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For the Chicago Cubs, however, fastball usage is way up. After throwing 29.3 percent fastballs last season, the Cubs’ pitching staff is now throwing 37.5 percent of their pitches as fastballs, good for sixth in all of baseball.
Shota Imanaga is one of the main culprits for this rise in fastball usage. As a matter of fact, per Baseball Savant’s Run Value, Imanaga’s fastball has been the most valuable pitch in all of baseball, having accumulated eight runs worth of value to this point in the season. Nobody else even has a pitch that has been worth more than six runs.
Much was made of Imanaga’s fastball in the preseason, and the former NPB star has cashed in on that hype. He gets an elite amount of ride on the pitch, meaning that the pitch drops less than the hitter expects when they see it coming out of his hand. His 2.8 inches of vertical movement above average is fifth in baseball, and so far he has executed that pitch at the top of the strike zone perfectly. Hitters are hitting just .075 against the pitch:
Ben Brown’s unexpected early season debut is also partly the reason for the team-wide increase. The rookie fire-baller has thrown 63 percent fastballs so far in his young career. But I will save a breakdown on him for another day. The guy that I really want to talk about here is Jordan Wicks. After throwing 28.3 percent fastballs in his cup of coffee last year, the former first-round pick is throwing 48.8 percent fastballs so far this season.
Underneath the hood, Wicks looks like a completely different pitcher this season. Last year, he struck out 16.3 percent of hitters, walked 7.5 percent, and induced ground balls 46.8 percent of the time. Now? He is striking out 29.2 percent of hitters faced, walking 12.3 percent of them, and his ground ball rate is all the way down to 29.7 percent.
So what gives? The former Kansas State Wildcat has made a concerted effort to change where he attacks hitters with his fastball. Let’s take a look at his fastball locations in 2023 vs. 2024:
Clearly, Wicks has gone from attacking hitters mostly down and in with his fastball to almost exclusively throwing it up in the zone. To make this even better, he went from -0.4 inches of vertical movement vs. average on his fastball last year to 1.4 inches this year. He still has a below average fastball from a velocity standpoint, but the extra ride will help him if he intends on working up in the zone with it.
All of this helps explain the complete 180 that we have seen from Wicks in his strikeout numbers, and in his batted ball profile. Because of the emphasis on throwing his fastball up in the zone, he has unfortunately missed with it more often, throwing it in the zone just 52.9 percent of the time, down from 60.2 percent last year, according to Pitch Info stats at Fangraphs.
The flipside of that is throwing up in the zone typically results in more swing and miss. Last year, Wicks ran a 5.6 percent swinging strike rate on his fastball. He more than doubled that this year, up to 13.2 percent. The increased emphasis on the fastball has helped his swinging strike rate on his changeup jump from 15 percent to 30.2 percent.
Lastly, this helps explain the drop in ground ball rate. Obviously, when you consistently throw a pitch up in the zone, it’s going to get hit in the air often. Wicks has just an 11 percent ground ball rate and a 29 degree average launch angle on his fastball. All of his other pitches are still getting ground balls, but with the increased usage of the fastball up in the zone, his ground ball rate as a whole has plummeted.
I know I just threw a lot of numbers at you all, so let’s see if I can tie this all up with a nice bow. Jordan Wicks has almost doubled his fastball usage, and he is throwing it consistently up in the zone, instead of down and in. This all has resulted in a much better strikeout rate, but also a much worse walk rate. It’s also turned him into a fly ball pitcher.
Maybe Wicks is taking a page out of Imanaga’s book, who has had fantastic results so far this year as he has yet to allow an earned run. Wicks, on the other hand, has a 5.68 ERA. Almost any advanced statistical measure would suggest that he has been the victim of some unfortunate luck thus far and expect that his ERA will be coming down. Regardless, Jordan Wicks is experimenting, and if he can start to better manage his walks with his new approach, I believe that the increased strikeout rate will benefit him and the Cubs in the long run.
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