I recently released an article comparing Prelander Berroa to Daniel Espino. I encourage you to check that out first as this references some of the stuff discussed more in depth in that piece. We determined that Prelander, despite Espino-esque stuff, currently projects to wind up in the bullpen. This piece will look at how that role projection could be changed with good player development.
This doubles as the kick starter for a new weekly series where I look at one pitching prospect, and detail how I would develop them if given full control of their development. In this series, I will suggest mechanical, strategical, and pitch usage changes for pitchers to make them the best version of themselves. My goal is not to say that a team is doing it wrong, simply to provide my perspective on an alternative path. I will not vaguely say stuff like throw harder that is completely absent of value. If I want them to add velocity, there will always be a ‘How’ attached- change this in your mechanics, or train this way. This is an actionable plan, not vague ideas that sum up to “just do better.”
Where He is Now
Prelander Berroa is coming off a season where he was one of the most dominant pitchers in all of minor league baseball. He posted a 2.33 ERA with a 3.01 FIP, and a xERA that suggests he deserved better than the 2.33 mark. Prelander missed 36.3% of bats this year, which was the sixth highest in all the minors (min 90 innings). However, Berroa also had a 15.6% walk rate, which was the third highest. Command is Prelander’s kryptonite. Those command woes have led to a lot of high stress innings, and often knock him out of games prematurely.
In addition, his innings have been extremely limited and so, as a result of several factors, Berroa is averaging just 67.2 pitches per start, and fewer than four innings per outing. We still don’t know if the stuff will hold up working deeper, or if his pitch counts will be manageable enough to ever actually throw a quality start. Given the 5’11” frame, I know there are several scouts who believe that the stuff won’t hold up with a normal starting pitcher workload. I share those concerns to an extent. I think he’s likely to be fine, since even 95 mph with 20” IVB is still ridiculous, but it’s a question he’ll have to answer at some point.
Prelander Berroa is the somewhat rare pitcher who uses the slider as his primary pitch. He throws the slider 55.7% of the time, and despite such high usage, it has been nothing short of dominant with a 41% CSW . The fastball takes a secondary role to the slider, but is just as overpowering- albeit more limited by the poor command. A changeup rounds out his arsenal with less than 5% usage, and very poor shape.
Don’t Fix What isn’t Broken
Prelander Berroa has an 80-grade fastball. I would not advise touching the shape of the pitch at all. Do not make any changes to the wrist orientation or arm slot that could butcher the fastball shape. You can count on one hand the amount of fastballs at 95 MPH+ with >20” IVB. The fastball is an elite pitch in a vacuum, and it plays off of the slider. This is the pitch that makes him almost certainly a bullpen ace, and it is the pitch that he will probably rely on heavily out of the rotation.
Learning to Command The Slider
The sole issue with Prelander Berroa’s slider right now is how he locates it. 21% of his sliders are waste pitches. He is completely dominant when he gets a swing and gets a lot of chases just outside of the zone. However, the problem is that he doesn’t get enough pitches in those spots where the pitch plays best in a vacuum. The command issues are the biggest problem he has to address in order to reach his lofty ceiling.
There are two methods to improve command: you can improve the location of the slider so it hits the spots where it’s best. Alternatively, you can try to change the spots where it is best to suit where you most frequently locate it. So far, Prelander has opted for the latter path.
Prelander’s solution to his dilemma has been pitching down with the fastball, which allows the waste slider to still get some chases. This is because the tunnel now naturally sets up the waste slider as the ideal location for drawing chases. This is a viable strategy in a lot of respects. Prelander Berroa has a vacuum fastball with such incredible shape that it would play to an extent, anywhere in the zone- even down the middle. It’s hypothetically easier for him to throw strikes by aiming to throw the heater down the middle, and theoretically, it would limit his walk rates. However, this solution has its limits.
When you miss so badly, as often as Prelander does, and don’t get called strikes, a 35.3% chase rate on the slider really isn’t enough to limit the walks. Berroa has made the most of his bad slider command, at the expense of neutering his fastball. He might be better off for it as a reliever, but it’s not a solution that will let him stick in the rotation. This is especially true while he is leading with the slider, which will only get more recognizable in repeat looks.
A New Grip
The slider is good as is, but the command is clearly a limiting factor. You could try to tweak the mechanics to improve command, but I don’t think that is necessary or worth the risk. I think the easier solution to the lack of slider command is to switch to a grip that emphasizes command over horizontal movement. I am talking about a one-seam slider grip.
If you’ve never heard of a one-seam slider, I can’t say I blame you; I only can name two players who throw one without doing extensive research on it. (I’m 75% sure Brandon Hughes throws one as well starting this year, but it is hard to tell for sure). The one-seam fastball is a popular pitch as an alternative to the sinker. The one-seam trades horizontal movement for more depth, and is an easier pitch to control because it has less seam-shifted wake induced movement. In recent years, the standard sinker grip has become increasingly popular for sliders, as it utilizes seam-shifted wake to get extreme sweep on a slider.
The one-seam grip seemingly does the complete opposite of the two-seam to a slider. The one-seam grip allows a gyro slider to function with no seam-shifted wake, but has pure gyro spin that doesn’t change its axis and is easier to command. The pitch will vary the axis pitch to pitch - possibly intentionally. However, the observed and spin-based axis is almost a mirror image of each other on every pitch despite low spin efficiency. (See images below)
Remember when I said I only know of two pitchers in the majors who throw a one-seam slider? Those two pitchers are the MLB fWAR leader for all pitchers, Carlos Rodón, and the AL Cy Young favorite, Dylan Cease, who just added his this year. The one-seam slider hasn’t become popular yet, but for the right pitcher, it can be the most deadly pitch in all of baseball.
Why Berroa?
So why do I think Prelander Berroa is the ideal candidate for a one-seam? I can’t say he’s the perfect fit, but it increases his margin for error location wise as it just gets more swings in the zone. Cease has the third highest waste% of all starting pitchers this year. That has not mattered at all because the slider with pure gyro is impossible to square up. This leads to him getting a lot of weak fly balls with no efficient spin, which makes the walks tolerable. He has elite chase rates, and elite in-zone whiff rates with elite wOBAcons as well.
Prelander Berroa probably does not have the same slider quality as Cease, but the impact should be similar with there being a sizeable uptick in zone-swing with a one-seam grip. Berroa wants to be drawing in-zone swings because his slider has a .242 xwOBAcon this year. The more swings Berroa is getting, the better off he is.
A sweeper would have a similar effect on batted balls, so why not throw that? The problem is that the sweeper is reliant on having the control to zone the pitch, for it to be effective, and Berroa does not have that. We’ve only ever seen the one-seam with low zone rates, and it’s consistently been highly effective despite them. Additionally, a sweeper would leave Berroa very vulnerable to matchups against left-handed hitters as a two-pitch guy. This would likely force him into a relief role, even if the walk rates happened to improve. The one-seam is the perfect solution to Berroa’s woes if he can learn to throw one somewhat effectively.
So it all brings us to the million dollar question of can he do it? There is no easy way to know this for certain, given that we are working with a two-pitcher sample of effective one-seam sliders. We know that both Rodón, and Dylan Cease throw from a high arm slot just like Berroa. We know that both of them have premium velocity on both the fastball and slider with ~10 MPH separating the two pitch combo. We know that both throw their slider with low spin-efficiency. They also both throw the four-seam fastball with elite vertical movement. Berroa checks all of those boxes so perhaps he can emulate them? There is only one way to find out.
A New Pitch
Regardless of whether Prelander Berroa proves capable of throwing the one-seam slider, he needs to add a curveball to his arsenal. The changeup is below average at best and adds nothing that Berroa does not already have at his disposal in the fastball, and slider. That two-pitch combo is already plenty viable against left-handed hitters, and unless he actually finds a plus changeup, a whiff drawing cambio won’t do him any good. All a changeup will do is get hit harder than the fastball and slider both, while missing fewer bats as well.
A curveball, on the other hand, would add an extra dimension to how Prelander Berroa attacks hitters. One of the biggest issues with Berroa that leads to so many walks is a lack of zoned pitches that the hitter is content to just watch. The lack of called strikes puts him behind in counts early when hitters are in take mode and is a big contributing factor to his walk problems.
A curveball is the best called-strike pitch, and Berroa throwing one occasionally early in counts, or when behind would fill a much-needed hole in his repertoire. The goal isn’t to eliminate the waste pitches since Berroa has yet to show that is actually possible. The goal is to minimize their impact on his overall performance. If Berroa is more frequently in favorable counts, then missing way off of the plate will not cripple him.
I don’t even think Prelander needs a good curveball for it to fill its niche. The goal with a curve is to land it in the zone semi-regularly, with it looking distinct and undesirable. Because his fastball has so much rise, any curveball would look very distinct. Even if Prelander got just -4” IVB with no horizontal movement at 80 MPH, it wouldn’t bait in-zone swings off of the fastball. Berroa has so much vertical movement on the heater that -4” IVB would still give him more vertical separation than the average fastball/curve pairing.
I think given the feel for spin; it is highly likely that Berroa has a lot more vertical movement than that from day one. The curve won’t be an out pitch by any stretch, but it should be simple to add a useful one quickly. He can steal called strikes early and start with a more advantageous count. The curveball command likely wouldn’t be all that, and it doesn’t have to be. There is a huge target for his curveball location that makes it easier to locate. The only goal is get it in the zone, don’t worry about what side it is on or keeping it down. The goal is just to freeze hitters early, and distinct curves can do that anywhere.
Making an Omelet
In conclusion, our new and improved version of Prelander Berroa is still throwing an 80-grade fastball, and now also has a very intriguing one-seam slider grip on his secondary of choice. He has also added what we’ll conservatively assume is a below-average curveball to add some much-needed balance to his arsenal. Now that all the ingredients are prepared, we just have to figure out how to utilize them properly.
I think the first step is to use the four-seam fastball at the top of the strike zone. I am a huge advocate for fastballs down the middle in general, but it isn’t working for Berroa. Even while spamming the heater over the heart of the plate, he has just a 59.1% strike rate with it this year. That would rank in the 8th percentile of major leaguers this year. Even with the current fastball location, he is throwing 19% of his fastballs in the waste zone.
I think this is because most of Berroa’s misses result from him missing to his glove side. If that is the case, then the command should remain largely unchanged by elevating the heater more often. If he was missing up, you would want the fastball lower, but the strike zone is a rectangle, not a triangle. Elevating shouldn’t hurt him with his misses clustered as they are presently. The fastball up would miss a lot more bats as well and actually let the 80-grade fastball play like the pitch that it is. The one-seam slider is also designed to play off of maxed out fastballs up in the zone, while still allowing the slider to breathe at the bottom because of the tightly clustered locations (mostly).
One problem with only throwing two real pitches as Prelander does is that hitters only have to be able to hit one pitch. There are no plate appearances where hitters don’t see any fastballs, and can just get bullied exclusively by the slider. This is another reason I think Prelander using the fastball down the middle is a mistake, regardless of if he listens to my other suggestions.
Four-seam fastballs are significantly worse in a vacuum when pitching down. Usually, that is worth the tradeoff of improving the secondary quality, but it’s not when hitters can just wait for relatively hittable fastballs. Two-pitch arms need to have elite pitches in a vacuum in order to succeed. Right now Berroa’s fastball does not play that way because of poor command, and he only has mediocre fastball whiff rates because he pitches down in the zone with it.
Prelander Berroa has a front of the rotation ceiling. The fastball is nearly generational, and the high spin, low-efficiency slider at 87 MPH can be special as well. Getting to that upside as a starter will take some work, but this is how I think it should be done. With this approach there will always be walks, and I don’t really think he can truly cut them out with any approach. The goal of this one is simply to maximize CSW and cripple quality contact. Throwing more strikes means he is also throwing fewer balls so it should helps walk rates to an extent. This maybe won’t turn Berroa into a front of the rotation arm, but I think my proposed adjustments will get him a regular gig in the middle of a rotation.