How a Sinker Could Save Joe Ryan From His Stinker of a Slider

[Ted Schwerzler]

The Minnesota Twins entered the offseason with a clear need to add another pitcher capable of taking the ball for a big postseason game. Unfortunately, they didn’t grab one, but there are a couple of options within the organization.

Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Pablo López figures to be in the thick of voting for the American League Cy Young Award by season’s end. He is Rocco Baldelli’s ace and one of the game's five or 10 best pitchers. If the Twins are going to make noise in the postseason, though, he’ll need help. There’s a possibility that Bailey Ober takes a step forward and becomes another top-tier arm. If Joe Ryan is going to do so, then there are a few tweaks he’ll need to make along the way.

Last season, Ryan pitched a career-high 161 2/3 innings, but that resulted in a career-worst 4.51 ERA. His FIP suggested a bit better numbers could be expected, and while the strikeouts were impressive, the hits and long balls damaged him. For Ryan to deviate from that result in 2024, a few things need to happen.

One avenue via which Ryan can keep opposing hitters off-balance is tweaking his repertoire. With the righty throwing a fastball, sweeper, and slider last year, righties were able to sit on his four-seam offering easily. That pitch came nearly 60% of the time, and the stuff was too easy to read with secondary offerings that didn’t play well off of his primary pitch.

To differentiate offerings, Ryan is looking to incorporate a sinker. Joe Trezza recently noted that Ryan’s sinker isn’t entirely new to him. Having previously thrown a two-seamer as an amateur, the sinker is a variation of that grip, and the pitch itself is seeing a resurgence across Major League Baseball. Ryan already threw a splitter nearly 23% of the time last year, but the sinker is less designed to miss bats than to generate weak contact.

As a fastball-forward pitcher, Ryan can benefit a great deal from a mix of pitches that appear the same but have divergent late movement. The sinker and splitter play up for a guy with a solid fastball, but the former is something he can turn to earlier in counts and rely on against same-handed hitters. While working through different grips and ideas this offseason, Ryan began to dig in with the sinker at Driveline.

“I don't know how much we're going to use it," he said. "I don't know what that usage looks like throughout the course of the season, but it's a fun pitch to have in my back pocket to keep hitters off-balance, and it feels really good to throw.”

Beyond just adding a pitch, it’s how Ryan can utilize pitches that may help take him to the next level. In a piece focusing on command by FanGraphs author Alex Chamberlain, Ryan was highlighted as the pitcher who threw a higher percentage of competitive pitches compared to the competition, especially in the last pitch of an at-bat. That would suggest that Ryan’s ability to pitch is there, but the tools he was using may have been somewhat lacking. Perhaps he was too much around the zone deep in counts, because his stuff didn't allow him to do anything else.

Specifically, his slider was problematic. The pitch wasn’t good last season, largely because of its location. For a pitcher who works the ladder to allow his fastball additional room to play, the placement of his slider and sweeper to right-handed batters left him in position to get beat. Throwing sliders up in the zone and then seeing them tumble into the heart is not a sustainable path toward success, even as a means of stealing called strikes when hitters are programmed to try to lay off the high fastball.

With a sinker incorporated into his arsenal, the plan should be for Ryan to attack at the top of the zone with his fastball and then allow both the sinker and splitter to play off one another down in the zone. Slider usage could dissipate almost entirely, with the splitter being an out pitch against lefties.

For a guy who came into the league throwing a fastball nearly 70% of the time, lessening that percentage much more than to the current 57% doesn’t make much sense. Dialing back the 15% slider usage is an area of opportunity, though, and doing so with a pitch mix that plays better together could provide a great deal of benefit.

Ryan's spring training fastball velocities in 2022 and 2023 were 92.6 and 92.3 miles per hour, respectively. This spring, he's already sitting 93.1. His 37.5% chase rate and 13.8% whiff rate were both career highs last year. The Twins have an arm capable of getting pitches by big-league hitters, but he was leaving himself open to being burnt on mistake choices before making mistakes in location. Getting away from the slider, specifically up, while tightening the fastball location would do wonders. Then, having two different types of down-darting secondaries is a near-perfect overhaul to get him over the hump and into top-of-the-rotation territory.

Finding a way for Ryan to bring the best of what he was in 2022 and 2023 together would give the Twins the second playoff starter they currently lack. Whether the sinker will do that for him or not remains to be seen, but it's one highly plausible option for turning that corner.

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[bean5302]

Ryan's fastball has always been excellent because of his release and it's movement, but the reason the Twins were able to get him for Nelson Cruz was because the rest of Ryan's pitches were borderline offerings at the MLB level. While he's tinkered with adding new pitches, and changing his usage of the pitches he has, none of his offspeed or breaking stuff has been successful at the MLB level for long.

For Ryan to take a step forward, he really needs a 2nd plus offering. It doesn't sound like they're super excited about the sinker. The biggest issues with sinkers is even elite versions don't often generate strike outs, and they have a propensity to land in the seats if the pitcher misses their spot.

Hopefully, he can find a pitch mix that allows him to add that second legitimate weapon to his arsenal.

[Parfigliano]

He looked good today.  Zero HR's.

[High heat]

Ryan seems to be a constant tinkerer adding a Sinker down and in playing off the fastball up can get you some nice ground balls double plays and out of innings without having to get deep in count all the time which is where he struggled with hanging pitches.

[Fatbat]

Its not like he is only a fast ball pitcher.  His other stuff works but isn’t elite.  One little tweak and he could get there so not much to worry about. He will get there. 

[nova_twins]

He struck out multiple Tigers with some kind of cutter at 88-89. Nasty looking.

[DocBauer]

I feel like almost everything here about Ryan could apply almost directly to Varland and his new 2 seam sinker. The one game of Varland's against the Pirates, his new sinker looked pretty good to me.

I can absolutely see a sinker working in Ryan's favor, even if his K numbers and percentage go down somewhat. While strikeouts are great to have, outs are the most important thing. A few less K's, and a few more easy ground outs and double plays are not only just as effective getting those outs, but it might even shave a few throws off of his IP, allowing to go just a little bit deeper in to games.

I'm no expert on pitches themselves, or recognition of them at times. But I'd be really interested in a breakdown of his slider success pre groin injury and post. While not an elite pitch, I thought his slider worked pretty well the first 3-4 months before he was pitching hurt, and then rehabbed but not as affective. Now maybe what I was seeing was the sweeper and/or splitter and not the slider. But I could have sworn I saw a pretty decent slider the 1st half of the season.

But even if I'm mistaken, I can still see an average slider working well 15-20% of the time against LH batters.

[TopGunn#22]

Doc I agree with your assessment 100%.  In the first half of last season, or at least into June, Ryan was actually our best pitcher.  I've got to believe, as you suggest, that his groin injury affected his Slider/Sweeper.  It sure seemed like a darned good pitch early last year.

I am always in favor of pitchers working to add new pitches, to expand their repertoire.  The more the hitter has to be ready for, the more he's thinking too much in the batters box.  Juan Marichal had quite a repertoire and it came from many different angles.  He could command all his pitches from all those different angles.  Joe Ryan doesn't have to be Marichal, but if he's a little more efficient with his pitches he may be able to go deeper into games.  The strikeouts will always be there for Ryan.  He just has a fastball that rides and gets hitters to chase.  If adding a sinker that he feels good about throwing can make his other pitches better and he becomes more efficient he could be joining Lopez at the All Star Game this season. 

I also think the Twins plan for 2024 even without the payroll cut was that Ryan and Ober would replace Sonny Gray.  I just think the Twins have confidence that both of them are going to continue to improve and spending $30 million on a SP wasn't necessary.   

[JD-TWINS]

Ryan got 3-4 guys on K’s Tuesday with something moving downward. This is big because it allows him to miss more in the zone with his fastball, if he has a sinker off his fastball motion it keeps guys much more honest……… He’s thrown fastballs so often that guys can go up & just sit on that pitch. If he doesn’t elevate it to just “in” or just “out” of the top of the zone, it gets hammered.

Fastball riding high - Sweeper right to left - Split/Change down and right a bit - Sinking fastball is a nice repertoire and the fine line with the “slider in the zone” goes away. Getting rid of your historical mistake pitch is a good thing.

Hope he holds up - had his usual, zero emotion swag going on Tuesday!

[tcttejtf]

He reminds me in some ways of Catfish Hunter, who gave up a ton of home runs but were mostly solo shots. Ryan's walk rate is similar and if he can avoid putting runners on base, he can be effective, even giving up 30+ dingers per season.

[TCSquad]

This is all just part of the Joe Ryan Experience. Keep your hands and feet inside at all times, store loose items in the pocket of the seat in front of you, and enjoy the ride.