Statcast is Doing a Lousy Job of Seeing Daniel Palencia This Season. Luckily, So Are Batters.

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Last year, Daniel Palencia had a sinker. This year, he doesn't, but Statcast still thinks he does. In the past, Palencia has tinkered with a curveball, as well as his slider. He's stopped, but Statcast still thinks he's doing it. There are multiple pitch-classification systems out there, and while the league's own official system is doing a poor job of distinguishing Palencia's offerings from one another, Baseball Prospectus's system is doing just fine.

Here's what Palencia's pitch movement array looked like in 2024, according to Baseball Savant.

Here's the same readout for 2025.

There are a couple of important differences, here. Pretty plainly, the system was already misreading his softest sliders as curveballs, largely because of the velocity gap between that pitch and his fastball—which, admittedly, can be more akin to most pitchers' curves than to sliders. There have been more of those this season, but they're no less plainly sliders than before. He's just a guy who adds and subtracts significantly on his breaking ball; the system is missing that. 

Look, too, though, at the so-called sinkers he throws. That's really what they were last year, when he was not only getting more run on the sinker, but more depth, too, thanks to a slight difference in movement created by the grip (and resulting seam-shift effects), rather than spin direction. This year, there's still more run on some of his heaters, but none of them have substantially more depth than the others—and there's no discernible difference in the spin direction and the actual movement direction between the two, as there has been in the past.

No, the truth here is that Palencia is down to three pitches: four-seamer (albeit with exceptional horizontal movement variation, based mostly on location), slider, and splitter. Baseball Prospectus, with pitch classifications powered by PitchInfo rather than automated by Statcast, has it right.

The results speak for themselves. Palencia has strikeout (25%) and walk (11.4%) rates that are more good than great, but his 1.54 ERA and 0.77 WHIP aren't made of smoke and mirrors. His slider has taken a massive jump in pitch grades this year. According to StuffPro, which Prospectus offers in the form of run value per 100 pitches thrown for each pitch type (meaning that 0 is average and a negative number is better), Palencia's slider has gone from -0.7 last year to -1.4 this year.

His splitter has also improved slightly, and his four-seamer has the same grade as last year's four-seamer—but that's misleading. Last year, the four-seamer was just part of his fastball mix. He also had that sinker, which rated very poorly. With the sinker gone from the mix and the four-seamer measuring as the same quality, the overall fastball picture is a better one.

Streamlining his mix a bit has helped Palencia continue ironing out his delivery and throwing more strikes, which has pulled down his previously worrisome walk rate. He's still not missing bats at an elite level, but the strikeouts he's gotten are plenty, given the change in the quality of opponents' contact. Palencia's average exit velocity allowed in 2023 and 2024 was 91.8 mph, with a nightmarish 47.7% of opponents' batted balls topping 95 mph in exit velocity. This season, so far, those marks are 88.7 mph and 35.7%, respectively. Batters' swing speeds against him are down, and their average contact point is roughly four inches closer to their center of mass than in the past. In other words, they're just not getting the bat out to a dangerous point by the time the ball enters the hitting zone. Palencia is overpowering them, even when they do manage to put the bat on the ball.

However you break down his arsenal, Palencia is enjoying his best stretch of sustained big-league success to date. It's coming from an honest improvement in pitch quality—driven not primarily by movement changes, but by the tougher angles he presents after a move all the way to the first-base side of the rubber. Here's his average release point for each of his major pitch types in each of his big-league seasons, with 2025's circled.

From a new angle, Palencia's naturally intense stuff is playing up gorgeously. He might never strike out as many batters as you'd guess, based on all that velocity, but he's found a formula for consistent success. If he can repeat this delivery, maintain this mix and stay healthy, he could be the Cubs' relief ace before the All-Star break—let alone October, when he could also loom large.

View full article

[mul21]

Is there some way of quantifying how good pitchers are at getting called strikes that indicates a sustainable level of deception?  Like last night, he didn't get much swing and miss, but 6 of his 13 strikes were called, including both strikeout pitches.  I know there's not as much swing and miss as you'd like to see, but is the called strike thing repeatable because of the pitch mix or deception in delivery?

[Bertz]

31 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Is there some way of quantifying how good pitchers are at getting called strikes that indicates a sustainable level of deception?  Like last night, he didn't get much swing and miss, but 6 of his 13 strikes were called, including both strikeout pitches.  I know there's not as much swing and miss as you'd like to see, but is the called strike thing repeatable because of the pitch mix or deception in delivery?

Honestly I think it's less deception and more approach.  He's a guy who's always been a little wild but he is FILLING the zone this year.  I think hitters are doing the Anchorman "I don't believe you" bit about his ability to throw strikes now and getting burned.