Caleb Ferguson’s Breakout
I generally prescribe myself to the Eno Sarris school of thought that stuff reigns supreme in today’s baseball climate, and when looking at Caleb Ferguson, it’s hard not to feel like his stuff is being underlooked by the vast majority of the baseball world. Now, when I say stuff I don’t just mean velocity, but a combination of pitch characteristics that lead to ideal outcomes (i.e. swing and misses). Caleb Ferguson already had well above-average stuff, that much is clear, but he might’ve shown Dodger fans that he’s ready to take the next step by showing off a brand new slider and a more efficient lower body.
Ferguson’s Stuff
Before introducing that new dastardly slider, it’s beneficial to take a look at Ferguson’s 2019 arsenal that included only his fastball (FB) and his curveball (CB). Among left-handed pitchers (LHP), I would characterize the following as having above-average carry (greater than 9 inches of z movement or Pfx_z) and above-average velocity (let’s say 94+): Aroldis Chapman, Genesis Cabrera, Cionel Perez, Josh Hader, Justin Wilson, Blake Snell, Sean Newcomb, Julio Urias, Caleb Ferguson, and A.J. Minter. Quite an interesting list. You have three superstars, a budding star in Urias, and then some lesser know relievers. There were 117 qualified LHP in 2019, so in my opinion, it’s safe to say these guys are in about the 90th percentile in terms of FB characteristics — remember, I’m not taking command/control into the equation here, but only looking at movement characteristics and velocity.
Here’s a visual representation of how Ferguson’s FB plays in the zone:
It’s almost shocking to see him generate that kind of velocity consider some of the lower body inefficiencies that he dealt with last season (will get to that later), but he’s able to locate his FB up in the zone — his 2.81 Plate Z is a bit above league average in terms of vertical location — and when it’s in the zone it’s generally a hard pitch to hit as seen above
Alright, now let’s take a look at his CB:
You may be wondering what some of these numbers are, and that’s totally normal, but I’d like to focus on one fairly self-explanatory column: v_brk. V_brk is short for vertical break, and it describes how much drop a CB had, not taking into account gravity (e.g. Fried’s CB probably dropped much more than 21 inches, but if you remove the effect of gravity the drop that was produced as a result of spin characteristics led to those 21 inches). There are some no-names on this list, but still, I would consider these guys to have well above average CBs based on movement alone. Ferguson has an innate ability to spin the baseball. His average CB spin rate was more than 3000 RPM, which placed him in the 98th percentile among all pitchers.
It’s important to point out that Ferguson changed the way he threw his CB during the last quarter of the season. At the beginning of the season, he threw it a bit slower, and with more true north/south movement. In August he shifted his spin axis from 5:00 to 4:45 — not a huge shift, but one that will change the movement characteristics a bit. The closer to 6:00, the closer a pitcher is to achieving true top-spin (assuming spin efficiency is 100%). Ferguson shifted his axis in the direction of a slider, now while he shifted it in a slider direction, the pitch still characterizes as a true CB with most of its movement being vertical. Here’s his early 2019 CB and late 2019 CB next to each other:
The difference in velocity is the most obvious thing, but he also eliminated that bunny hop he had at the top of his CB early in 2019. The additional sharpness made the pitch tougher for hitters to pick up on due to the lack of an identifying trait (i.e. bunny hop). How did this slight change in shape impact his results?
Pre-Change CB wOBA: .405
Post-Change CB wOBA: .195
In addition to the huge uptick in CB efficacy post grip change (was reported to have worked on his grip with Rick Honeycutt), his ability to spin the ball and produce movement on the pitch didn’t change at all. It seems like he might’ve found something here.
Another important thing to mention with regards to Ferguson’s stuff is his ability to mirror his FB and CB spin. Spin mirroring has been becoming a buzzy term over the last few months, and Michael Augustine from FanGraphs recently released an interesting article on the subject that I’d recommend everyone check out. Ferguson’s FB spin axis is right around 11:00, and his new CB axis is around 4:45 as we’ve already established. In my opinion, the shift in CB axis also led to another positive thing: improved spin mirroring. In May, Ferguson’s CB axis was close to 5:30, or almost true top-spin (he throws the pitch with a high spin efficiency). While his FB definitely has carry, it isn’t a FB I would describe as a pure backspinning FB because there is a significant component of arm-side run to it as well. This combination of carry and run make a CB with more lateral movement a bit more ideal when it comes to pairing spin, as the spin of each pitch will hide behind the other’s spin more effectively. Augustine points out pitches that might look like perfect mirror’s on the outside might not really be perfect mirrors due to an excessive amount of gyro spin that knocks a pitch off its axis. Thankfully, Ferguson is blessed with the ability to generate an elite amount of transverse spin: His FB spin efficiency is above 98% and his CB spin efficiency is 94% — it looks like he has a true spin mirror here with the new CB, and the results seemingly confirm that.
Ferguson has an elite FB/CB combination if we’re looking at stuff alone. Not many pitchers in baseball, specifically LHPs, have the ability to throw over 95 mph with carry up in the zone, and pair that with a CB that has high spin efficiency, raw spin over 3000 RPM, and an axis that mirrors his FB almost perfectly. These traits alone make him someone to watch. The incorporation of a plus slider could make him something special, though. Here’s a gif of the slider in my tweet that I linked above:
You don’t really need pitch data to confirm that the pitch has plus potential, it’s flashing plus-plus here. But I did hear that the pitch has very high raw spin, almost no vertical movement, and plus lateral movement. That is music to my ears. With a slider you don’t want any vertical movement if the pitcher already features a CB because the two pitches’ movement patterns can blend together. It looks like Ferguson has pulled off the trick of creating separation between two breaking balls. I don’t want to go crazy too soon, but the pitch’s shape reminds me a bit of Aroldis Chapman’s slider. Chapman has average raw spin, but almost no vertical movement (he has a slight component of back-spin, but the pitch doesn’t really move at all in a north/south direction which is similar to Ferguson’s vertical movement pattern), and well above average lateral movement. Check out this Chapman slider, the combination of velocity and well above average sweep look strikingly similar to Ferguson’s slider in the GIF above:
Ferguson has already shown the ability to back-foot it to right-handed hitters like Chapman does here, which is incredibly impressive considering it’s a foreign pitch for him in game-like scenarios. Now, do I expect Ferguson’s slider to operate like Chapman’s slider right away? Absolutely not. It’s a new pitch, and there will probably be some ups and downs associated with finding the feel for it across an entire season, but it looks like he really found something here.
Fixing The Mechanics
Ferguson’s control was arguably his biggest problem in 2019 along with being homer-prone (I think the two are linked). It seems like Ferguson had some lower body inefficiencies that he made an effort to go seek out help with. Check out this great thread from Brad Goldberg, the Director of Pitching Development at Ohio State, and the man who Ferguson spent most of his offseason working with. The glute loading, in particular, is what I want to focus on as I think that has been the most visibly noticeable change from last year to this year. Here’s a picture of Aroldis Chapman throwing a FB:
Now here’s a picture of Caleb Ferguson throwing a FB in 2019:
The difference jumps off the screen. Focus on the angle created by their back legs. Chapman almost achieves a perfect right angle while Ferguson is much more obtuse. The benefit of Chapman’s position should be obvious — it’s much more powerful and easier to control because the movement is more efficient. Now, let’s take a look at Ferguson in ST the other day:
Please excuse the poor quality, but the change between 2019 and 2020 is extremely noticeable. Ferguson’s angle is now closer to Chapman’s than it is to his 2019 angle. In addition to helping his control/command (13.2% walk rate in 2019, 91 Command+), this should also help him throw harder. He was reportedly sitting at 95–96 in his outing the other day which would represent an uptick of one mph, but it’s fair to assume that there’s probably more in the tank considering this is just spring training. I don’t think it’s outlandish at all to think Ferguson’s FB could be at 96–98 in the regular season thanks to tweaking his lower body mechanics.
Conclusion
There’s a whole lot to like here, but I want to preface what I’m about to say with the reminder that this is only spring training, and we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves with projecting Ferguson’s 2020 role and future outlook with the team. But what fun would it be if we didn’t speculate a bit?
So, Ferguson could potentially be a LHP who sits in the mid-to-upper 90s with his FB and throws it with above-average carry and arm side run; he also throws a CB that spins at over 3000 RPM with a spin efficiency close to 95% and perfectly mirrors his FB spin with it; and now in addition to the FB/CB he throws a slider in the upper 80s with almost no vertical movement, a ton of lateral movement, and above-average raw spin. Outside of Buehler, nobody comes close to touching that repertoire from a stuff perspective on the Dodgers. If we’re talking about all of baseball, the only LHPs who have comparable or better stuff than that would probably be guys like Aroldis Chapman, Blake Snell, Josh Hader, Chris Sale, James Paxton, Jesus Luzardo, and MacKenzie Gore.
Control will probably always be below average, but I have reason to believe that it will get better thanks to more efficient movements. The home runs might always be around too, but I’m also banking on the addition of a third pitch and better mechanics deflating them a solid amount — I think he ends up settling in the 10–15% HR/FB range which is okay as long as he’s racking up the whiffs (he will).
His role is kind of an interesting dilemma to consider. He’s been built as a reliever in camp, so I think they should just stick with that for this season, and use him as a multi-inning guy in the mold of Josh Hader (thanks to @FutureDodgers for engraining that idea into my head). There’s no doubt that his three-pitch mix will play as a relief pitcher. It would be ridiculously tough for hitters to have to deal with a plus FB, and then two borderline elite breaking balls that play well off of the FB. I’m bullish on him as a reliever in 2020. His post-2020 role is what interests me, though. Ferguson was always billed as a starter in the minors even though he only had two usable pitches. We saw why it was unlikely for him to stick in the rotation when he made a couple of appearances as a starter in his rookie year; it just isn’t feasible to expect a guy to compete as a starter with only two pitches that aren’t both absolutely elite. Ferguson’s FB was more low-to-mid 90s as opposed to the true mid-to-upper 90s FB that he’s showing now, and his CB had that bunny hop we talked about before. Now that his arsenal is much more devastating, and his mechanics are more efficient, I think it makes sense to try and build him up as a starter next year. The repertoire looks like it will play in the rotation, and as long as the control is workable I don’t see a reason why he can’t be as good as someone like Dinelson Lamet on the Padres.
Caleb Ferguson is only 23 years old. It’s important to remember that. Development isn’t linear, and he’s already had an interesting path to the big leagues. It’s not far-fetched to think he has number two starter upside still in the tank thanks to being open to improving his pitch mix and fixing his mechanics.
