He Doesn’t Throw It Much, But Framber Valdez’ Cutter Is Lethal

Spring training camps will be opening any day now, so it’s time to take a final look back at last season with my annual “Best Pitches” series.

Let’s continue to go pitch by pitch through the arsenals of all starting pitchers who threw 135 or more innings last season and determine the game’s best – and worst – offerings. The main inputs are pitchers’ bat-missing and contact management results. Each pitch is compared to league average swing-and-miss rates and pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Scores.

Adjusted Contact Score is, on a scale where 100 equals MLB average and the lower the number the better, the relative production a pitcher “should have” allowed based on the exit speed/launch angle mix of every batted ball yielded. An average pitch gets a “B’”, and a sliding scale is applied to each pitcher’s results to approximate a bell curve.

We began earlier this week with changeups and curves. Today, it’s cutters. For the first time, I’m separating cutters from splitters, as there are finally enough of the latter to form their own category. Truth be told, this is a positive development for cutter artisans, as it just isn’t fair to compare them to their superior cousin. The average cutter swing-and-miss rate of 10.4% is better than only four-seam fastballs (9.1%) and sinkers (5.6%), while their 96.3 Adjusted Contact Score is better than only sliders (96.9), sinkers (97.3) and four-seamers (115.4). The splitter is best in both disciplines. 30 pitchers met the total pitch and batted ball requirements to get a grade (the requirements were relaxed a tad for cutters and splitters to keep the pitcher sample sizes up), with three pitchers below receiving either an “A” or “A+” grade. Two of them got “A+” grades, and both were Astros. The third, another American Leaguer from Tampa Bay, received an “A”.

LHP Framber Valdez (Astros) – A+ – (61 Adj. Contact Score, 17.4% Whiff Rate) – Valdez is known for his sinker/curve combination (his “A” curve was discussed in yesterday’s article) but his cutter was absolutely lethal in relatively limited usage (10.3%) last season. Valdez ranked 2nd among cutter qualifiers in both pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Score and whiff rate. As you might expect, Valdez’ cutter generates way more grounders than average (54.4% grounder rate compared to qualifier average of 36.1%). Unlike his other offerings, his cutter limited fly ball authority – his 58 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact score ranked 3rd among qualifiers.

Valdez throws his cutter with relatively low velocity (83.0 mph), a high spin rate (2673 rpm, 2nd among qualifiers), and relatively unremarkable horizontal (2.1 in.) and vertical (4.1 in.) movement.

RHP Luis Garcia (Astros) – A+ – (83 Adj. Contact Score, 18.6% Whiff Rate) – Garcia received an “A” grade for his cutter in 2021. Honestly, if it wasn’t being lumped in with the splitters it might have received another “A+”. His whiff rate – which still led all qualifiers – dropped from 23.2% and his Adjusted Contact Score improved from 92 in 2021. Garcia muffled batted ball authority with the pitch, posting a 63 Adjusted Fly Ball (5th among qualifiers) and 59 Adjusted Ground Ball (2nd) Contact Score.

Only Valdez threw his cutter more softly than Garcia (85.4 mph), whose spin rate (2354 rpm) was also much lower. Garcia threw his cutter with a significant amount of horizontal (2.9 in.) but very little vertical (2.0 in.) movement.

RHP Drew Rasmussen (Rays) – A – (79 Adj. Contact Score, 16.3% Whiff Rate) – The Rays have done it again. Rasmussen’s cutter ranked third among qualifiers in bat-missing and eighth, one notch ahead of Garcia, in contact management. Like Valdez, Rasmussen induced grounders (49.2% grounder rate) with the pitch. While that is a true skill, his low 15.0% liner rate allowed was more a function of random chance, and isn’t likely repeatable.

Rasmussen throws his cutter hard (90.5 mph) and with plenty of spin (2612 rpm, 4th among qualifiers) . The pitch has very limited horizontal (0.8 in.) and vertical (1.6 in.) movement. He and Garcia throw their cutters much more often than Valdez, with 32.9% and 29.4% usage rates, respectively.

Just Missed: 7 pitchers received “B+” grades for their cutters in 2022: Corey Kluber, Chris Bassitt, Tyler Anderson, Nestor Cortes, Marcus Stroman, Jameson Taillon and Zac Gallen.

Among that group, Kluber, Bassitt and Stroman were the best bat-missers, Anderson, Taillon and Gallen the best contact managers, with Kluber and Cortes throwing the pitch most often.

A special shout-out to “B” grade recipient Corbin Burnes. He threw his cutter a whopping 55.4% of the time, though it graded out in the average range in regard to both bat-missing (12.1% whiff rate) and contact management (103 Adjusted Contact Score).

The Worst Cutters: Believe it or not, the only pitcher to receive a cutter grade below “C”was Shohei Ohtani, who got a “D+”. One caveat here – his sample size was very small, and in past years his cutter and splitters totals were combined. It must be said that he allowed massive thump with the pitch posting a 178 Adjusted Contact Score, the worst for any pitch, for any pitcher. Most of the damage was done in the air (225 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score).

2021 “A” Grade Recipients: We’ve already discussed Garcia. The only other pitcher to receive an “A” for his cutter in 2021 was Walker Buehler, who didn’t pitch enough innings to qualify in 2022.

Overall, 2022’s best cutters were all quite unique. On balance, they were grounder generators thrown with a significant amount of spin, but had varying velocities and amounts of horizontal and vertical movement. Here is a table with all 2022 qualifiers’ cutter grades.