6'7" 240 lb Joe Boyle made the #Athletics starting rotation. Triple digit fastballs and 90 mph sliders are exciting, but can he find success in a major league rotation? 🔥 Here are my takeaways from his Spring.. A thread 🧵 1/
Walks have clearly been an issue for Boyle throughout his career. BB% '22 MiLB: 20% '23 MiLB: 17.8% '23 MLB: 8.3% 👀 '24 ST: 18.8% It was difficult to project his BB rates based off of his brief '23 debut, but his Spring likely provided the context we could expect. 2/
One interesting piece is the addition of a sweeper to his arsenal. I find it a little confusing given that his 2023 gyro graded out so well (146 wStuff+ from @TreadHQ ). And since sweepers tend to be difficult pitches to command for strikes.🤔 3/
@TreadHQ His slider performance hasn't really been the same this spring with this new profile mixed in. He's supination dominant (FB at 85% Spin eff.) which allows him to maintain velo on the sweeper, but I can't help but think that he's better suited to just throw hard gyro sliders. 4/
@TreadHQ Out of the 13 sliders he threw this spring with >10" of horizontal break, only 5 were strikes, and only one yielded a whiff. This sample size is far too small, but I like his vertical profile from '23 better than his current plot below. 5/
@TreadHQ I like the curveball he seemingly added late in '23 to use in 0-0 counts to steal strike one. It was hard at 81.4 mph and barely yielded any swings (17.6%). He was able to keep it near the zone enough for it to have the best Called Strike rate of any of his pitches. 6/
@TreadHQ I think his simplest route to throwing more strikes would be to stick to that vertical plot from '23 and have his catchers set up middle and let the movement play, similar to how the Rays simplify things. 📈 It's worked for N/S guys like Glasnow, Fairbanks, McClanahan, etc. 7/
@TreadHQ I'm interested to see how he fares with a larger sample size in the big leagues. If the rotation spot doesn't work out, he can always cut back down to just FB/SL and move to the bullpen. His stuff will still play with those kinds of profiles. 8/
@TreadHQ That’s all I’ve got! Thanks for reading! If you’ve enjoyed this thread: 1) Give the original tweet a repost 2) Give me a follow at @Okjawilan2 for more like this! x.com/Okjawilan2/sta…
@TreadHQ That’s all I’ve got! Thanks for reading! If you’ve enjoyed this thread: 1) Give the original tweet a repost 2) Give me a follow at @Okjawilan2 for more like this! x.com/Okjawilan2/sta…
@Okjawilan2 @TreadHQ The great things about debuting for the A's is nobody cares because we're going to lose 100 games anyway.