Collette Calls: Breaking Down Erasmo Ramirez

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Updated on July 11, 2015 2:46PM EST

Just before the start of the regular season, Seattle and Tampa Bay swapped pitchers. The Mariners didn't have a roster spot for Erasmo Ramirez as he was out of options and had pitched poorly. Tampa Bay needed an arm and did not think Mike Montgomery was ready to fill that void so instead of sending him to the minors, sent him to Seattle.

The trade was one of those toss-away deals we see happen in late March as teams complete their roster shuffling, and not much was thought of it when it happened. Overall, it is one of the rare cases where the deal has helped both teams.

Mike Montgomery has certainly surprised many who thought of him as a long-man, as he has won four of his eight starts and has a 2.29 ERA. While his value in mixed leagues has been limited because he doesn't get strikeouts and wins have been a problem, Ramirez has quietly been quite the asset in both AL and mixed league formats.

After the first two starts of this season, nobody, not even his biggest fan, saw this kind of value coming from Ramirez. His first two games were a relief appearance against Miami and a start against Toronto. He totaled 5.1 innings, allowing 15 hits and 16 runs, walking six and striking out six with a 25.31 ERA, a .500 batting average against and a .609 BABIP. That softball line looked awful, and there was a lot of speculation that

To his credit, Ramirez was very self-aware and knew what his issues were. As he told Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune, his fastball had too much run to it. His sinker, after two starts, had some crazy life to it as it was dropping out of the zone or it was running out of the zone. The first image shows the vertical drop on his sinker while the second shows the horizontal run on the pitch.

A potential culprit of this was the fact Ramirez had dropped his release point and arm slot to the lowest point of his career. Anytime a pitcher lowers his release point and arm slot, it causes the baseball to move differently. Given that Ramirez's key pitch is his sinker, as it sets up his changeup, here is how a sinker moves related to the arm slot of the pitcher (images via The Hardball Times.)

ARM ANGLE	MOVEMENT
Overhand
Three-Quarters
Sidearm

Since Ramirez's come-to-Jesus moment, his season has taken quite the positive turn as he has gone 8-2 with a 2.07 ERA, a 0.91 WHIP and has struck out 60 batters in 74 innings while walking 20. This is what the ERA leaderboard looks like for the last two months:

PITCHER	ERA
Zack Greinke	1.47
A.J. Burnett	1.96
Erasmo Ramirez	2.07
Lance McCullers	2.16
Gerrit Cole	2.20
Jacob deGrom	2.22
Dallas Keuchel	2.24
Hector Santiago	2.25
Max Scherzer	2.30
Yovani Gallardo	2.39
Sonny Gray	2.45

The table below shows where Ramirez ranks in terms of some of the more popular pitching indicators:

ERA	WHIP	OPP BA	SLG%	WHIFF%	SWSTR%
3rd	5th	1st	2nd	14th	15th

How did a guy who looked like a batting tee over his first two starts become one of the best pitchers in baseball in recent months? Let's go back and look at what Ramirez identified as his problems in early April.

The horizontal run on Ramirez's sinker has only recently improved:

One thing that has dramatically improved for him is the release point on his pitches. To rehash the point Ramirez made in early April, Ramirez said he "can feel his left side fly open and his arm slot drop when throwing his fastball." The image below shows he has fixed that problem:

Ramirez's sinker has stopped dropping to the dirt and is a more effective pitch with less drop as it stays in or near the zone tempting batters to swing and beat it into the ground. It is also finding the strike zone with regularity rather than by happenstance. The pitch metrics on the pitch shows how the pitch has improved for him in this regard:

SPLIT	PITCHES	SWING%	WHIFF%	STRIKE%	INPLAY%	CALLSTR%	SWSTR%
1st 2 Games	72	40	7	58	38	30	3
Since	594	50	15	69	46	39	7

The lesson learned here is that the pitcher knew exactly what was causing his problems and he and the coaching staff corrected them. As Ramirez struggled out of the gate, he fell behind batters and got pounded to the tune of a .714/.800/1.429 line when pitching to batters when they were ahead in the count. Since his third start of the season, he has limited batters to a .189/.333/.216 line when he is down in the count. That dramatic improvement is also something to be aware.

Over his last five starts, the only runs that Ramirez has permitted are on three solo home runs. In fact, since Memorial Day, only two runners have scored that were on base as he is stranding all sorts of runners these days. His 2.07 ERA is well below the 3.64 FIP during this stretch and the 87 percent LOB rate and .214 BABIP over his last 18 games (and 12 starts) are most assuredly going to reverse as those are near impossible rates for a starting pitcher to maintain for multiple months.

A pitcher who didn't even look rosterable in 30 team AL-Only leagues has quietly become a rather valuable mixed-league asset in recent weeks. Friday's victory against the Astros was the eighth consecutive start in which he has permitted two or fewer earned runs in an outing and while his team is struggling on the field, he has received the win in six of those eight games.

You may have missed his best baseball this season, but The Eraser has certainly done his part to wipe out a horrendous start and once again become a fantasy contributor after looking like a lost cause as he left Seattle and restarted his career in Tampa Bay.