A year after lifting the Commissioner's Trophy, Atlanta finds itself in the thick of another playoff race, trailing the Mets by only one game in the NL East. Behind a young core that includes the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr., Michael Harris, Austin Riley, and Max Fried– to name only a few– Atlanta has set itself up for success now and deep into the future.
This season Max Fried and Spencer Strider have rightfully received a lot of attention as the team’s top pitchers; however, the development of Kyle Wright has been crucial for their success and deserves more attention. In the 2017 draft, Wright's name was the fifth to come off the board. While pitching in the minors, the Vanderbilt product flashed potential, leading to him being ranked as Prospects Live’s number four prospect in the Atlanta system during 2019.
When Wright first broke into the majors, success did not immediately follow. Through his first 70 innings in Atlanta, which spanned from 2018-2021, he could not find a groove posting a 6.56 ERA. However, in 2022, Wright has broken out with a 3.18 ERA through 164 innings, giving Atlanta another mid-rotation starter to count on. Let’s look at the changes he made to make this leap.
IMPROVEMENTS ON THE MOUND
For the first time in his career, Wright is pitching predominantly with his curveball, throwing it 34% of the time, compared to the previous high of 22.7% in 2018. Accompanying this increase in curveball usage has been a decrease in his slider usage (24.5% in 2018-2021 to 7.1% this season) and a decrease in combined fastball and sinker usage (50.7% in 2018-2021 to 43.4% this season).
This change has led to increased success because hitters have struggled mightily against the pitch, only mustering a .246 wOBA against it. Using Alex Chamberlain’s pitch leaderboard, it becomes evident that Wright’s increased usage coincided with impactful changes to the pitch’s shape going into this season. In 2018-2021, the pitch had an average -6.6 Induced Vertical Break with 14 inches of sweep. This season, he’s added depth to the pitch, -8.8 vertical movement, while taking away sweep, 9.6 horizontal movement. Moreover, to make the pitch even more effective, Wright has added almost five mph to the breaker’s average speed since he came into the big leagues, raising it from 80 mph in 2010 to 84.8 mph this year. These changes have allowed it to become one of his best weapons and have better underlying numbers than ever: .261 xwOBA vs. a previous best of .411 in 2020.
In his first few stints in the majors, walks plagued Wright. Through his first 70 innings, he walked 14.8% of batters that he faced. To start this season, he has more than cut that number in half, dropping it to 7.3%. Not surprisingly, Wright is currently throwing strikes at a 52.6% rate, above the league 49.5% average for the first time in his career, and for each of his pitch types, this season marks his highest zone percentage as well. Wright has gotten ahead early in the count, throwing strikes on 64.7% of first pitches. Not falling behind as often and throwing more pitches in the zone have also allowed him to strike out hitters at his best rate ever: 23.7%.
This season, the average launch angle against Wright has dropped to 4.6 degrees, which is well below the league average of 6.7 degrees. As a result, he has forced hitters into hitting the ball into the ground on 55% of batted ball events, which ranks number three for qualified pitchers in the majors. In previous seasons, his ground ball percentage hovered in the low-to-mid 40s. The aforementioned change in curveball usage along with throwing his sinker 23.4% of the time has led to the sharp increase as they are the pitches he throws with the highest ground ball percentages. This increase has been particularly beneficial because on groundballs this season he’s held hitters to a .166 wOBA while they have posted a .546 wOBA on flyballs and line drives.
AREA OF IMPROVEMENT
With his improved curveball, Kyle Wright developed a deeper arsenal of pitches. However, one key pitch still slightly holds him back: his four-seam fastball. The distributions of his pitch values depict this. As a refresher, here’s how I described pitch values in a previous article, “Run-Value is computed by determining the value of an event based on the count, outs, and runners on base. Over the course of the season, the values of the events are added up to see how many runs are created against any pitch type for a hitter (conversely how much value pitchers create can also be calculated), and it is often useful to look at as how much run production comes over 100 pitches (RV/100).”
This chart clearly shows that based on results, Wright’s four-seamer has performed worse than the rest of his pitches as it is his only negatively performing pitch. This season, he’s allowed a wOBA of .432 against the pitch; the next highest wOBA against any of his pitches is .314 against his sinker. While the pitch has struggled, he still throws it at a 20% rate. To further improve his pitch mix, he could benefit from throwing his four-seam less often and increasing the usage of one of his best pitches, his sinker.
GOING FORWARD
In his fifth major league stint, the 26-year-old has begun to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon him after his early first-round selection. This season, Wright has begun to throw his curveball more often and with a different shape, has thrown more strikes, and has generated more ground balls. All of these things have been crucial for him becoming one of Atlanta’s top pitchers and speaks to the organization’s ability to develop pitchers. If he can continue to make changes like cutting his fastball usage, he has even more potential he can unlock. The future in Atlanta is incredibly bright because of some of the big names they have locked down for the long-term; however, we cannot overlook the importance of breakouts like Wright’s for the development of sustained organizational success.