Last week, Matthew Trueblood wrote about the importance of fastball shape, highlighting the particular attributes that the Twins prize most highly. Today, I’d like to look into the shape of the team’s most exciting fastball: Jhoan Durán’s four-seamer. First, let’s address the elephant in the room: Duran saw his ERA rise from 2.45 in 2023 to 3.64 in 2024. That’s not great, but if you’re reading this site, you probably know already that Duran dealt with some really bad luck.
His FIP and xFIP were actually lower than in 2023. His .321 BABIP was higher than 85% of all pitchers (minimum 50 innings pitched). When batters put the ball in play, the 53-point difference between his wOBA and xwOBA was higher than 96% of all pitchers (minimum 100 batted balls). Results can be fluky--especially for relief pitchers, who have smaller sample sizes. I’d like to focus instead on process, because even if the results were influenced by luck, Durán’s fastball really did change shape this season. Let’s start with some cold, hard numbers, courtesy of Statcast’s new arm angle metrics.
As you can see, the angle of Duran’s weird, black arm has fallen five degrees from last season. His vertical release point has fallen from 6.09 feet to 5.96 feet, a difference of 1.56 inches. To be clear, things aren't quite as simple as the graphic above makes them appear. Over the past two seasons, his release point has tended to fall throughout the year.
Still, generally speaking, when a pitcher lowers their arm angle, they should expect less vertical break, more horizontal break, and less velocity. That’s exactly what happened to Duran’s four-seamer.
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