Bailey Ober Has Gone From Exceptional to Very Exceptional

When I was down in Ft. Myers for spring training back in March, one of the players who intrigued me most was Bailey Ober. He felt so integral to the viability of a post-Sonny Gray rotation: a pitcher with legit frontline ability who just needed to prove it out over a bigger sample, and carry it through the finish line. Ober had pitched up to the level of a top-tier starter, but when push came to shove, the Twins didn't really trust him to start a playoff game. Changing that felt critical to the 2024 team's outlook.

In camp, there were positive signs. Ober was pitching brilliantly in the Grapefruit League, as he experimented with a new cutter and flashed unprecedented levels of velocity. Following one of this strong outings, I asked manager Rocco Baldelli what it would take for Ober to take the next step. 

"Bailey’s a difficult one to talk about in that conversation because he does a lot of different things really well, and has from truly the day he walked in the door at the big-league level," Baldelli said. "Could he go from exceptional to very exceptional? It's like, I don't know, maybe."

The point was well taken. Ober entered this season with a 3.63 ERA in nearly 300 major-league innings. That's a track record many would envy. At the same time, the Twins still didn't want to ride him last October, with everything on the line, so he couldn't have been viewed as that exceptional. Right? Rocco's riff really seemed to get to the heart of the matter: Ober's last remaining hurdle was indeed making that leap from good to great; from exceptional to very exceptional.

He didn't get off to a good start in this pursuit, to say the least. Ober's first start of the 2024 season was almost unimaginably bad; he was clubbed by the Royals in Kansas City for eight earned runs in 1 ⅓ innings. But the right-hander instantly turned the page and has pitched like a true frontline force ever since. 

In 19 starts since flushing that Kauffman clunker, Ober has a 3.17 ERA and 3.40 FIP, holding opponents to a .197 batting average. He's only gotten better as the season has progressed, with Ober's hot streak reaching new heights in his latest start, perhaps the finest of his career. On Sunday he mowed down the Tigers over eight innings of shutout, one-hit ball, setting a personal record with 11 strikeouts.

Ober's newly added cutter has become an integral part of his arsenal, accounting for 22% of pitches thrown. And while it's been a solid offering in its own right, generating a 22% whiff rate and holding opponents to a .253 average, the cutter's biggest value might be simply bringing another offspeed variant that makes his accompanying changeup and slider even harder to pick up. Those pitches are the ones Ober is really using to dominate – opponents are whiffing 39% of the time against his changeup and batting .096 against his slider.

Sunday's outing added to a solidifying trend we've seen from Ober – he's not just pitching well, he is flat-out dominating, like never before. Sunday's start was the third in his past six where Ober tallied 20+ swings and misses. He'd previously done so once in his career. Since the midpoint of June he leads all MLB pitchers in swinging-strike rate, and check out his company at the top:

1. Bailey Ober, 17.3%
2. Cole Ragans, 16.4%
3. Logan Gilbert, 15.8%
4. Tarik Skubal, 15.7%
5. Max Scherzer, 14.7%
6. Corbin Burnes, 14.5%

That group below Ober includes four All-Stars, and all pitchers who could or will start in the playoffs. In fact there are several Game 1 caliber starters. Maybe it's time we started talking about Ober in that conversation. 

Of course, this is putting the cart in front of the proverbial horse. The real final hurdle for the 29-year-old is proving he can sustain and maintain his excellence through the end of a long MLB season and beyond. That's been a sticking point. In 2022, injuries limited Ober to just 56 innings with the Twins. Last year he powered through 26 starts, but the team felt wary enough of his diminishing stamina late in the season that they sent him down to Triple-A for a spell in September, and then gave him a short leash in a three-inning ALDS start. 

The lack of faith was justified based on Ober's postseason results. Between that Game 1 start and a relief appearance in the Game 3 blowout loss, he gave up six earned runs on four homers in 4 ⅓ innings. It surely left a sour taste in his mouth, and maybe that plays a role in driving his inspired play this season. We'll see if it can fuel him to the finish line, and from there, his shot at Oct-Ober redemption.