{"id":613323,"date":"2026-03-08T13:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613323\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:26:27","slug":"logan-gilberts-cutter-might-survive-spring-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613323\/","title":{"rendered":"Logan Gilbert\u2019s cutter might survive spring training"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started out as a joke: while Cal Raleigh is away, his pitchers will play. Cal\u2019s clubhouse chair wasn\u2019t even cold before Logan Gilbert made a start where he was throwing his cutter and sinker, two pitches his opinionated catcher does not like him to throw, as revealed in this in-depth analysis by Zach Mason<\/a>. But three outings into spring training, it\u2019s looking like the cutter might survive spring training for the first time since 2024.<\/p>\n

Gilbert said he felt a little \u201coff\u201d timing-wise in his start on Saturday, leading to him spraying his fastball some and missing arm-side, so he and Garver made the adjustment to go to the cutter, which moves more glove-side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually proved that there could be a little more value in the cutter than we thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s outing Gilbert threw seven cutters out of 54 pitches, primarily to Chicago\u2019s lefty hitters. Of those seven pitches, he got four swings: a foul in a 1-0 count that set up a strikeout, a weak-contact groundout, a foul in a 3-0 count that set up a groundout on the slider and a foul in a 2-0 count that set up a groundout on the curveball,. He also threw the pitch for a ball, in a four-pitch walk after he\u2019d hit a batter, and got two called strikes on the pitch, one in a three-pitch sequence that went cutter-slider-splitter for a weak-contact flyout. On a day when Gilbert was \u201cspraying the ball around\u201d more than he wanted to, the cutter was a steadying force on the rest of his arsenal.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the groundout he got on the cutter, which came in a 2-1 count. You can see him shake Garver a couple of times before he gets to the pitch he wants.<\/p>\n

Gilbert attributes the improvement in his cutter to the mechanical work he did this off-season cleaning up some things with his delivery, such as being attentive to a tendency to \u201ccheat\u201d on his front leg and swing open. Opening his hips early then brought his chest with it, causing his arm to fall into a slower slot.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that I\u2019m staying closed and a little more firm on my front side, I can get over it a little better,\u201d Gilbert said, noting that in order for the cutter to be successful, he needs to make sure not to get \u201caround\u201d the pitch, which can cause the cutter to have more slider-like movement. But with his improved mechanics, he is able to be more consistent with the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m in a better slot for it. That\u2019s how I started in \u201824. I\u2019m always north-south and if my fastball is true, my cutter does have glove-side movement. At the end of \u201824 and especially in \u201825 I was a little lower than I like to be, so my fastball was running a little bit. So my cutter actually didn\u2019t really cut glove side, it almost got back to straight, which you don\u2019t really want. So now that I\u2019m a little more true on my fastball, I feel like the cutter plays off it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilbert\u2014perhaps fearing the wrath of his catcher\u2014is careful to say that he\u2019s not working on the cutter at the expense of his other pitches, and he focused hard this off-season on getting better with his slider and curveball. He says former Mariners manager Scott Servais told him that the cutter is best as an 8-10% usage pitch, but says in 2024 there were times where he used it more heavily, maybe double that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s the goal or the role for it but like we saw today, it can get me out of a couple 2-0, 3-1 counts. I don\u2019t want to oversell it\u2014it\u2019s definitely still like a third option\u2014but there\u2019s definitely a way to use it that can help get me out of some of those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

So will the cutter make it out of spring training this year? Gilbert wouldn\u2019t commit to a firm answer, even without the shadow of his catcher looming, but he didn\u2019t outright shoot down the idea, especially after it bailed him out of some jams today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a time and a place for it,\u201d he allowed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started out as a joke: while Cal Raleigh is away, his pitchers will play. Cal\u2019s clubhouse chair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,54376],"class_list":["post-613323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-seattle-mariners-analysis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116193786968428117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}