Thoughts on the John Schreiber trade: Schreiber’s ’23 struggles vs. LHBs, drop in stuff, David Sandlin
John Schreiber
This trade makes a lot of sense. The Red Sox bullpen had overloaded depth and some big-league-level arms will probably see time at Triple-A this season for the reason of pure depth. One might be quick to point out they just signed Liam Hendriks, but he won’t see time until late in 2024 by the earliest and that’s a bullpen-upgrader more than anything if he can get his 2022 level of stuff back.
As for Schreiber though, the righty took a step back after a career-reviving 2022 season out of the bullpen. Schreiber spent some time on the 60-day injured list with a shoulder injury during the year, and it seemed to have really affected him — he finished with just a 3.86 ERA . It’s easy to point out his BB/9 going from 2.22 in 2022 to 4.82 in 2023 and pair that with the inability to get lefties out and call it a day, but digging deeper, you’ll find some clear declines in certain categories that led to his struggles. And, by no means was it even that bad of a year — there are plenty of major-league bullpens that would take a 3.86 ERA every day of the week, but one would imagine Kansas City wants the ’22 version of Schreiber this year.
An interesting note is Schreiber had the exact same usage rates from year to year (across ‘22-’23) — down to the exact percentages with each pitch. But the fastball and sweeper were no longer able to miss bats at nearly the same rate due to the dropoff in stuff, and simultaneously, Schreiber’s command/results of the sinker suffered drastically.
The velocity was the first thing that stood out — his fastball went from 94.5 mph in ‘22 to 93.2 in ‘23 while the VAA also suffered (-3.5° to -3.8°), and his sweeper averaged 82.1 mph in ’22 but fell to just 80.9 in ’23. The SwStr% on both pitches, as a result, saw massive dropoffs — the fastball saw a dominant clip of of 17.8% (22% against RHBs) in ’22 but it fell to just 12.7%, and his sweeper’s SwStr% dropped from 17.1% to 9.4% in that time frame. The sweeper actually held better batted-ball data in ’23 than it did in ’22 at it’s 13–15" of sweep, but the ’22 version of the sweeper performed much better overall (wOBA-wise) with its ability to miss bats.
Schreiber as a whole was good against lefties in ’22 (.300 wOBA) but struggled poorly against them in ’23 (.419 wOBA), which was the main contributor to his down year. That’s compared to his mark of a .233 wOBA in ’22 and .265 in ’23 against RHBs, a noticeable but not drastic difference. Schreiber actually still managed to get decent results whiff-wise with the fastball against RHBs (15.5 SwStr%).
And in ’22, Schreiber’s sinker picked up ground balls at an elite clip of 80% on top of an impressive wOBAcon (.242), and that number dipped to just 56% in ’23 while the wOBAcon skyrocketed to .445; barrel rate on the sinker also went from 1.6% to 12.2% over that year-to-year span.
Schreiber is mainly sweeper/sinker while the fastball is used 20% of the time against righties; vs. lefties he’s fastball/sweeper with a 10% usage of the sinker, also mixing in the high-80s changeup against lefties at almost a 20% clip. Those usage rates stayed pretty much the same year-to-year as mentioned, even when considering handedness, and Schreiber was still dominant as mentioned against righties despite his flaws — but the season struggles stemmed drastically from facing left-handed bats.
In a Driveline video posted in the fall, Schreiber was seen working on a new cutter, in the video they say, “We’re going to call it a cutter, but for you it’s really just finding something gyro in the middle to compliment the rest of the arsenal.” The first throw he made was an 80-mph pitch with a bit of depth that’s not exactly a cutter, but the second throw in the video he hit 87.7 with 13" of ride and just 1" of horizontal movement — that would be a fantastic pitch for him to throw, which I’m assuming would be against lefties. If Schreiber can get his stuff back it’s likely that he can get back to where he was in 2022 in a high-leverage bullpen role for the Royals.
David Sandlin
It’s not hard to pick out what sparked the Red Sox’s interest in Sandlin, as he’s Boston’s return in the 1-for-1 deal with the Royals. The 22-year-old right-handed starter had a dominant showing in 12 starts at Low-A this season, notching a 12.1 K/9 as well as a 1.99 BB/9, giving him a 3.38 ERA for Kansas City’s affiliate.
Sandlin gets very poor extension despite being 6-foot-4, but sits 94–96 with riding life at an above-6 release height. He threw it over half of the time last year which will probably decrease as he rises through the minors due to his secondaries being overall better offerings, but he limited hard contact and commanded the pitch well last season. His slider sits mid-80s and gets some sweep while missing bats well, and the splitter (86–90, kills spin well) picked up good rates of chases and whiffs. He also mixes in a curveball in the high-70s with sparing usage.
Sandlin hit 100 mph in a video posted this winter, which he only topped out at 98 in-game this season. He projects as a future big-league starter but he was a 2022 draft pick, which means even with mature stuff he has plenty of time before he will reach the majors (probably 2026, maybe later 2025 if he can rise quickly). He also picked up a pair of starts in High-A to end his 2023 season, where he’ll likely begin the 2024 calendar year. He comes in at №13 on SoxProspects’ Top-60, but personally he’s probably in my top-10 with the combination of solid raw stuff and great results so far.
