Jovani Moran

[Alex Schieferdecker]

After a great minor league season last year, the Puerto Rican lefty struggled in his cup of coffee last fall with the Twins.

This year, he's been much better. His change-up still looks like one of the best pitches on the team, but the big difference is that his fastball seems to have massively improved. He's been getting a number of swings and misses on it, even going through at-bats while throwing nothing else. It no longer is just a hittable set-up for his change, but quite possibly an average-to-good pitch in its own right,

Statcast's numbers appear to back up the eye test, albeit with some small-ish samples. Last year, Moran threw 85 fastballs, averaging a spin rate of 2150. This year, Moran has thrown 181 fastballs, averaging a spin rate of 2242. That's good enough to move from the bottom quartile of fastball spin to (just barely) the top half. As a result, his fastball has gone from 16 inches of drop to 13.6 inches of drop, which is exceptional (Alek Manoah's fastball has averaged 14 inches of drop). The Whiff% has increased from 25.6% to 34.8%.

At the same time, Moran's change hasn't changed its numbers significantly. I think his improved performance is entirely down to somehow figuring out how to turn his fastball into a credible pitch.

Would love for someone who knows more about this stuff to dig into it more deeply.

[Rosterman]

Sometimes it just takes a trip abck to the minorsd to work some things out. Hopefully the same is happening with Cano.

[stringer bell]

Moran has pitched much better for the Twins than he has for the Saints. In roughly the same amount of work, every stat looks better with the Twins--BB rate, K rate, H/IP, and WHIP.

He has walk issues that I would presume will come back to bite him, but his stuff looks pretty good. The fastball looks to be an acceptable major league pitch and the changeup is first rate.