Fan Shot by Doug 

Who is the real Steven Matz?

Steven Matz is a 28-year-old left-handed starting pitcher for the New York Mets. Matz is a former 2nd round pick from Ward Melville High out on Long Island (I bet you never heard that before, right?).

Matz was an ever so slightly below average pitcher in 2019 (as measured by ERA+, barrel %, exit-velocity against, K%, spin, xwOBA against). And really, that’s basically who he’s been since he broke into the big leagues in 2015.

But I bet that I haven’t been alone in waiting and waiting, for the real Steven Matz to emerge from the abyss of mediocrity. Maybe it’s that Matz garnered much ballyhoo as he carved up the upper minor leagues from 2014-2015, consistently drawing plus grades from scouts on his fastball and changeup, and landing him atop various versions of the Mets prospects lists that we all agonize over. 

Maybe it’s because Matz actually still looks the part. Matz still averaged 93.3 mph on his two-seam fastball in 2019, cresting as high as 96 mph, and when he wasn’t having his occasional ‘knocked-out-in-the-second-inning’ blow up, he generally could be counted on to acquit himself well on the mound more times than not. 

But, Matz hasn’t quite been able to shake the label that perhaps something is still missing. Some have suggested a mental component. Matz’s mound demeanor is not stoic, especially when trouble brews on the basepaths. Al Leiter, another mercurial lefty from Mets days of yore, worked with Matz last spring, and perhaps, strictly anecdotally and loosely observationally speaking, they succeeded in helping Matz to stay focused on the mound.

Still, here we are. The numbers don’t lie. So I took a look at the underlying data to try and answer those lingering questions: who is the real Steven Matz? Why has he not broken out? Is there another step forward in his career progression?

The first thing that everyone needs to understand about Matz is that he’s not the bat-missing, overpowering, archetype of modern preference. Matz doesn’t throw a four-seam fastball at all. His two-seamer spins at a very modest 2100 rpm, and at its particular velocity, really cannot compete well for swings and misses in the upper part of the strike zone. Matz also does not own a particularly high-spin breaking ball either (his highest spin pitch is his curveball, which spins at approximately 2440 rpm and features more horizontal movement than the drop that is typically desired).

Matz does have some things going for his two-seamer. Because it rotates on a roughly 10 o’clock spin axis, the pitch gets an above average amount of armside run. While sitting 93 mph with the heater is only major league average these days, Matz’s quick, short-arm delivery hides the pitch well. Coupled with the late horizontal movement in on left-handed batters, and off to the end of the bat against right-handed batters, it’s a legitimate foundation.

Matz’s next best weapon is his changeup…or is it?

The most interesting thing that I turned up during my deep-dive on the Baseball Savant and Brooks Baseball websites, is not only how effective Matz’s curveball was last year, but against whom, and why.

Matz’s curveball in 2019 was easily his most effective breaking pitch. Check out the following for each pitch type for Matz in 2019:

Changeup – xwOBA against: .408

Slider – xwOBA against: .300

Curveball – xwOBA against: .228

Breaking pitches are designed to miss bats. Here’s how well each pitch fared last season:

Changeup – Whiff %: 27.1%

Slider – Whiff%: 19.7%

Curveball – Whiff%: 26.6%

So, while Matz could still get lots of whiffs on his plus changeup (which offers both above average arm-side fade and tumble, and a has good velocity separation from his fastball of 9 mph differential), it turns out that it got hit pretty hard last season when contact was made. Batters slugged .510 against the changeup, higher than any of his other pitches.

But the curveball, which spins less and drops less than major league average, was very effective at missing bats and minimizing damage. How can that be?

It turns out that the answer likely lies in the idea of pitch tunneling, or spin mirroring, put another way. The basic idea behind this is that batters can read the seams on pitches as the pitch is in motion. Even though the ball is spinning fast enough to be a blur, if each type of pitch spins in a unique direction from other pitches in the arsenal, the batter can pick up on which way the seams are moving. This skill of reading spin varies by hitter, but generally is a decision that needs to be made by a certain point in the ball’s flight. If a pitcher is able to have his fastball and his curveball look like they are spinning in the same direction, the batter cannot make this read until it is too late.

How does this relate to his curveball?

Well, it turns out that Matz’s two-seam fastball, which as mentioned earlier spins on a roughly 10 o’clock spin axis (just picture the direction the hour hand points on a clock when it reads 10:00; that hour hand is the axis around which the baseball spins) is actually precisely calculated by Brooks Baseball as an average of 122°. It turns out that Matz, on average, spun his curveball last year with a 306° direction, which equates to a difference of 184° between the two pitch types.

This is what is referred to as pitches that mirror each other’s spin, where 180° differential between two pitch types is considered the ideal mirror. Matz’s fastball and curveball, according to this data, should read out of his hand like the same pitch, until of course, the curveball breaks its plane of movement. 

Perhaps the real Steven Matz is a fastball-curveball wizard after all?

Not so fast. 

Matz’s curveball showed stark splits against batters hitting from different sides of the plate. While extremely effective breaking down and in on right-handed batters, the pitch was completely ineffective against batters from the left side. Lefties slugged a garish .733 off of the pitch, hit a Ted-Williams-esque .400 against it, and whiffed on it only 9.8% of the time.

So naturally, Matz stopped throwing it to lefties right? 

Not really. Matz actually threw more curves to left-handed hitters (17% of the time) than his slider (13.8%) or changeup (10.6%), despite the pitch underperforming those other off-speed offerings by a large margin. 

Matz actually threw his curve to right-handed hitters less often (14.3% of the time), despite getting far-superior outcomes compared to the damage lefties inflicted (only .365 slugging, a .188 batting average, and 13.3% whiff rate, second only to his changeup). So perhaps we’ve discovered an area of pitch selection that could use some re-tinkering.

Let’s try to put all the pieces to the Matz puzzle together, now that we’ve found some interesting but maybe imperfect fits.

The running, deceptive fastball doesn’t miss bats or generate ground balls at above average rates. More of a traditional two-seamer than a sinker, Matz is particularly prone to the home run ball against righties with it when he gets it up, as it lacks vertical movement, and hitters do not have too much trouble getting on top of it. The best outcomes for this type of pitch would seem to be precise work on the lower quadrants of the strike zone. Matz does boast slightly above average ability to pound the shadow zones, or edges of the strike zone, but this does not leave much margin for error. A little too often, loud fly ball contact is made against Matz’s two-seamers and changeups that are left up. 

The two most effective weapons are his changeup, which I theorize he under-employed against lefties last year, as they only hit .235 against it, and his curveball, which he under-employed against righties. The former generates whiffs from above average movement, the latter from an ideal angle of spin compared to the fastball. Could it be that the pieces of Matz, the pitcher, are actually there, and if they can fit together a little better, the realization of the mid-rotation stalwart that many envisioned could finally come to fruition?

Will the real Steven Matz please stand up?

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This Fan Shot was contributed by diehard Mets fan Doug.

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