I’ve overlaid the Statcast illustrator images from his three AAA starts and colored in the whiffs. First, the fastball (swinging strikes in green). I should clarify his fastball location, which I’d previously described at heavier to his glove-side irrespective of batter handedness. In truth, he focuses on that location when aiming for the bottom half of the zone, but top-half pitches are more evenly spread horizontally. I was probably putting his fastballs and cutters (see below) into the same bucket.
Now, sliders (swinging strikes in red). As I’d mentioned, he had a bad tendency toward jerking his sliders too far glove-side, and it was readily apparent out of his hand, turning a putative put-away into a waste pitch. He’s grabbing the corner (or making batters think he will) much more frequently now, inducing more swings.
Cutter chart (no swinging strikes, as there’s only one). He doesn’t use it much against righties, instead crowding lefties with it. This chart is why I’ve mentioned his glove-side tendency on several occasions. Round Rock’s fancy new scoreboard has been slow to update pitch speeds, and his cutter’s cut is slight, often still tailing arm-side a little, so I was usually seeing and marking these as fastballs (or a fastball with a question mark because it looked a little strange).
