Pitch Movement Synergy Notes - New York Yankees

Can Gerrit Cole get even better with this one weird trick?

I’m going to go through all 30 starting rotations, sorted by fewest runs allowed, within the lens of pitch movement synergy. Please read that article first, as these notes assume the reader has the context from that article.

Let’s dig into the Yankees, starting with Gerrit Cole.

Gerrit Cole

Cole generates very poor decisions on both his fastball and slider, due to the combination of tremendous velocity (less time for the batter to react) as well as near-perfect horizontal synergy.

It looks like Cole might have room to improve his fastball/slider pair if he aimed the fastball a little higher, or aimed the slider a little lower (or some combination of the two). The horizontal synergy is near perfect, so if he can fix the vertical synergy, he might unlock a bit more performance.

Cole’s fastball/changeup pair has great synergy, but hitters are picking it up. My assumption would be that he’s tipping his changeup. If he were to fix that, he could have another major weapon.

Gerrit Cole has tremendous raw stuff, as measured by his top line performance, and advanced metrics such as Eno Sarris’ Stuff+. He has succeeded, but hasn’t put up a dominant sub 3.00 ERA season for two straight years. It’s possible that a slight synergy tweak for the slider on the vertical plane, along with fixing the issue with the changeup, could unlock another level for him.

Carlos Rodón

This is what an elite FF/SL pair looks like, great early synergy, followed by massive late movement differentials.

While there’s some room for improvement on the vertical plane, my opinion is that the relatively good decisions on the slider are more about imperfect command. It’s also possible that hitters are looking slider and reacting fastball, since they have a slightly better chance against the fastball.

Batters are seeing the curve and change quite easily. He doesn’t need to fix them; the fastball/slider pair is all he needs.

Nestor Cortes Jr.

Let’s begin with the changeup, which hitters are picking up quite well.

The FF/CH pair has ideal horizontal synergy, however, it clearly pops out of the hand, making it easy for batters to identify, despite the low usage. The horizontal synergy is a great base, and the vertical synergy may be attainable with a simple tweak, however, this may not be beneficial for Nestor, as his changeup synergizes perfectly with the cutter on the vertical plane:

I don’t know what to make of Nestor Cortes Jr. from a synergy perspective. I think there’s room to tweak here on the vertical plane, for his 3 primary pitches, but I’d also be hesitant to change too much.

I will note that the fastball having a lower vertical path than the offspeed pitches is highly unusual, and perhaps explains a lot of the bad swing decisions he generates, simply from being unusual. All in all, Cortes Jr. is a fascinating case study.

Luis Severino

Luis’ changeup shares a lot in common with Gerrit Cole, specifically, that they have excellent movement synergy, but hitters are using other clues to pick it up. I’m not going to go so far as to say there’s a flaw in the Yankees’ pitching development machine, but there is room for improvement on the changeup.

The slider doesn’t look like it has great synergy, but rated well by my swing decision metric. I’m not entirely sure what to make of Severino within the lens of movement synergy, definitely a pitcher I’ll want to dig into later in the season.

Domingo Germán

Domingo is another interesting case, as he throws his curveball as his primary pitch. His primary secondaries are a very well synergized FF/CH pair. Because of his height, he can’t have a classic 12-6 curveball, and it has a shape that looks more like a slider.

The sample sizes here are rather small, so will warrant a deeper dive once we have more data.

Concluding Thoughts

The Yankees have two pitchers with an elite fastball-slider pair, both from a raw stuff and a movement synergy perspective. I think there’s room for growth with Cole’s and Severino’s sliders from a synergy perspective, and their changeups from a pitch-tipping perspective.

Next up, the New York Baseball Mets!