to mirror cutters. Gibson’s pitch had a 46.7% whiff rate and allowed a .228 slugging percentage. He deployed it approximately half as often as Hudson did his slider, but with exceedingly superior results. With more deployment comes less deception, but it’s not difficult to see where the Cardinals believe they can find an improvement.

Woodford, like Hudson, throws a sinker as his primary fastball, and his work over the last two seasons with the Cardinals to improve his own sweeper has been well documented. It has also, largely, been for naught. He secured only an 18.6% whiff rate with the pitch, and its slugging percentage allowed was .448. Those are better numbers than the sinker, but still far below an acceptable standard.

Despite his struggles with his cutter, especially to lefties, Lynn turned to his two primary breaking pitches approximately 13% of the time in 2023. He throws a more traditional tight slider as well as a curve, though the curve is rarely featured against lefties. Both breaking balls had whiff rates in excess of 30 percent.

Neither was particularly good at limiting slug, but none of Lynn’s pitches were good at that last season. He did feature his lowest batting average allowed with his curve, and his slider’s actual slugging percentage exceeded its actual slugging percentage by more than 150 points, suggesting a decent amount of bad batted ball luck.

Gray, who sat at a table at Busch Stadium on Monday discussing his forearm supination and demonstrating changeup grips, simply wiped hitters out with his sweeper – 41.3% whiff, .118 slugging percentage. The pitch wasn’t unhittable, but it was unhittable for damage, and he threw it roughly one pitch in five.

Drowning in data is one way to lose the forest for the trees, but in this case, it’s also a useful way to separate signal from noise.

The proliferation of radar technology throughout baseball in the last 10 years and the ubiquity of indecipherable numbers and percentages can leave both casual fans and trained observers alike with a suspicion that every new set of numbers exists only to justify someone’s job. Perhaps, some believe, it’s better to simply allow pitchers to practice their craft.

Gibson, Gray and Lynn represent a parcel of veterans who certainly understand that perspective, but the data also demonstrates the precise area where the Cardinals sought improvements. Very simply – the pitchers they had last season threw bad breaking balls and didn’t strike anyone out, and so they committed a hundred million dollars to three pitchers who do strike out opponents and throw good breaking balls.

Complicated data describes simple solutions. Having now addressed one of the largest cracks in their pitching foundation and filled in the necessary cement of innings, the club can spend the two and a half months before the start of spring training hanging up the necessary decorations to make the place shine.