Much has recently been chronicled on Reed Garrett‘s emergence this season, and for good reason. Garrett represents a David Stearns special: The Edwin Diaz Clone You Never Knew You Had. During his eight years with the Brewers, Stearns became infamous for acquiring unheralded relievers and overseeing their development into key cogs in the backend of their bullpen. Tylor Megill‘s brother, Trevor Megill, has dominated to a 3.19 […]
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Much has recently been chronicled on Reed Garrett‘s emergence this season, and for good reason. Garrett represents a David Stearns special: The Edwin Diaz Clone You Never Knew You Had.
During his eight years with the Brewers, Stearns became infamous for acquiring unheralded relievers and overseeing their development into key cogs in the backend of their bullpen. Tylor Megill‘s brother, Trevor Megill, has dominated to a 3.19 ERA/2.20 FIP over the last two campaigns. Devin Williams has utilized a bananas change-up en route to 1.75 ERA/2.26 FIP since his breakout 2020 campaign.
Although Stearns was not the Mets’ president of baseball operations when the team claimed Garrett off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles on June 25, 2023, Garrett has revamped his career under the Harvard Grad’s team’s tutelage.
Before coming to the Mets, Garrett had hurled 27.1 ineffective Major League innings. At the time, his fastball dominated his arsenal, which he threw 48% of the time, and was rounded out by a slider, curveball, and splitter.
Against lefties, he utilized his curveball as a get-me-over first pitch and his splitter as an out pitch. Against righties, he planned to mix his fastball and slider enough to keep his opponents guessing.
The Mets have since simplified his plan. They’ve drastically reduced his four-seam fastball usage, continuing the trend of the Death Of the Four-Seam Fastball. Instead, his sweeper/slider is now his primary offering, followed by his splitter and fastball.
This revamped repertoire has led to Garrett emerging as one of the National League’s most dominant arms in 2024. Through 21 frames, Garrett has only allowed one run, leading to a 0.43 ERA, a 2.05 FIP, and a 64% whiff rate on his splitter. He currently ranks first in the Majors in Squared-Up Swing%, per Savant’s brand-new Bat Tracking metrics, and has developed into a key stopgap in the Mets bullpen, a relief corps currently leading the Majors in BB/9.
Garrett’s development can’t only be attributed to his pitch mix change; much of his success is due to how his revamped offerings play with each other.
In a vacuum, adding a new pitch can be beneficial, but only if the addition properly works with the rest of the repertoire. In layman’s terms: Adding a 12-6 curveball isn’t advantageous for a sinker ball pitcher.
However, baseball isn’t playing in a vacuum, and the 12-6 can go for naught if not utilized correctly.
An excellent way to visualize the reason behind Garrett’s success is through Baseball Savant’s Spin Direction tool.
Savant’s Spin Direction tool is a nifty one for nerds who are way too into the numbers of baseball – like me. It visualizes pitch design and granularly, pitch tunneling.
Mike Petriello wrote an excellent article on this topic, investigating how Shane Bieber implemented an exceptional pitch design plan en route to his historic 2020 season. I’ve also previously covered this topic, analyzing how Seth Lugo‘s outstanding pitch design has set him up for success.
In technical terms, Savant’s Direction Tool visualizes pitch mirroring, or spin direction, via two charts.
Think of it like this: Two pitches, upon release, have opposing spin directions, where the seams are running at the same plane, just in different directions. A hitter takes an extra millisecond to distinguish between the pitches, giving a momentary advantage to the pitcher. In a business that is measured in a matter of milliseconds, that momentary processing delay can be the difference between a 450 blast and a swinging strike.
You merely need to cross town to visualize an excellent use case for this tool.
Yankees’ ace Gerritt Cole is well-known for pairing his tight, backspinning four-seam fastball with his signature curveball. A major reason why the pairing is so successful – the difference between the two pitches’ spin direction is the optimal six hours. This six-hour difference in spin direction gives Cole a fleeting advantage, as batters are initially unable to distinguish between the pitch due to the seams being on the same plane.
Gerrit Cole, 97mph Fastball and 85mph Knuckle Curve, Overlay. pic.twitter.com/IqQk7wXUrm
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 12, 2022
Anyway, back to Reed Garrett and Queens.
The left-most chart shows pitch mirroring as measured when a pitched ball arrives at the plate. The right-most chart shows the expected spin direction, as measured from the pitcher’s hand at the time of release.
The chart is designed as such to represent a clock. This clock symbolizes the different spin directions that a pitched ball can have, while the lines on the chart indicate the frequency of the occurrence.
In theory, these two charts should match – after all, pitched baseballs arrive at the plate within half a second. However, in practice, this is when seam-shifted wake and other applied baseball physics come into play.
Below is Reed Garrett‘s Spin Direction profile from the 2023 season.
In 2023, Garrett’s fastball and sinker mirrored his slider at the plate, but his spin direction at the plate was more varied. His fastball was his worst-graded pitch in 2023 despite its high usage, as seen above.
There’s a clearer plan of action in 2024.
It truly embodies what has driven Garrett’s success in 2024. Instead of throwing a poorly graded fastball the majority of the time, Garrett now unleashes a deadly sweeper/splitter monster that matches at release and moves in tandem midflight.
Out of the hand, the spin direction of his fastball, sinker, and splitter run at a two o’clock axis. Its counterpart is the sweeper, thrown at eight o’clock at release. This optimal six-hour difference between offerings gives Garrett a momentary advantage on the hill, an upper hand he couldn’t employ last year.
In simplified terms, his splitter tails arm side while his splitter goes glove side, leading to swings like this:
Reed Garrett, Sick 86mph Splitter. ✌️ pic.twitter.com/Dz7SlFLKck
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 1, 2024
New York targeted his pitch quality, implemented actionable changes, and has seen Garrett flourish this season. Success stories like these are littered throughout Milwaukee’s bullpen. It was only a matter of time until the Mets found their own Trevor McGill.
The post Statcast Answers: How is Reed Garrett Doing This? appeared first on Metsmerized Online.
