Class is Back in Session
The defending ERA champ is back…almost.
Since returning from the 10-day DL on July 24th, the soft-throwing righty has began to find the form that lead him to a major league best 2.13 ERA in 2016. In seven starts since then, the Dartmouth product has posted a 2.45 ERA in 33 innings, dropping his ERA on the season to a respectable 3.52.
Last year I wrote a piece in May on how Kyle Hendricks reminded me of a former Cub who became a Hall of Famer. That Cub, of course, was Greg Maddux. The comparisons go beyond their inability to touch 90 mph on the radar gun however. Their demeanor on the field is eerily similar and they are both students of the game who attempt to out think their opposition. These two also rely heavily on command, and their ability to mix pitches.
Up until recently, Hendricks was having a hard time with both of these necessities for any pitcher who doesn’t throw hard. The key to success for any pitcher is being able to mix speeds. That means your best pitches need to not only move, but also have varying speeds to throw off a hitters timing. For example, if one’s fastball is too close in velocity to their changeup, the hitter’s timing won’t be all that altered when attempting to hit either. These last few starts for Hendricks have started to resemble his 2016 form in terms of successful variance.
For reference, Kyle Hendricks differential in velocity between his sinker and change-up last year was 7.5 mph. Before his injury, Hendricks was posting just a 6.7 mph differential in those two pitches, since that time, it has risen to 7.4. .7 mph may not seem like much, but given the game of inches that baseball is, every fraction of a second matters.
But don’t take my word for it, look at how much more effective his change-up has ben as a result of this. In 2016, Hendricks had the most devastating change-up in baseball, posting a whiff percentage of an astounding 39.0%. To illustrate his struggle to start his 2017 campaign, that swing and miss percentage was at just 28.3 before going on the DL in June. Since his return, that whiff rate is all the way back up to 36.8%. His last start on Sunday, he got a swing and miss on nine of 21 change-ups he threw for a 43% clip. Hitters went a combined 0–14 with 4 K’s and 2 GIDP.
All of this to say that if Kyle can keep his sinker and changeup far enough apart to throw hitters off balance, he will have a much better chance of repeating his success of 2016. He has clearly begun to show signs of such a turnaround. Not just in his swing and miss rates but also in his ability to avoid the barrel of the bat. In the five games before his injury he gave up a long ball in every single start, since his return, he has only surrendered a home run in two of his seven outings.
How Kyle progresses from here will go a long way in not only determining the Central for the Cubs, but also be a key indicator of their playoff success. Remember, it was Hendricks who started the two most important games of the 2017 playoffs (Game 6 NLCS, Game 7 World Series). If he can keep his sinker velocity up, and his change-up down, he will be able to keep hitters off balance and the Cubs on their way to another parade.
Jason Schwartz is the Editor-in-Chief of BulletinBoard, a Chicago Bulls blog. Only his love for the Cubs would dare him to write elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter here.
