Garrett Richards interests me. He has great velocity and elite spin rate, but a terrible injury history (has not thrown 80+ innings since 2015) and somewhat mediocre results to show for his 51 innings pitched last season. I've been trying to get my head around what he can bring, if healthy.
In 2015, he had an xERA of 3.64 and xwOBA against of .304, then in 2020 he had an xERA and xwOBA of 4.55 and .315 respectively. He was striking out batters at a similar rate (20.3% in 2015, 21.6% in 2020) and walking a similar number (8.8% in 2015, 8.0% in 2020). In fact, 2020 saw minor improvements in both. Regardless, his numbers were worse because he gave up more line drives and less ground balls.
I noticed a few things:
- In 2015, he had a cutter classified among his pitches, which seems to be his 4-seamer with a little more movement. It is not clear if he intentionally threw it as a separate pitch, or if it was a pitch classification thing that divided his 4-seamers into two buckets
- In 2020, he has noticeably less movement on his 4-seamer and no longer has any pitches being classified as a cutter.
- He throws middle-middle probably a bit too much
- He used to be a ground ball pitcher, but that has drastically changed between 2015 and 2020
1.
2015: The 4-Seamer and Cutter
In 2015, he had a lot more horizontal movement on his 4-seam pitches, one classified as a 4-seam fastball, the other a cutter. It's not clear if the cutter was truly a separate pitch or just his 4-seam fastballs that had a bit extra movement on them. (The movement values are the Statcast values, which include gravity.)
Year |
Pitch |
MPH |
Spin |
Vert.Movement |
Horz.Movement |
2015 |
4-Seam Fastball |
96.4 mph |
2507 |
17.6" |
2.2" |
2015 |
Cutter |
95.7 mph |
2437 |
19.5" |
2.8" |
2.
2020 4-Seamer- Less Horizontal Movement
As of 2020, he has more spin than ever on his 4-seam fastball, but the horizontal movement has drastically decreased versus 2015 (around 1.9" to 2.5" less). He still threw hard, but his velocity was down about a mph. Batters missed his 4-seamer less than 2015 (15% whiff rate in 2020, versus a 19.3% whiff rate on his 2015 4-seamer and 17.6% whiff rate on his 2015 cutter), and they got better results as shown by the xwOBA (.351 in 2020, .321 in 2015 on the 4-seam fastball, and .324 in 2015 on the cutter).
Year |
Pitch |
MPH |
Spin |
Vert.Movement |
Horz.Movement |
2020 |
4-Seam Fastball |
95.1 mph |
2626 |
19.5" |
0.3" |
3.
Middle-Middle
He seems to throw in the zone slightly more than league average and on the edge slightly less than league average. He is throwing middle-middle more often than average with a meatball % of 8.6%. He was similar in 2015, but hitters swung less often at them back then. Perhaps his increased movement in 2015 made it harder to pick up on the middle-middle pitches, but now with the loss of horizontal movement, they can pick it up. If he throws about 100 pitches in a start, there would be 6.5 times that a batter swings at a meatball based on his 2020 rates. Plenty of chances for mistakes to occur. It would be nice if he could find a way to live less in the zone and work the edges better, even if it features an increase to his walk rate (easier said than done).
Year |
Zone% |
Edge% |
Meatball% |
Meatball Swing % |
2015 |
49.1% |
41.4% |
8.1% |
65.2% |
2020 |
49.5% |
41.8% |
8.6% |
75.0% |
MLB Ave. |
48.4% |
42.6% |
7.2% |
75.1% |
4.
Ground Ball / Fly Ball / Line Drive Rates
Back in 2015, his ground ball rate was about 15% higher. Unfortunately, many of those ground balls are now line drives (10% more line drives). He went from giving up a solid 5.1% barrels in 2015 (below league average of 6.4%) to allowing 8.8% barrels in 2020.
Year |
GB% |
FB% |
LD% |
2015 |
56.4% |
15.1% |
21.9% |
2020 |
41.2% |
20.3% |
31.8% |
MLB Ave. |
45.3% |
22.0% |
25.7% |
Summary / TLDR:
Outside of his health issues, his loss of horizontal movement on his 4-seamer, plus a high percentage of middle-middle pitches, seems to have led to an increased barrel % (and lowered ground ball %). Maybe he'll finally get a healthy year and have a chance to find some consistency, but it seems like his high velocity and elite spin rate are more likely to simply be a tease than something that unlocks a huge year. I hope he puts it together, but the odds seem a little long based on the past 5 years.