Ranger Suarez Might Have The Best Pitch in Baseball Right Now
Ranger Suarez is off to an insanely good start. He has the 3rd best ERA (1.50), the best WHIP (0.75), and the 4th best BAA (.168). Not to mention the fact the Phillies have won all 8 games he started, with Ranger getting credit for 7 of them.
We have seen him be great before. Last June he had a similar hot streak. Now we are a month in a half into the season though and he is still dominating.
He is also going deep into games. His 6.9 innings pitched per start leads the entire MLB. Ranger Suarez went from a guy who usually comes out after 5 innings, to going deeper into games than any other pitcher in the league.
What is behind this great start though? Is he doing something different? Is this sustainable? One of the most trustworthy names in baseball, Hall of Fame writer Jayson Stark, joined ‘The Best Show Ever’, and had a couple of crazy stats that show just how great he is.
Ranger Suarez Has Perhaps The Best Pitch In Baseball
One of the things Stark got into is how great one of Ranger’s pitches has been through his first 8 starts.
“His changeup has been borderline the best pitch in the sport. He has thrown 129 changeups this year. Do you know how many hits he has given up? 1 Hit. Out of 129 of these things. It has just been an untouchable pitch.”
-Jayson Stark
The impressive stats go even deeper than that though. After Stark told us that, I took a trip to Baseball Savant to dig into the stats more. Batters whiff on 38.9% of his changeups. Compare that to last year where they hit .267 off his changeup, and only whiffed at 31.1% of them.
He tends to throw it down and in on righties, and down and away on lefties. The Pitch chart has them almost all down and to the right side of the plate. You would think that is predictable, but one of the things people praise Ranger for is how he disguises his pitches. So batters rarely know the changeup is coming.
He throws that changeup 17.2% of the time. Actually a bit down from last season. It is only his 4th most-used pitch, but when he deploys it, it is more effective than any pitch in baseball.
Not His Only Great Pitch
The changeup stands out because of that stat. It is not his only elite pitch though. Ranger has two other pitches with a BAA under .200.
Ranger has thrown 149 Four Seamers. Only 5 of them turned into hits. 4 singles, and a double. Thats a BAA of .156, and a SLG of .188.
His curveball is deadly too. Only 5 players have gotten a hit off his Curveball, despite him throwing 146 of them. 3 singles, a double, and a HR.
Then even his Sinker, his most used pitch, has great numbers as well. He has thrown 244 of them and allowed 14 hits. Thats a BAA of .221, and a SLG of .324. His sinker induces the least amount of swings and misses, but it produces a ton of ground balls and accounts for nearly a 3rd of his outs.
He also has a cutter, but he rarely uses it. It makes up only 10% of his pitches, and it is easily the weakest of the 5. Batters hit .267 off it, with a SLG of .533. It also induces a WHIFF% of only 15%. So people make contact with it, and often times, it is good contact.
His other 4 pitches though are all filthy right now. Not just because they are good pitches, but because he has elite command of them.
Ranger Suarez’s Command of The Plate
Ranger has a BB rate of only 4.1%. It puts him in the 92nd percentile in the entire league. Few pitches avoid walks better than him.
Ranger throws strikes. It’s why it took until game 8 for him to get into a 3-0 count. But even though he is constantly throwing strikes, batters still can’t make good contact off him. His Hard Hit Rate of 28.2% is in the 96th percentile., and his ground ball rate of 59.5% is in the 95th percentile.
You would think with how much he operates in the strike zone those numbers would go the other way. But even when he throws strikes, hitters struggle to make good contact, and because he is around the strike zone too much, when he does go outside of the zone, hitters chase at a rate of 32.7%.
To put it in simple terms, Ranger Suarez is elite right now.
Here is one more quote from Jayson Stark to wrap up this article, to show just how great he has been,
“Since 1900, only 4 pitchers have had a WHIP this good, made 8 starts, and his team won all 8 of them. Ranger Suarez is one of them. The most recent of the other 3 pitched in 1908. That is how good this guy has been, we haven’t seen it since 1908.”
-Jayson Stark
If you are doing something no one else has done in over 100 years, that is probably a good thing. Can Ranger Suarez keep this up? If he keeps delivering his top 4 pitches like this, I don’t see why not.
Listen To Or Watch ‘The Best Show Ever?’ Live On The 97.5 The Fanatic And On NBC Sports Philly From 2 To 6 p.m. every Weekday
