Tyler Anderson, Sandy Alcantara Lead List Of MLB’s Best Changeups

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 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.

Today, we begin with the changeups. As usual, the changeup graded out as MLB’s most effective core pitch in 2022. I say “core” pitch because for the first time, enough qualifiers threw splitters for me to “split” them away from cutters into their own category. By the measures I use here, changeups finish behind “niche” splitters. Changeups yielded an average Adjusted Contact Score of 84.4, behind only splitters at 82.9. Its 14.7% swing-and-miss rate ranked third behind splitters (18.8%) and sliders (15.5%). 45 pitchers met the total pitch and batted ball requirements to get a grade, with the eight pitchers below receiving either an “A” or “A+” grade. Two of them – the Angels’ (Dodgers in 2022) Tyler Anderson, who got the only “A+” and Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara – get top billing, due to their superior innings load and changeup frequency.

LHP Tyler Anderson (Dodgers, now Angels) – A+ – (51 Adj. Contact Score, 20.0% Whiff Rate) – Anderson always had a good changeup (”B+” grade in 2018, “B” in 2020-21), but his move to the Dodgers coincided with the pitch really taking off. His pitch-specific 51 Adjusted Contact Score was the very best among all qualifiers, and his whiff rate ranked 6th. He also threw the pitch a ton, 31.6% of the time, a frequency topped only by Pablo Lopez and Jeffrey Springs among qualifiers.

Anderson induced a ton of pop ups with his change – his 15.2% pop up rate was more than the double the qualifiers’ average of 6.7%. He also throttled fly ball authority with the pitch, as his pitch-specific Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score was 2nd best among qualifiers at 40. Anderson’s changeup velocity is among the slowest among qualifiers at 79.1 mph, and its average spin rate (1848 rpm) was on the high end, while its average horizontal (7.8 in.) and vertical (4.2 in.) movement were both below average.

RHP Sandy Alcantara (Marlins) – A – (56 Adj. Contact Score, 18.4% Whiff Rate) – The reigning NL Cy Young champ’s sinker might get most of the credit, but his changeup was his best offering in 2022. His pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Score ranked 3rd among qualifiers, while his whiff rate was tied for 10th. Alcantara’s changeup got a “B+” in 2019 and a “B” in 2021, and then took a large step forward this season, particularly on the contact management side.

His changeup is a huge grounder generator – his pitch-specific 62.3% grounder rate is way above the qualifiers’ average of 46.2%. Part of his 2022 success was due to random chance, however, as his unusually low liner rate allowed of 13.1% (21.2% qualifiers’ average) isn’t repeatable. Alcantara also muffled fly ball authority, posting a 50 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score with the pitch. His changeup had the 3rd highest spin rate (2056 rpm) among qualifiers, was thrown the hardest (91.8 mph), and had plenty of horizontal (9.5 in.) but little vertical (1.5 in.) movement.

The Other Star Pupils – The other three 162+ inning “A”-grade recipients are Shane McClanahan (Rays), Jordan Montgomery (Yankees/Cardinals) and Max Fried (Braves). McClanahan darned near received top billing with the two pitchers listed above, as his pitch-specific 23.5% whiff rate ranked 2nd among qualifiers and his 25.4% usage rate ranked just behind Alcantara’s 27.7%. Montgomery’s changeup gets an “A” grade for the 2nd consecutive season, with his whiff rate rising from 21.7% to 23.1%, and his pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Score improving from 85 to 71. Fried actually didn’t throw a changeup prior to 2022 and has already developed an “A” grade pitch, though he only threw it 14.1% of the time. His 57 Adjusted Contact Score ranked 4th among qualifiers. He throws his change with a low spin rate (1411 rpm) and very limited vertical movement (1.5 in.)

Three more pitchers with between 135-162 IP got “A” grades – the Rays’ Jeffrey Springs, Brewers’ Brandon Woodruff and Astros’ Luis Garcia. I recently wrote about Springs here. He threw his changeup a ton (35.0%) last season, and his 21.2% whiff rate ranked 5th among qualifiers. Like Fried, Springs throws his change with little spin (1415 rpm). No pitcher recorded a higher changeup whiff rate than Woodruff (27.8%) last season. He repeats as an “A” grade recipient from 2021, and got a “B” for the pitch in 2020. His change has a high spin rate (2008 rpm). Garcia’s spin rate is even higher at 2032 rpm, and his pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Score was 2nd among qualifiers at 55. He only threw the pitch 9.4% of the time, but got great results, including a 42 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score. Garcia’s change got a “B+” in 2021.

Just Missed: 6 pitchers received “B+” grades for their changeups in 2021: Julio Urias, Corey Kluber, Kyle Gibson, Martin Perez, Lucas Giolito and Jose Urquidy.

Among that group, Kluber, Perez and Giolito were the best bat-missers, Urias, Gibson and Urquidy the best contact managers, with Perez and Giolito throwing the pitch most often.

The Worst Changeups: Kyle Freeland (Rockies) got a “D” for his changeup, while Jameson Taillon (Yankees, now Cubs) got a “D+”. Freeland’s change was dead last in both pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Score (132) and whiff rate (5.8%). Taillon’s was 5th worst with regard to contact management (113), 6th worst at bat-missing (8.9%).

2021 “A” Grade Recipients: We’ve already discussed Montgomery (”A” in 2022) and Giolito (”B+”). Gerrit Cole (87, 13.0%) dropped to a “B” this time around, and Luis Castillo (87, 12.9%) dropped to a “C+”. Yusei Kikuchi didn’t pitch enough innings to qualify.

Overall, 2022’s best changeups came in all shapes and sizes, with widely varying average spin rates, though on average they tended to be thrown hard, with above average horizontal movement. Here is a table with all 2022 qualifiers’ changeup grades.