What’s unsuitable with Edwin Díaz? In a single GIF, that is what’s unsuitable with Edwin Díaz:
I don’t wish to inform him how you can pitch, as a result of he’s Edwin Díaz and I’m an nameless particular person on the web. However placing a slider proper in Josh Bell’s nitro zone is just not an effective way to strategy a high-leverage at-bat. Bell put a superb swing on it, which was hardly a given, however Díaz put himself into that state of affairs and paid the value for it.
On a superficial degree, there’s not a whole lot of uncertainty over what’s unsuitable. Through the 2023 World Baseball Basic, Díaz tore his patellar tendon, after which he missed the whole thing of the season recovering from surgical procedure that repaired that tendon. He’s again on the mound, however he’s clearly not the identical pitcher that he was in his dominant 2022 season.
First, there’s his fastball. It averaged 99 miles an hour in 2022. This season, it’s sitting within the 97-98 vary, and he nonetheless hasn’t surpassed 100 mph on a single pitch. He’d go weeks in 2022 averaging triple digits. It’s a noticeable change in profile:
Now, Díaz’s fastball remains to be wonderful regardless of the decrease velocity. He’s all the time had a devastating motion profile; his arm slot and lengthy stride produce a shallow strategy angle that mystifies hitters on the prime of the zone. Hitters are doing extra injury than regular after they make contact, however they’re nonetheless swinging and lacking a lot. Let’s put it this manner: For his profession, Díaz has allowed a 71% contact fee towards his fastball. This yr, it’s at 66.7%. From that perspective, issues aren’t so horrible.
The issue comes together with his slider. That cement mixer to Bell isn’t an remoted incident. Díaz’s transformation from wonderful nearer to otherworldly power wasn’t constructed on fastballs. It was constructed on his turning that slider right into a surgical instrument. Take a look at this attractive map of his 2022 slider areas:
That’s almost flawless. He wore out the decrease gloveside nook with 90 mph darts. This yr, to place it mildly, he hasn’t been doing that:
Commanding that slider low and away made Díaz fully untouchable. He threw 539 sliders in 2022. Opponents hit precisely one in every of them for further bases. In 2021, one other strong yr, he threw 378 sliders and gave up solely three doubles with it. All of these hits had been on location errors in hitter’s counts. This yr, he’s already surrendered 5 further base hits, together with three homers, off his slider. Solely one of many 1,099 sliders he threw from 2020 by way of 2022 was hit for a house run.
The simplest strategy to describe what’s gone unsuitable is these two heatmaps, however in case you’re not a visible learner, we will do it in numbers too. In 2022, 23.6% of his sliders ended up over the guts of the plate. That quantity is as much as 32.4% this yr. Alternatively, he’s nonetheless lacking the zone badly simply as steadily. He’s basically misplaced his effective management of the perimeters of the zone, the situation the place pitchers virtually all the time win. He hit the shadow zone — the perimeters of the plate and the world simply off of it — 43.1% of the time in 2021 and 38.6% of the time in 2022 with sliders. This yr, that quantity is right down to 32.4%.
The information solely will get worse from there. Díaz’s slider, like his fastball, is down a couple of ticks of velocity. Sadly, its motion profile didn’t survive the decline in velocity almost in addition to the heater’s did. His slider is now inducing roughly three inches of optimistic vertical break, or elevate. It’s gone from falling half an inch lower than similar-looking sliders to falling two inches lower than them. For a gyro slider like his, getting the ball to fall extra is vital. You need the trail to diverge as a lot as attainable from regular fastball form. As a substitute, his slider is hanging up within the zone. I believe that that is each messing together with his command and making it simpler for hitters to get the top of the bat to the ball.
Don’t simply take that motion argument from me, although. PitchingBot thinks that the slider has gone from a 77 on the 20-80 scale to a 63. Stuff+ thinks it’s gone from 165 (normalized round 100) to 119. Each fashions agree that his command has gotten worse, in addition. You’ll be able to take a tour of the web to take a look at different folks’s stuff fashions, they usually’ll all agree. Díaz simply isn’t shaping the pitch like he used to. The mixture of slower pace and extra induced vertical elevate simply makes it much less devastating, no two methods about it.
Sadly, the easy nature of Díaz’s decline doesn’t make it any simpler to repair. His pitches simply aren’t working like he wants them to. To make issues worse, he appears much less sure of his command – moderately so, given the change in pitch form. Not solely is he strolling 9.1% of opposing batters, his highest mark (excluding a 25-inning 2020 season) since 2017, however he’s doing so regardless of a plan to keep away from walks at any price.
When Díaz will get behind within the depend, he simply throws the ball down the center and hopes for the perfect. He’s throwing 37.8% of his pitches over the guts of the plate in such conditions, the best mark of his profession and among the many 15% most aggressive of pitchers throughout the league. That’s the area of pitch-to-contact and sinker-dominant sorts, not swing-and-miss closers. He hangs his slider middle-middle a surprising 41.3% of the time when he’s down within the depend. He’s by no means even approached that mark earlier than.
The answer to this sudden malaise is straightforward and but troublesome: Díaz must get wholesome once more. Failing that, he wants to regulate to pitching with decrease velocity and refine his slider grip to do away with that pesky further vertical elevate he’s added this yr. With the pitch’s present form, velocity, and placement, he merely can’t get away with throwing it as a main choice. Possibly which means creating a slower, sweepier model. Possibly it means going again to working off of his fastball, saving sliders for ambushes. It’s lots more durable to hit a mean slider in case you’re attempting to catch as much as 98 up within the zone.
No matter what his plan is, Díaz must do one thing, and he is aware of it. He’s informed reporters that he lacks confidence for the time being, and I believe that’s an effective way of explaining what’s occurring. He simply isn’t commanding and ending the slider like he’s used to, and it’s getting in his head. That simply spirals, as a result of he wants the slider in greater spots, and so forth and so forth.
The historical past of patellar tendon accidents in baseball means that Díaz can be effective with time. Former Angels hurler Garrett Richards suffered a tear in his touchdown leg and was again in motion inside eight months. Zach Eflin tore his in July 2021 and contributed to the bullpen all through 2022. Matt Strahm has had surgical procedure on each patellar tendons and is pitching higher than ever. There’s no clear path again to feeling totally wholesome, however the long-term prognosis seems to be good.
That’s nice information, but it surely doesn’t do lots to assist out within the current. The Mets are mired under .500 regardless of some strong particular person performances; their BaseRuns report is 23-23, they usually’re nonetheless very a lot within the playoff hunt. Their bullpen has been among the many finest in baseball regardless of Díaz’s struggles; Reed Garrett has been chic and the center innings crew has additionally been wonderful. Carlos Mendoza indicated that Díaz will tackle some lower-leverage work whereas he rounds again into type. That looks as if a superb plan to me. This isn’t a case of a supervisor reacting to small-sample-size struggles. Díaz is simply worse proper now. The trumpets will certainly play in Citi Area once more, however their conductor must get proper first.
