So Far, Homer Problems Are the Price Justin Steele is Paying for Continued Evolution

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs lefty has a unique arsenal, but as he adjusts to the reality of diminishing velocity, he's been forced to tweak it. His early struggles show the problems that come with embracing change.

Image courtesy of © Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

Over his first three starts of 2025, Justin Steele has averaged just 91.1 miles per hour on his cutter—the famous "Mississippi fastball" Steele thinks of as a four-seamer, but which still moves more like a cutter more often than not. He's losing velocity; that's not up for debate.

Learning to pitch with less heat is an unavoidable part of finding success into one's 30s, though, and since Steele will turn 30 this July, it's hardly a surprise that he's having to do so. We've talked, over the last year, about how he tried to weather this storm by using the offerings differently, and by leaning back into the three other pitches he knows: the curveball, the changeup, and the sinker. 

There's one more noticeable change he's made, which I've touched on in the past but want to flesh out here. This is the scatterplot showing Steele's movement by pitch type for 2023, courtesy of FanGraphs.

This was (unless we haven't yet seen it at all) Peak Steele. This guy still sat at 92 mph on that cutting fastball, and often touched 95. This was the Cy Young Award vote-getting version of him. I placed a marker around the center of his cluster of heaters, to give us a rough focal point for them. That was his fastball shape that year, and it was basically one offering. Pitchers often have slightly more angular scatterplots of movement for each pitch type, roughly matching their arm angle, but Steele's special skill is imparting spin and using seam effects to achieve movement his arm slot can't produce. That's why he's always been so tough to square up, for opposing batters. It's also been part of the engine for his slider's deceptiveness.

Here's the same chart for 2024.

You can see multiple changes here, most of which I've discussed at length in the pieces to which I linked above. The slider, for instance, is tighter and more consistent, and not necessarily in a good way. The fastball shape is especially compelling, though. This time, I've placed two markers, because I want us to notice the way the blob of his movement has both shifted position and changed shape. In 2024, to start using more of the zone and stay ahead of hitters who were zeroing in on his less zippy pitch mix, Steele started throwing two fastballs that (while not quite fully distinct) are different in intent and location. He's thrown more true four-seamers, with backspin and true carry toward the top of the zone to his arm side, and he's continued to throw the cutting, dippier version to the glove side of the zone. He's showing such good command of both pitches (and still that natural wrinkle that hitters can't account for) that it shows up as one continuous pitch, but there's been a change.

Now, here's his 2025 plot.

It's early yet, and much can change. When I look at this, though, I see those fastballs starting to become even more distinct, with Steele trying for a bit more arm-side movement on a subset of them and then still bearing down to steer others in on the hands of right-handed batters.

The danger, there, is that every tiny adjustment (mental, physical, positional, or a mixture thereof) you make to facilitate some run on a fastball slightly compromises your ability to achieve cut on a fastball. Steele's arm angle has dipped very slightly this year, which doesn't necessarily matter; it's not a major shift. Sometimes, though, a pitcher's arm angle dipping just a bit implies that they're having a harder time getting to their consistent, desired release point at the same angle they've always used, and in Steele's case (whether it's happening for that reason or because of intentional manipulations aimed at utilizing multiple shapes), it's led to more fastballs that carry, rather than cutting, even to the glove side. At 91 miles per hour, those fastballs can get hit hard. Just as importantly, the more of them there are, the more confidently hitters will start to distinguish the fastball from the slider. As we've seen this year, when righty batters can find any way to sit on or identify Steele's slider, they can do a lot of damage against it.

One way to see this visually is to consider the relationship between the spin axes on Steele's pitches and the movement they actually achieve. He's very good at achieving unexpected movement, of the kind a hitter struggles to see and predict. With just a tiny change in arm angle, hand position, or body position at release, though, a pitcher can lose the fine command of that relationship. Here's the comparison between Steele's spin-based movement expectation and his actual movement for 2024.

Even though he doesn't throw with an over-the-top arm action, Steele has always gotten behind the ball and imparted backspin on the ball like a higher-slot guy. Hitters see that and expect a fairly straight four-seamer, but because of Steele's grip and his release angle, the pitch usually cuts more than the spin would imply. His slider, naturally, drops less but sweeps more than the hitter expects, even if they can pick up the spin difference out of the hand.

Here's the same comparison chart for 2025, to date.

Remember, these bars reflect the frequency of movement in each of the indicated directions, not the magnitude of that movment. So, this isn't showing (for instance) that Steele is getting more two-plane movement on his slider; it's just showing that getting that true sideways veer is a bit less common. The fastball is our focus, though. Look at how much more often he's imparting spin that implies just a bit more arm-side run, this year. If he were actually achieving cutting action as often as in the past, that would be more than ok: it would make his stuff devastating. In reality, though, that's not only not happening, but is basically impossible.

If a pitcher starts to spin it in a direction that indicates a bit more run and a bit less carry or cut, even if they have seam-shifted wake on their side, they're going to achieve a bit less cut and a bit more carry when they were hunting cut. For Steele, that's going to mean more effectiveness high and to his arm side—but less command to the glove side, where that pitch really sets up his slider. If hitters know the fastball will straighten out on him a bit when he tries to work to his glove side, and if his slider tends toward sweeper shape a bit less often, he's getting much more hittable.

This doesn't all have to come from Steele trying to cleave his fastball into two pitches, either. Some of it might be about his efforts to bring along the sinker and the changeup, each of which require a bit more extension and/or pronation from his arm—exactly the opposite of the things he's trying to achieve when he throws the cutterish heater.

It might be possible for Steele to smooth all this out. As he gets better and better feel for the sinker and the change, he might be better able to stay in his mechanics properly for the fastball and slider. He might learn to manage this delicate manipulation of his pitches better as he goes. For now, though, he's in the middle of a fairly inevitable, dangerous adjustment period. It's not easy to succeed at 91 mph in the majors these days, even with left-handedness and funky shapes on your side. Steele is being forced to thread a needle, and he's not yet deft at it. Whether he can become so will be a huge question for the balance of this season, and beyond.

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