Tyler Mahle's New Pitching Trick

[Matthew Trueblood]

By now, you’ve heard about the work Tyler Mahle put in this winter to add a sweeping slider to attack right-handed batters with lateral movement. What if I told you, though, that Mahle’s also doing something much less common, and a bit more interesting?

Image courtesy of © Rhona Wise-USA TODAY Sports

Last spring, Baseball Prospectus’s Michael Ajeto wrote about the fact that Tyler Mahle was trying one of the trickier (but niftier) things a pitcher can do to counteract a platoon-split problem: working from different spots on the pitching rubber according to the handedness of his opponent.

By May, Mahle abandoned the effort. Guess what, though? He’s back at it.

We’re not talking about a difference of a few inches, but a little over a foot. Against lefties, Mahle is setting up at an extreme angle, with only the front half of his right foot touching the rubber at the first-base end. Against righties, he’s right in the middle of the rubber.

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[Cory Engelhardt]

This is great! And I still can't wait for a Mahle extension! Hopefully that comes soon.

[Dman]

Kind of feeling the results haven't been there yet.  He is allowing more hits (17) than innings pitched (15) and his WHIP is 1.43.  That is not a good sign IMO. He started slow last year so I assume we will see more improvement as the weather warms up but right now I have my concerns about how well he is going to do this year.   The K rate is there so that is good but would just like to see a bit more dominant line from him before I can feel confident in his ability.

[Schmoeman5]

Good detailed analysis.  Thorough. But he still needs to be consistent, or it's a moot point.

[twinssporto]

Great article! Thanks for pulling this together.

[Minny505]

@Matthew Trueblood, is there a leaderboard for this kind of split? If so, can you link to it? I'd be interested to see the names of other pitchers with this approach. It has to be unusual for such a gap.