Collette Calls: Breaking Down Drew Pomperanz

Pomeranz comes from pedigree but also from unfortunate circumstances. He was the fifth overall pick in the 2010 draft armed with a low-90s heater and a hammer curve from the left side. The unfortunate part of all of that is he was dealt to Colorado before he ever reached the majors, so he had to fight the laws of physics in Denver, which neutralized his curveball. He then moved on to Oakland where he was somewhat of a swing man who made 19 starts but pitched in 73 games, doing well for the A's in that role. The issue for him was a shallow repertoire.

A starting pitcher needs to have at least 3 pitches in order to be effective unless their two primary pitches are very special. Think Randy Johnson/Dwight Gooden/Nolan Ryan in-their-prime special. Few major league relievers begin as relievers in the minors; they get there either because they weren't durable as starters or they never found that extra pitch to go into the rotation. Pomeranz had some durability issues, the most recent of which was an achy shoulder last year and breaking his non-pitching hand punching some furniture after a bad outing in 2014. Pomeranz has tried the changeup in previous seasons, but shelved it with Oakland later in the year before reviving it this year.

By run values, the pitch was rather awful for him in a starting role but was slightly better for him as he worked out of the pen last year. By accident, Pomeranz found his third pitch last offseason working out with a former teammate as explained by MLB.com's A.J. Cassavell:

Drew Pomeranz was simply going through his offseason routine, playing catch with former Minor League teammate Travis Higgs. The circumstances were the same as any other throwing session -- only this time, Pomeranz noticed something strange about Higgs' tosses: They had some serious late movement.

"I just asked, 'What was that?'" Pomeranz said. "He showed me the grip and where to apply the pressure."

From a batter's perspective, Pomeranz certainly looks different. The first image is a scatterplot, which shows the average velocity and movement of his offerings in 2015.

We see three pitches, two of which were thrown more frequently than the third (size of dot). The fastball had some movement to it, but to righties, the movement of the fastball and the change was away with the backfoot curve. Fast-forward to this season, and we see the cutter show up on the plot.

With the cutter, righties now have something with velocity coming in on them as well as the fastball running while also having to worry about swinging over top his big breaking ball. That has also helped his changeup look better as righties are now guessing which of his four offerings Pomeranz is going to throw rather than which two or three he used in the past. The cutter is frustrating for batters because if they give up location of the pitch, the late movement can bring it to the outside corner for a called strike. What looks like a center cut fastball can suddenly jam you, creating weak contact off the end or the handle of the bat depending on the handedness of the batter.

Pomeranz has had varying success against righties in his career. As a starter in Colorado, there was little success as righties hit nearly .300 against him and he didn't miss many of their bats. The move to the bullpen helped his rates against righties in 2014 with a step back last season. This season, he is having a career year against righties and is missing more of their bats than he ever has.