Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

After missing out on Brad Hand, who I was not a huge fan of this off-season (velocity dips are concerning), the Mets signed Aaron Loup to be their lefty reliever. I like the Loup signing for two reasons. One, signing Loup for $3 million gives the Mets the option of adding another reliever down the line, like say Trevor Rosenthal. Two, Loup is actually a pretty good pitcher.

Loup has had a pretty solid career for the Blue Jays and Rays. He spent two months in Philly and had an injury shortened season in 2019. In 2020 though, he got back to what he does best: getting lefties to hit ground balls. For his career, lefties hit the ball on the ground 63.4% of the time and in 2020, that number was 58.3% of the time.

His delivery is the unconventional dropdown delivery. Loup began using this delivery in the minors. He told FanGraphs about this delivery change. He claimed that an over the top delivery caused his sinker to move less. His pitching coordinator, Dane Johnson, suggested he try the dropdown method. It started working and he has kept it since.

From what it sounds like, Loup was an early adapter of the Seam Shifted Wake movement. I did a an article from the summer of Jared Hughes and how Seam Shifted Wake impacted his sinker. I will do a deeper article on SSW for Loup if the signing works out, I promise.

As for the rest of his repertoire, Loup has a changeup, cutter, and curveball. Loup used the cutter 31.1% of the time in 2020, the curve 10.3% of the time, and the changeup 8.8% of the time. I’ll be completely honest, I’m not sure why he loves his cutter so much. He gets very little movement and his active spin on the pitch is only 10.7%. Just to recap what active spin means, only 10.7% of the spin from his pitches contributes to the pitches’ movement. Meanwhile, his sinker is so effective because it has an active spin of 96%.

Interestingly enough, the Rays were not afraid to use him against righties too. His splits certainly favor a lefty-lefty matchup but with the three-batter rule and his funky delivery, Tampa must have liked the matchup. Personally, I would limit his matchup against righties but if he must face a righty, then so be it. He’s not a strict platoon guy like Pedro Feliciano but he might not be as good against righties as Justin Wilson was.

He loves using his sinker against lefties (uses it 62.6% of the time) and for good reason. It’s his best pitch and with his arm angle, it’s very difficult for lefties to pick up. So he’s great at getting lefties to hit ground balls and he loves throwing them a sinker. The main takeaway from this article is that if Loup is facing a lefty, they will likely be getting a sinker and they will likely be hitting it on the ground.

Here is an example of Loup’s sinker getting a ground ball out against Juan Soto. An outcome that the Mets should hope to be getting a lot of in 2021.

(Video courtesy of Baseball Savant)

On the whole, Loup might not be the most exciting pitcher but he is a very good signing. I am confident that he will be able to get a lot of big outs for the Mets in 2021.