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It looked like one or both of those things might happen again in the first inning on Sunday, when Misiorowski worked deep into the count and walked the first two batters. In that inning, however, he did something he\u2019s struggled with all year: He got back-to-back ground balls and induced a double play to get out of the jam. It\u2019s not unreasonable to say that his entire outing may have hinged on that moment. The Pirates had him on the ropes with a high pitch count in the first inning, but he went on to match a professional high by pitching seven innings in a 10-2 Brewers win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWork down in the strike zone to get ground balls\u201d is an outdated and perhaps oversimplified approach to pitching, but there is a fair amount of truth to it. As such, when looking at the heat map for Misiorowski\u2019s four seam fastball (via Baseball Savant<\/a>) it\u2019s not a great surprise that he\u2019s in the bottom quarter of MLB pitchers in ground ball rate:<\/p>\n Misiorowski uses his elite velocity and arm extension to attack hitters up in the zone and he\u2019s very good at getting them to swing and miss there. His arsenal, however, is not conducive to getting weak contact when he needs it, something that would allow him to induce ground balls with runners on base or \u201cescape\u201d with one pitch when he\u2019s behind in the count.<\/p>\n Get a Sinker?<\/p>\n Syracuse student James Young<\/a>, however, has a suggestion. Young recently presented at Saberseminar<\/a>, an annual event focused on new baseball research, to unveil his work on a system<\/a> to project what additions to a pitcher\u2019s arsenal might look like based on their existing attributes such as arm angle, extension and spin rate.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m able to compare across other pitchers in a model I ran, and it projected a pitcher\u2019s velocity, spin, horizontal and vertical break for a given pitch type based on those baseline characteristics,\u201d Young said in an interview two weeks ago.<\/p>\n Young\u2019s model suggests that Misiorowski would be a strong candidate to add a sinker to his repertoire. The estimates suggest he would be able to throw the pitch at about 97 mph, sacrificing some of his extreme velocity to get more downward movement, but that the pitch would have about 12 inches of \u201carmside run\u201d (horizontal movement) and about eight inches of perceived vertical break.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he can give himself a sinker, it gives him the ability to raise his ceiling. He gets hit really hard when he does get hit, but instead of turning him into a risk-reward profile where he\u2019s great when he doesn\u2019t get hit but when he does it\u2019s an issue, if we can get some of that quality of contact on the ground the Brewers have stellar infield defense and it would certainly make things easier and allow him to grow as a prospect,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n Certainly, there\u2019s more to adding a pitch than simply deciding to do so. The Brewers have had tremendous success with their oft-discussed \u201cpitch lab\u201d in reworking pitchers\u2019 arsenals to help them find new opportunities to perform at a higher level, but even their processes require significant time for a pitcher to develop comfort, command and repeatability with a new offering. With that said, the offseason is looming and it\u2019s possible that spending some of that time developing a sinker could help Misiorowski further unlock his star potential.<\/p>\n
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