Latest news with #Leaderboard
News.com.au
3 days ago
- General
- News.com.au
Stern Idol does it in style in the Australian Steeplechase
Star jumper Stern Idol produced a sublime display – under a modern weight-carrying record – to win the Australian Steeplechase (3900m) at Sandown on Sunday. Champion jumps jockey Steven Pateman rated the Ciaron Maher -trained 73kg top weight perfectly in pursuit of a personal milestone, the previously elusive Australian Steeplechase crown. Pateman boasted just about every other domestic jumps feature, including Australian Hurdle (four), Grand National Steeple (four), Grand National Hurdle (four) and Grand Annual Steeple (three), but an Australian Steeplechase win had eluded him before Sunday. He largely dictated the Australian Steeple aboard Stern Idol from on or close to the speed and then fended off the gallant runner-up Leaderboard, trained by Mark Walker, in the home straight. Not Usual Dream and Heir To The Throne rounded out the top four. Leaderboard enjoyed an economical steer from Will Gordon and 7kg weight advantage on Stern Idol. Stern Idol soars to victory in the Australian Steeplechase! ðŸ'¥ Trained by Ciaron Maher and expertly ridden by Steve PatemanðŸ�†ðŸ�Ž — Australian Jumps Racing Association (@AusJumpsRacing) June 1, 2025 Pateman lauded Stern Idol's performance. 'I wasn't leading from the get go and I was happy for that to unfold,' Pateman said. '73kg leading all the way could've been his undoing. He was awesome. 'It was pretty lonely after the last with 73kg, knowing the second horse had (seven) kilos less. 'He was weighed down, he maintained the gallop but couldn't go any faster because of the weight. 'I was thinking 'I'd never won this race' … the Australian Hurdle and Australian Steeple are absolutely time-honoured events, it's super special.' Bit Of A Lad, saddled by Maher and former co-trainer David Eustace at the time, carried 70kg to win the 2020 Australian Steeple. Mazzacano (2009) lumped 69.5kg, while Thubiaan (2015) and Vindicating (2011) had 69kg handicaps. Pateman said Stern Idol benefited from a campaign – a flat run and two hurdle starts – tailored to the 'target' Australian Steeple. 'He could've run in steeplechases earlier in the year and carried big weights and might've won one but too hard all the time,' he said. 'Today was a target, the way he settled he knew where he was, he knew the trip he had to run out and he was really chill.' Sadly, Treasured Crown failed to finish and was humanely euthanized due a catastrophic leg injury. The second favourite sustained the injury upon landing after the second last jump. Jockey William McCarthy was uninjured. Meanwhile, Australia's emerging jumps star The Cunning Fox claimed the Australian Hurdle (3900m) from Highland Blaze and Affluential. The Patrick and Michelle Payne -trained jumper is undefeated in six starts over the obstacles. The six-year-old gelding was ridden to victory by his regular rider Tom Ryan. The Cunning Fox remains perfect â�ï¸� — (@Racing) June 1, 2025
NBC Sports
7 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Starting Pitcher News: Kevin Gausman has found his splitter, has Edward Cabrera found command?
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to determine if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth investing in or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also features a great strike zone plot, which allows you to see how the entire arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, I feel like we do this dance every year with Edward Cabrera. We know the raw talent is intriguing, but the lack of refinement on Cabrera's pitches has caused him to constantly walk too many hitters, put himself in bad situations, and torpedo his ratios. Well, perhaps a few mechanical and pitch mix changes have helped to more permanently move the 27-year-old in the right direction. Over his last four starts, Cabrera has posted a 2.53 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, with 23 strikeouts and five walks. Now, three of those starts were against the Angels, Athletics, and White Sox, but Cabrera's start against the Cubs was solid, and the 23/5 K/BB ratio is really what we care most about, and that's lineup agnostic. So what might be leading our latest potential breakout for Cabrera? For starters, if you look at Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard below, you can see that Cabrera has dropped his arm angle by six degrees this year. That's a pretty major shift, and has made his arsenal more east-west and less north-south. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard One of the pitches it has helped is his sinker, which now has more armside run. That's important because his sinker has now also become his most-used fastball. In 2024, Cabrera used the sinker to righties 12% of the time. That's up to 29.3% in 2025. His zone rate has also jumped from 35.6%, with a 57% strike rate, to a 58% zone rate with a 69% strike rate in 2025. Perhaps the lower arm angle is making him feel more confident in his sinker command, but that improvement in zone rate is much needed for Cabrera, and he now has a league-average true first pitch strike rate on the sinker. While league-average may not seem that special to you, it's very special for Edward Cabrera when it comes to a command stat. Cabrera has also been using the sinker more against lefties as well. It gets hit harder than against righties, but he commands it well in the zone against lefties, so that's still a net positive for him. He's still using his four-seam fastball nearly 50% of the time early in counts to lefties, and it remains a below-average pitch, so his future performance against lefties is something we're going to need to keep an eye on. However, his changeup remains a strong pitch and one that should help keep the boat afloat against lefties. The other two major changes are that Cabrera is using his slider more this year, and the lower arm angle has led to far more movement on his curve. The wild part is that, despite its major shift in movement profile, the curve has basically the same zone rate, same strike rate, and same swinging strike rate (SwStr%) as last year. However, it's allowing far less hard contact, and the loopier movement profile has caused a jump in SwStr% to lefties and more success in two-strike counts against opposite handed hitters. That likely ties into his slider usage changing. With a curve that will get swinging strikes to lefties, Cabrera can now focus his slider to get swinging strikes to righties. The pitch has always been solid for Cabrera, but this year he seems less focused on burying it low-and-away from righties and more focused on keeping it in the lower half of the strike zone but not caring if it's on the outside corner or not. The SwStr% against righties has jumped from 14% to 22%, and it's been far more successful in two-strike counts. It may just be a small sample size, but it's worth noting. So this version of Edward Cabrera can get ahead in the zone more often, is limiting hard contact by reducing his four-seam usage, and has a good two-strike pitch for both righties and lefties. That's a version we can work with. The volatility remains, and we know this strong stretch is only four starts against (mostly) mediocre competition, but we have to like what Cabrera is doing under the hood, and that makes him worth a stash in deeper formats. Will Warren has been on quite a run in May, posting a 2.70 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and 36% strikeout rate over five starts, so I wanted to dig in to see if anything had meaningfully changed that might have led to this success. Obviously, some of it is facing the Rays, Rockies, Athletics, and Mariners in Seattle, which is one of the most pitcher-friendly ballparks in baseball, but there might be something else going on as well. I used the Pitcher List game log to see if Warren's pitch mix had changed, and we can see that he started to shift his curve and sweeper usage to lefties in May. Pitcher List In May, he has used his curveball 14% of the time to lefties, as opposed to 7% in six starts in April, and his sweeper usage has dropped to 15% against lefties from 24% in April. We've also seen his four-seam usage tick up from 39% in April to 49% in May. Those all seem to be meaningful changes, and his curveball on the season has posted a 23% SwStr% to lefties, so using it more often makes sense. Now, it has just a 7% zone rate. Yes, you read that right, so it's not a pitch he's commanding well in the zone, but he does a nice job of burying it under the zone, so if he can get ahead, it's been a great strikeout pitch with a 23% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch ends in a strikeout. In May, Warren is throwing his curve to lefties 76% of the time in two-strike counts, so it's clear he notices this too. On the other hand, the sweeper has not been a good pitch to lefties, which makes sense because sweepers tend to struggle against opposite-handed hitters. On the season, Warren's sweeper has a 5% SwStr% and 47% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) to lefties, so dialing back the usage of it makes sense. He has also changed WHEN he uses it, throwing it 70% of the time early in the count in May, which is a big bump from the 42% mark in April. He has a 42% early called strike rate on the sweeper in May, so limiting it as a surprise called strike pitch, which also allows him to throw some backdoor sweepers on the outside corner, makes some sense. The increased four-seam usage is a bit less logical to me since the pitch has been fairly average against lefties this season, but I did notice that he has kept it lower in the zone in May. On the season, Warren has thrown his four-seamer up in the zone 45% of the time to lefties, but that has been lowered to 34% over his last five starts. That could be matchup dependent, or he could be trying to limit hard contact allowed by keeping the pitch low in the zone, which has worked since he's allowed a .192 average and .267 wOBA on the four-seamer to lefites over his last five starts. Since Warren's sweeper eats up righties and his four-seamer does a good job of limiting hard contact against them, this jump in performance against lefties has made the 25-year-old a bit more stable. There will be ups and downs because he's a rookie pitcher, and it's hard to have sustained success in the big leagues, but this version of Will Warren should pitch deeper into games and be good for an ERA between 3.60 and 4.00 with a solid strikeout rate. That works in pretty much all formats. Listen, I was banging the drum for Gavin Williams incessantly this spring, so I understand that I might be a bit 'in the bag' for the 6'6" right-hander and might not have the most unbiased view. However, Williams put together a really strong three-game stretch before his start on Monday against the Dodgers (more on that later), and I think he is a very different pitcher than he was to start the season. Primarily for one reason: the cutter is back! We waited a few weeks longer than we wanted to, but Gavin Williams finally brought his cutter back into the fold and started to go to it far more often in his recent starts. In the spring, Williams told me that the cutter he was throwing last year was a mistake pitch that came from struggling to find the shape on his slider. However, the cutter is such an important pitch for his arsenal because of how it masks some of Williams' command issues. Williams has tons of juice on his four-seam fastball with a 97 mph average and 12.4% SwStr%, but it's just an average zone rate pitch, and he struggles to get ahead with it. His secondaries are also primarily for swings and missed, so utilizing the cutter allows Williams to get ahead in the count more consistently. In his last two starts, he has pounded the zone early with the cutter, which sets up the sweeper or curve as his swing-and-miss pitches. Or even his four-seam fastball. The Dodgers' start was a struggle for him because the command of his sweeper and curveball was off. He consistently got into two-strike counts, which is great, but he didn't have his breaking balls to finish off hitters, so he got into plenty of long at-bats, and the Dodgers fouled off tons of cutters and four-seamers. While it wasn't a great outing, it was great to see Williams get ahead so consistently, and he racked up 15 whiffs in 4.2 innings, which was also a positive. The version of Williams we saw in April wouldn't have lasted two innings in that start. If he has command or just one of those breaking balls on Monday, it's likely a solid outing overall. The other interesting wrinkle for Williams has been the introduction of a sinker. He threw four on May 21st and seven against the Dodgers, so this isn't a major addition for him; however, it's another fastball variation that he hopes to throw for strikes to keep right-handed hitters off of his four-seam fastball. So far, the pitch averages 95.6 mph with nine inches of vertical break and 16 inches of arm-side run. Of his 11 thrown this season, six have been for strikes, and he has allowed one single off of it. It won't be a swinging strike pitch, but it should give righties yet another fastball variation to think about, which will allow the four-seam fastball to play up and allow him to get ahead in the count more. All in all, these changes raise Williams' floor and bring him closer to the pitcher we hoped he'd be this spring. Trevor Rogers has, sadly, become more remembered for being a part of Baltimore's botched trade deadline and off-season moves this year than for his solid MLB debut with the Marlins back in 2021. However, the left-hander returned to an MLB mound this past weekend after battling an off-season knee injury and looked, well, kind of interesting. For starters, he sat 93.3 mph with his four-seam fastball, which was up from 92.1 mph last year. It's not quite the near-95 mph version of him we saw in 2021, but it's moving in the right direction. As you can see from Kyle Bland's awesome chart below, the pitch registered a 70% zone rate and 28% CSW, with slightly more vertical movement and less arm-side run than before. It has the makings of a pretty solid foundational offering. Rogers also heavily dialed back on the use of his sinker, which he threw 24% of the time last year and 23% of the time to right-handed hitters. In his first start, he threw only eight of them total and two to righties. That's good because the sinker last year had a 3.7% SwStr% to righties with a nearly 50% ICR. It was the worst pitch in his arsenal, and so getting rid of it to right-handed hitters is something we like to see. Another change Rogers seemed to make was to add a new sweeper. Granted, he threw it just three times over the weekend, but two of them were to righties, which is a bit confusing. The sweeper was 77.7 mph with 15 inches of horizontal break and little vertical drop. It got one called strike and was thrown out of the zone twice, but a sweeper like that usually would not be a good idea to opposite-handed hitters, so I have to think he's trying to use it to set up his harder, tighter slider for swings and misses. The added velocity on the four-seamer is nice, and dialing back the usage on the sinker is also good. We also have to think the Orioles will give him another chance soon, given how bad their rotation has been. Still, even if he does get another look, I'm not seeing enough here that makes me think 2021 Trevor Rogers is around the corner. Or even in the same neighborhood. Oh, Kevin Gausman, how you drive me mad. I was a little down on Gausman last year because of the hard contact he has always allowed, but not nearly down on him as much as it turned out that I needed to be. I then spent the early part of spring training buying into a resurgence for Gausman because there were rumors he was adding a sinker or cutter to help protect his four-seam fastball. I took some late shares in early drafts, but then neither of those pitches showed up, and he had a 4.59 ERA and pedestrian 23% strikeout rate in his first nine games. I figured this was going to be 2024 all over again, and I cut Gausman in a shallow league. Then, lo and behold, Gausman happened to 'find' his old splitter after his poor start against the Rays and has now allowed one run on eight hits in his last 15 innings while striking out 15 and walking nobody. Cool. As you can see from the chart above, Gausman's splitter in his start on Monday against the Rangers had 4.5 inches more vertical drop than before with less arm-side break. In essence, it moved more straight down, which is exactly how he had it moving in years past. 'For whatever reason, my fingers want to have a mind of their own,' Gausman told The Athletic. 'Kind of do whatever they want. So, you know, it's just kind of reminding them to stay put.' Kevin Gausman games with at least 11 splitter whiffs: Previous 40 starts through May 15th - Three. Last two starts including today - Two. He's back. I certainly wish he had told them that a few weeks ago, but this version of Kevin Gausman with his long-lost splitter grip feels like it can be close to the 2023 version that posted a 3.16 ERA and 31% strikeout rate. Now, that version still had a 1.18 WHIP and gave up a lot of hard contact, so it's not a perfect pitcher, but it's an infinitely better version than we saw last year. Just keep in mind that splitter movement and location can come and go on a whim, and we've seen over the last year and a half that Gausman simply doesn't have enough to be fantasy relevant if the splitter leaves him. Just cross your fingers for a happy reunion, but don't be afraid to cut bait if the grip wanders away again.
NBC Sports
14-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Starting Pitcher News: Cade Horton debuts, why you shouldn't cut Sandy Alcantara
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to see if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth buying into or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also has a great strike zone plot feature, which allows you to see how the whole arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, Much like the man who is the cover image for this article, Sandy Alcantara, Tony Gonsolin missed all of the 2024 season while recovering from injury. However, unlike Alcantara, Gonsolin did make it back for three minor league starts last season and was considerably ahead of Alcantara in the recovery process, which may be why we're not seeing the same command issues from the Dodgers' starter. However, what we are seeing is increased velocity, a new slider shape, and a clear change in attack plan. For starters, Gonsolin is averaging 93.5 mph on his four-seam fastball. He sat at 94.1 mph in his second start, but was back down to 93.5 on Sunday, which is still up from the 92.4 mph that he averaged back in 2023. Also, his slightly higher arm angle, which you can see below in Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard, has led to less arm-side run on the four-seamer. The vertical approach angle on the pitch is relatively similar, but he's using up in the zone to right-handed hitters more often this season. That has led to a 4% jump in swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and a huge jump in two-strike chase rate, despite allowing more hard contact, which is a trade off that we might be willing to make. It's only been three starts, but the added velocity and new attack plan are beneficial changes, if they stick around. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard We can also see from the chart above that Gonsolin has a slightly different shape on his slider and has also changed the usage of that pitch as well. It's only been three starts, so some of this could be the product of a small sample size or the subtle change in his arm angle, but Gonsolin's slider is over one mph harder and has added a bit of horizontal break and almost two inches of vertical drop. The pitch grades out much worse according to PLV, but that uses location in the grading process, so it may be influenced by Gonsolin having a worse strike rate and zone rate on the slider in 2025. I think some of that may have to do with his new attack plan with the pitch. Gonsolin is using the slider 8% more against righties overall in 2025, but is also using it more often in two-strike counts than he did previously, while cutting back on his two-strike splitter use. The PutAway Rate on the slider, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout, has jumped from 11% in 2023 to 38.5% in 2025. That's a massive leap and might be because Gonsolin is keeping the pitch low in the zone more often this year, which has paired well with him throwing his fastball up in the zone more often. As we've seen from many pitchers in the past, using the fastball up to elevate a hitter's eye-line and then spamming breaking balls low and out of the zone is often a good strategy. Gonsolin has also slightly changed the shape of the splitter, throwing it 1.3 mph harder with a bit more drop but less movement overall. That has allowed him to keep the pitch in the zone more often, and he doesn't seem as focused on burying it low. So far, that has worked, with the pitch returning a 24.6% SwStr% and just a 25% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) for the season. The added velocity is the big story here, and if Gonsolin can stick around 94 mph, that will be a big boost for him, especially if he continues to go upstairs in the zone more often. However, we need to note that he faced the Marlins twice and then got 19 called strikes against the Diamondbacks on Sunday with only seven whiffs. That tells us that his pitches weren't fooling them when they did swing, but Arizona was either confused by the release of the pitches or was simply being overly passive on Sunday. All in all, I think these minor changes are enough to keep Gonsolin interesting as a streamer in shallow leagues and a guy who you have to hold on your roster in deeper formats, but I'm not sure he's going to be able to keep producing at this level against good offenses. Cade Horton is one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, and he made his major league debut against the Mets on Saturday, allowing three runs on four hits in four innings while striking out five. Horton showcased a five-pitch mix; however, he primarily utilized his sweeper and four-seam fastball in the first outing. It's that fastball I want to talk about first. As you can see from Kyle Bland's chart below, Horton's fastball averaged 95.3 mph in his debut with nearly 15 inches of vertical break and one inch of glove side movement. If you read that over a few times, yes, you're right, that's basically a cutter with below average 6.2 feet of extension. When you come to understand the fastball as a cutter, then Horton's plan for the pitch makes a little more sense. Against righties, he threw the pitch in the upper third of the strike zone just 7% of the time and used it glove side 70%, so he's keeping it middle or low and away almost all the time. Against lefties, he threw it up in the zone 39% of the time and used it inside 28% of the time, which makes it seem pretty clear that he wants to keep it away from them and ensure hitters stay off the barrel. I think he could honestly use it inside to lefties even more, but he had a nearly 60% zone rate on the fastball against righties, so it doesn't matter to me if we call it a cutter or a four-seamer because he can use it to get ahead in the count. Once he does get ahead in the count, especially against righties, he's going to go to his sweeper, which was 83.2 mph with nearly 12 inches of glove-side movement and a little over one inch of drop. Pitcher List It missed plenty of bats at Triple-A this season, and had five whiffs and a 26% CSW against the Mets on Saturday. He'll primarily use it against right-handed hitters and threw it in two-strike counts 45% of the time on Saturday with a better-than-league-average PutAway Rate. However, he will also mix the sweeper in against lefties, throwing it 71% of the time early in the count and doing a good job of jamming lefties inside. That's a dangerous approach and something I think we see him adapt as he pitches more in the big leagues because down-and-in sweepers to lefties will lead to home runs. Part of why I think we'll see him adapt his approach to lefties is that we saw a few decent curveballs and changeups on Saturday, and he threw those two pitches exclusively to lefties. He got Brandon Nimmo to strike out on a curve in his first inning of work, and Juan Soto swung and missed on a beautiful changeup, which was the only one Horton threw on the day. Those two pitches will be central to his development because the fastball/sweeper combination will be enough against righties, but he needs one of the curve or changeup to take a step forward to handle lefties at this level. After one start, I believe we could see that happen. Remember that Horton was an elite prospect who crushed minor league hitters. He didn't have to use his third or fourth-best pitch often to get through a lineup. That may mean those pitches aren't as refined, but it also may just mean he doesn't have as much confidence in them. That doesn't necessarily mean they're bad pitches, just underutilized ones. If he continues to throw changeups like the one he did to Soto, he may start to see that it works and begin to have more faith in using it against big league hitters. He seems to have the tools but needs to refine the game plan. Two starts coming up against the White Sox and Marlins should help with that When the Red Sox traded Quinn Priester at the start of the season, it was a bit of a surprise. Their rotation had a handful of injury concerns, and teams always need starting pitching depth as the season goes on. However, it became pretty clear early on that the emergence of Hunter Dobbins is a big reason why the Red Sox felt they could move on from Priester. Dobbins is a former 8th-round pick out of Texas Tech, who fell in the draft after needing Tommy John surgery in his final year of college. He has been solid in the minor leagues, posting a 3.67 ERA across High-A and Double-A in 2023 and then a 3.08 ERA in 125.2 innings across Double-A and Triple-A last year. However, there was little to suggest he could have immense success against MLB hitters until he made a few changes heading into the 2025 season. For starters, Dobbins is another Red Sox pitcher who has seen a velocity jump. On the season, he's averaging 95 mph on his four-seam fastball and was up to 96.1 in his last start against the Royals. When he first entered pro ball, his four-seam fastball sat around 92 mph. He gets average extension on it and average vertical movement on the pitch, but he's able to pound the zone with above-average zone rates and strike rates. He'll use it up-and-away against lefties, but tries to keep it low against righties and use it to get ahead in the count. That ability to command the fastball sets up a tremendous foundation for Dobbins, but it's been the expansion of the rest of his arsenal that has taken his performance to another level. This off-season, the Red Sox tinkered with Dobbin's splitter. He had some trouble commanding it in the minors, so they opted to turn it into more of a splinker, which is a sinker with a bit more drop. The pitch is 90.7 mph with 13 inches of arm-side run but just three inches of drop. He uses it 27% of the time to lefties, but barely throws it to righties. While the pitch still has below-average zone rates, it currently has a 60th-percentile strike rate and has thrived in two-strike counts. In those counts, Dobbins has a 64% chase rate on the splinker with a 27% PutAway rate, which has made it and the curveball his two main pitches for lefties to get swinging strikes. To get out righties, Dobbins also made a change this off-season, splitting his slider into two pitches: an 86 mph version he'll use to both righties and lefties and an 80 mph sweeper he uses for just righties. The sweeper has nearly 14 inches of horizontal movement and two inches of drop, compared to the harder slider, which has seven inches of horizontal bite and just over one inch of drop. You can see on the pitch chart below how the slider (purple) and sweeper (pink) approach the batter at similar angles and have only slightly different movement profiles, which should help to create some deception against right-handed hitters, who he rarely throws his curve (blue) to. The sweeper does have a 20% SwStr% to righties, and he uses it 42% of the time in two-strike counts, while the slider is a pitch he used 76% of the time early in counts to righties to help steal strikes and keep hitters off his four-seam fastball. It's a pitch mix that works because of its depth and ability to attack all quadrants of the strike zone. Dobbins is unlikely to post huge strikeout totals, but he has an above-average 13% SwStr% and 33% ICR through four starts, so he has shown the ability to miss bats and keep hitters off the barrel. Part of that is because he has a five-pitch mix where nothing grades out as a below-average pitch. Nothing grades out as exceptional either, but he can mix five solid offerings and have at least three pitches that he can use to hitters of either handedness. That's a recipe we've seen work for plenty of pitchers in the past, like Chris Bassitt or Tobias Myers. With Tanner Houck struggling and potentially an option to be sent to the minors, there is a chance for Dobbins to keep his spot in the Red Sox rotation even after Walker Buehler comes back. He's likely nothing more than a streamer in fantasy baseball, but he could be a good one in deeper formats. You're going to look at Alcantara's season-long stats of an 8.10 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, and 6% K-BB% and think, 'Of course I should drop him.' I know a lot of other people are out there telling you that he is, but I don't agree. Sandy Alcantara has command issues right now. That should be obvious, and nobody is debating that. His 12.5% walk rate is the highest he's posted since he made eight starts in 2018. He's getting behind in the count almost 3% more than in his last full MLB season, and his first pitch strike rate is down nearly 8%. His overall zone rate is basically the same, but his strike rate and swing rates against are way lower than before, and his chase rate is down 12%. All of this paints a pretty clear picture that he's still throwing pitches in the zone but not in the right spots. The precision of his command is just a bit off, so he's not enticing hitters to chase out of the zone or hitting the corners of the strike zone in the way he did before. While that would normally be alarming, we're talking about a pitcher who has made eight starts after missing all of last season following Tommy John surgery. We know command/control is the last thing to come back after Tommy John. We've been told this a thousand times. Now, here we are seeing a pitcher whose command and movement are not as crisp as they were before surgery, and we're in a full-on panic. We don't need to be, and here's why. In his last start against the White Sox, Alcantara averaged 97.4 mph on his sinker and touched 99.9 mph. Back in 2022, his sinker averaged 97.8 mph and was 97.6 mph in 2021. We're now firmly back in the normal range for Alcantara from a velocity standpoint. I know his four-seam velocity is down one mph, but that pitch also has nearly four inches more arm-side break than it did before surgery, so I think we're seeing some velocity be sacrificed because of the added movement. I'm not sure that's intentional. It may just be about how he's releasing the ball or his arm angle, but the point is simply that we're not seeing any meaningful changes for Alcantara with his velocity, and that's important. What we are seeing is a major issue with the command of his changeup. Back in 2022, the changeup was his most-used pitch at 28%, and he had a 39% zone rate and 67.5% strike rate. This season, he has just a 33% zone rate and 55% strike rate, so we've seen him go to his four-seamer and sinker more often as he struggles to command the changeup. The good news is that the changeup still has a 17.5% SwStr% and minuscule 32% ICR, so he's getting swings and misses and not getting hit hard, even though he's not commanding the pitch like we're used to seeing. Again, something we should have expected coming off Tommy John surgery. Another interesting wrinkle for Alcantara is that he has brought in a new pitch this year with a curveball/sweeper. Unfortunately, that was the pitch that Tim Elko hit for a three-run home run on Sunday when Alcantara hung it over the plate, but I think the pitch is a solid addition for him. In 2023, Alcantara had his hard slider, which he threw at 89.9 mph, which means that he had four pitches, and all of them were 90 mph or harder. This new curve/sweeper is 85.7 mph, so it adds a different velocity band to his arsenal. It also has five inches more drop than the slider, so, as you can see from Kyle Bland's chart above, it should pair relatively well with the harder slider, which will come out of his hand similarly but drop less and get on the hitter a little quicker. It's still early, but the curveball has been a solid swing-and-miss weapon to right-handed hitters with a 24.4% SwStr%; however, it does get hit hard when he can't locate it properly. All of which is to say, Alcantara has all the makings of the pitcher we knew before, but with an added wrinkle in a new curveball that can get swings and misses on its own and also make his slider play up a little more. His biggest obstacle right now is simply finding the feel of his pitches again and ironing out his command. Given what we know about the recovery from Tommy John, I think it's very likely that we see a version of Sandy Alcantara that feels very familiar by the middle of June, so I'm holding him in leagues where I have him and picking him up on the wire if somebody drops him.
Business Wire
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Bidgely Surpasses 1.5 TWh of Energy Savings, Offsetting 1M Tons of CO2 Emissions
LOS ALTOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Bidgely today announced that its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solutions have accumulated over 1.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) in energy savings, equivalent to offsetting over 1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Bidgely's 1.5 TWh in energy savings was achieved through the collective efforts of a growing customer base across all fuel types — gas, electric, dual fuel and even water — leveraging the company's UtilityAI™ Platform to boost energy efficiency through enhanced customer engagement strategies. This achievement, fueled by our financial strength, continued leadership, and dedication to consistently delivering customer value, is a milestone we are excited to share with the market. Share This milestone follows Bidgely's rising 'Leader' status on Guidehouse Research's latest Home Energy Management (HEM) Leaderboard, which recognized the company's expanding offerings for home energy reports (HERs), time-of-use (TOU) initiatives and managed electric vehicle (EV) charging. According to the report, ' the company's dedication to expanding its platform capabilities, reaching new clients, and delivering quality services suggests that it will remain a Leader in the HEMS market for the foreseeable future.' The company's customer engagement strategies, including personalized consumption insights, energy profiling and behavioral load shifting, also ranked Bidgely a 'Leader' on Guidehouse Research's 2023 Customer Experience and Engagement Analytics leaderboard as well as IDC MarketScape's 2023 and 2021 Customer Engagement Vendor Assessments. The impact of achieving over 1.5 TWh of energy savings is equal to offsetting CO2 emissions for one year from: Over 1 billion pounds of coal burned Nearly 2.5 million barrels of oil consumed Nearly 121 million gallons of gas consumed Industry-Leading Home Energy Management and Customer Engagement Bidgely's patented disaggregation and UtilityAI™ platform helped utilities like Avista, NV Energ y, Pacific Power, PSEG Long Island, Southern California Gas among others unlock real-time energy usage insights from raw meter data to drive smarter energy consumption through a suite of customized solutions, including: Home Energy Management Program: 360-degree view of household energy use, broken down by appliance and usage patterns. Home Energy Reports: Personalized, dollar-based reports with easy-to-understand energy-saving recommendations. Customer Experience & Engagement: Multi-channel customer connection via smart alerts, web portals, and call center staff equipped with one-click consumption analytics. Combined, these tools created a journey for homeowners to gain new visibility into their highest-impact appliances in order to better focus their energy-saving efforts, i.e. adjusting thermostat settings or upgrading to more efficient appliances. 'This achievement, fueled by our financial strength, continued leadership, and dedication to consistently delivering customer value, is a milestone we are excited to share with the market,' said Bidgely CEO Abhay Gupta. 'The future of energy isn't just about grids and power—it's about people, resilience and intelligent action. Bidgely is helping create a world where utilities don't just manage demand—they anticipate and shape it.' Beyond Energy Efficiency — Driving Greater Savings Through Smart Load Shaping By strategically evolving and expanding its product suite, Bidgely's 1.5 TWh in energy savings is also a result of empowering utilities to boost enrollment in key load shaping and load shift programs. Bidgely's granular targeting of high-grid-impact customers unlocked the full potential of TOU rates, demand response and managed EV charging for its utility customers, while its recent GenAI integration enhances the accessibility and scalability of these programs. 'Achieving 1.5 TWh is more than a number; it's a demonstration of the future of energy management,' said Gautam Aggarwal, chief revenue officer at Bidgely. 'The precision and effectiveness of data-driven customer targeting activates unprecedented levels of efficiency and grid stability that will be instrumental for thriving in shifting dynamics of the energy industry.' To learn why utilities are using Bidgely's AI-powered solutions to enhance energy efficiency and customer engagement, download the report: Guidehouse Research Leaderboard: Home Energy Management Systems Providers. About Bidgely Bidgely is an AI-powered SaaS Company accelerating a clean energy future by enabling energy companies and consumers to make data-driven energy-related decisions. Powered by our unique patented technology, Bidgely's UtilityAI™ Platform transforms multiple dimensions of customer data - such as energy consumption, demographics, and interactions - into deeply accurate and actionable consumer energy insights. We leverage these insights to empower each customer with personalized recommendations, tailored to their individual personality and lifestyle, usage attributes, behavioral patterns, purchase propensity, and beyond. From a distributed energy resources (DER) and grid edge perspective, Bidgely is advancing smart meter innovation with data-driven solutions for solar PVs, electric vehicle (EV) detection, EV behavioral load shifting and managed charging, energy theft, short-term load forecasting, grid analytics, and time of use (TOU) rate designs. Bidgely's UtilityAI™ energy analytics provides deep visibility into generation and consumption for better peak load shaping and grid planning, and delivers targeted recommendations for new value-added products and services. With roots in Silicon Valley, Bidgely has over 16 energy patents, $75M+ in funding, retains 30+ data scientists, and brings a passion for AI to utilities serving residential and commercial customers around the world. For more information, please visit or the Bidgely blog at
NBC Sports
30-04-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Starting Pitcher News: Nick Lodolo's strong start, who is Ben Casparius?
It's Wednesday, which means it's time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I'll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch. The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher's outlook. Only now, I won't just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to see if the recent results are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth buying into or if they're just mirages. Each week, I'll try to cover change for at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you'll find it useful, so let's get started. Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he's now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also has a great strike zone plot feature, which allows you to see how the whole arsenal plays together. I'll also use Alex Chamberlain's awesome work with his Pitch Leaderboard. Matthew Pouliot, After years of injuries and inconsistencies, are we finally getting the Nick Lodolo that we anticipated back when he was a prospect? Lodolo carved up the minor leagues, with a 2.70 ERA and 1.09 WHIP in 96.2 minor league innings, where he also struck out 149 batters and walked just 22. Yes, a 149:22 K:BB ratio. Yet, due to multiple injuries and some confounding trouble with command, Lodolo has a 4.24 career MLB ERA in 289 innings with 91 walks to 326 strikeouts. This season, however, he has come out like a house on fire, registering a 2.25 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, and 26:4 K:BB ratio in 36 innings through six starts. So, how has he done it? For starters, Lodolo is healthy now, which is great news after pitching just 115.1 innings last year and 34.1 innings the year before that. He has also made some minor shifts in his pitch mix, dialing back the use of his four-seamer and leaning into both the changeup and sinker more. Pitcher List As you can see from Kyle Bland's chart, in Lodolo's last start against the Rockies, he went to his sinker far more than his fastball despite facing all right-handed batters. He keeps the sinker high and outside to righties, which allows it to miss slightly more bats than the average sinker, but it does have a 41% ICR, which is only slightly better than league average. All things considered, it's about a league average pitch, but should set the four-seamer up to miss more bats up in the zone if hitters get used to seeing the sinker and then get the four-seamer upstairs. Lodolo seems to agree, which is why his four-seam fastball has been in the top third of the zone 10% more to righties this year. However, it's not missing many bats, and a lot of that could be that the sinker and four-seamer are basically the same velocity with minimal movement differences, so it's not enough to fool hitters. What has been a nice change for Lodolo this year has been using the changeup more often. Last year, he threw the pitch 16% of the time, but he's using it 23% of the time this year. He also seems to have tightened up the movement on it, taking off some of the horizontal run and adding a touch more drop. That could also be helping him command the pitch better since he has a 40% zone rate and 71% strike rate on the changeup this year after posting a 35% zone rate and 64% strike rate last year. He's also been using it more in two-strike counts and keeping it arm-side almost 10% more, which is helping his PutAway rate on the pitch in those two-strike counts. The pitch models like this new version of the changeup, and so do I. He also seems to have taken off some of the horizontal movement on his curveball as well this season, which had me thinking that there might be a bigger change behind all of this. Turns out, there might be. As you can see from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard, Lodolo has now dropped his arm angle for the third straight season. Perhaps that's simply an angle he feels better pitching from. We talked about how Matthew Boyd changed his arm angle this season to let pitches move more naturally rather than force a movement profile onto them. That might be what Lodolo is doing here too. Perhaps lowering his arm slot allows him to command the changeup and curve more effectively because they move slightly less East-West. What we do know is that Lodolo has a career-high zone rate, is getting ahead of hitters more regularly than he ever has, and has a career-high strike rate. The issue is that increased command has so far come at the expense of strikeouts since he has a career-low swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and strikeout rate. Yet, looking at his approach and his pitch shapes, I think Lodolo still has the arsenal to post a 25% strikeout rate. He just needs to figure out how to optimize this new pitch mix and maybe address the lack of velocity and shape difference between his sinker and four-seamer. Matthew Liberatore is another former well-regarded prospect who has not lived up to expectations but is taking a step forward in 2025. Liberatore was not the level of prospect that Lodolo was, but he debuted with St. Louis at 22 years old, and many people assumed he would be a fixture in their rotation for a while. So far, he's pitched to a 4.73 ERA and 1.36 WHIP in 96 MLB appearances with only 29 starts. Yet, here he is with a 3.19 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, and 23.1% strikeout rate through his first five starts. So what do we make of this? The first change I noticed is that Liberatore has not only changed the shape of his changeup but also doubled the usage to 14.3% from 7.2% last year. He uses the changeup exclusively to righties and has added three inches of horizontal run this season while cutting off two inches of vertical break and also throwing the pitch two mph faster. James Schiano, who co-hosts the Rotoworld Fantasy Baseball Q&A with me on Mondays at Noon ET, speculated that Liberatore could have switched his grip to a kick-change, which would fit with his release point and movement profile. We also know that Liberatore is throwing the pitch in the zone more often, missing slightly more bats, and trying to use the changeup early in the count to righties. This allows him to rely less on his four-seam fastball and sinker to righties since he can get ahead with the changeup, and that's been a nice change for him. Last year, his cutter and sinker got hit hard by righties, and his four-seam fastball didn't miss many bats, so he needed a change in approach there. He has also changed his attack plan to righties with just his locations. In addition to using his changeup more often, he's throwing his four-seam inside to righties 20% more often and his cutter inside to righties 30% more often. His plan appears to be to jam righties inside with his fastballs to offset the changeup away or the slider low in the zone. That approach has led to plenty of weak contact but a drop in SwStr% to righties. Still, that's a change I'll take, especially since Liberatore's swinging strike rate to lefties has climbed to nearly 18%. Part of that is because he's using his slider 7% more often to lefties and getting it glove-side far more often. The other change has been that Liberatore is using his cutter more to lefties as an early-in-the-count offering and doing a better job of keeping it low and away. The cutter is now two inches slower with less drop and more horizontal bite, which makes it a solid pairing with the slower and sweepier slider. Using the cutter more often early in the count has also allowed Liberatore to dial back the usage of his sinker and four-seamer to lefties, and the cutter is grading out as a good pitch for him this season. At the end of the day, I think these changes make a lot of what we're seeing from Liberatore legitimate. I don't think he'll finish with a 3.19 ERA, but he's reducing hard contact to righties and missing more bats to lefties, which means you may get a lot of starts from him where he goes six innings, allows two runs, and strikes out four batters. That's going to be valuable in deeper formats, and I think he has a long leash in this rotation that's collapsing around him. With the Dodgers' rotation banged up and the team beginning a stretch of 10 games in 10 days, Dave Roberts has said a few times that they have discussed stretching Ben Casparius out as a starter. The 26-year-old has thrived in a relief role for the Dodgers this season, but 19 of his 21 appearances in the minors last year came as a starter, so this isn't some major role change. He was also pretty good between Double-A and Triple-A last year, posting a 3.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and 28% strikeout rate, even though he was old for the level. Given that he could find himself with a rotation spot on one of the best teams in baseball, I thought it was smart to look into who Casparius is and what he's doing this year that might be working for him. Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard Right here, we have our first hint from Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard. Casparius raised his arm angle over four degrees from last year, and we can see how drastically that has changed the horizontal movement (H-Mov) profile of his pitch mix. Coming from that higher arm angle has allowed his slider and cutter to pick up significant horizontal movement. His four-seam fastball also jumped in vertical movement from 14.8 inches of Induced Vertical Break (iVB), according to Pitcher List's metrics, to 18.1 inches this year. That has improved the PLV and Stuff+ grades on almost all of his offerings, but what does that mean for him as a pitcher? We do need to highlight that Casparius' longest outing this season was 3.1 innings, so there are a lot of things you can do in your pitch mix when you don't have to go through the order two or three times. For instance, you can heavily dial back the usage of your four-seam fastball, as Casparius has done. That being said, I do love that Casparius has leaned into his cutter more this season. He uses it primarily to lefties - 28% of the time - but he also mixes it in 13% of the time to righties as a go-between for his four-seam fastball and slider. This season, the cutter has more horizontal movement, as we covered above, and he's using it up in the zone more often against lefties. It's only up in the zone 38% of the time, but that's still an improvement from last year, and he throws it inside to lefties almost 50% of the time. He has also been using it a lot more in two-strike counts against lefties, and it is getting plenty of whiffs at the top of the zone as one of his best two-strike offerings. That's important for him because he doesn't throw his slider much to lefties, and his curve, which he uses exclusively to lefties, is more of a pitch he tries to steal strikes with early in the count. He gets league-average swing and miss on the pitch, but it doesn't give up a lot of hard contact, so it's a fine but not great offering, which means he needs that cutter to miss bats against lefites if he's going to have a true out pitch for opposite-handed hitters. Other than occasionally going to the four-seamer upstairs. Overall, I see that the pitch models like Casparius, and I see why he's been an impactful multi-inning reliever, but I'm not as convinced about him as a starter. One of the biggest reasons has to do with his locations. If you look at Kyle Bland's plot chart above, you can see that nothing Casparius throws moves down-and-in to righties, and the only pitch that even moves in to righties at all is his four-seam fastball. Yet, he throws his four-seam fastball inside just 25% of the time to righties, and, as is typical of the Dodgers, uses it up in the zone just 44% of the time despite adding vertical movement to it and making it a flatter fastball than in years past. (WHY DO YOU HATE HIGH FASTBALLS SO MUCH!?) I think this arsenal, which almost exclusively attacks away to righties, is why his SwStr% is 5% better against lefties this season. The cutter and slider are good pitches, but we also saw Graham Ashcraft struggle for years against righties because both of his best pitches moved similarly and attacked the same part of the strike zone. I'm not saying Casparius is Ashacraft, but I'm just saying that while I like the IDEA of his pitch mix as a starter, I don't know if I love the attack plan, and so I'd need to see that change before I can buy into him being a reliable starter for fantasy baseball. ARTICLE WAS DRAFTED AND SUBMITTED BEFORE TUESDAY NIGHT'S START When I added Heaney to this article, I thought I was going to dig into what he was doing and tell you that this was the same old Heaney. Now, I'm not sure that's true. Yes, the velocity is the same, and there is no brand-new pitch (or is there?), but Heaney is attacking hitters much differently in 2025. One of the first major changes we can see is that he's dialed back the use of his slider a lot and is using the curveball way more. Heaney threw his slider 28% of the time in 2024, using it 35% to lefties and 26% to righties. So far in 2025, he's using it 17% of the time overall, 20.5% of the time to lefites and 15% to righties. At first, that may seem confusing to you since we've associated Heaney with a slider for a while now, but his Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) on the pitch has been getting worse in every season since 2021. Last year, he allowed a 43% ICR on the pitch, which suggests that, despite it having a great swinging strike rate, it wasn't a pitch that he needed to use as often as he was. So far, he's been using the pitch early in the counts less often and using it as more of a two-strike pitch, even to righties. Even though it's giving up a similar ICR, since he's using it less often, it's not hurting him as much, and he's still getting a lot of swings and misses on it. The slider also appears to be slower this season, coming in at 80 mph and with more horizontal break and drop, which has helped it to grade better on most pitch models. This could be because, much like Lodolo above, Heaney dropped his arm angle this season. Heaney is now throwing from a four-degree lower arm slot, which has taken away some of the vertical movement from his arsenal and added horizontal break overall. We see that on the slider, but also on the curve, which he has leaned on far more often this season. Last year, Heaney threw the curve just 3.6% of the time, but he's up to 10% usage this year and throwing it to both righties and lefties after rarely throwing any to lefties last year. That could be because he has more horizontal break on the pitch and felt more comfortable using it as a strike pitch to lefties, with a 60% zone rate, as he doesn't need to focus only on burying it low-and-away. We should acknowledge that Statcast has Heaney throwing a slider, a curve, and a 'slow curve,' but none of Pitcher List, Brooks Baseball, or Alex Chamberlain have that same classification, which is why the curveball and slider metrics are a bit all over the place. Has Heaney truly added a new curve, or is he manipulating the spin on it like we know Seth Lugo does to throw different versions depending on the count and the handedness of the hitter? Whatever he's doing there, it has been working. He's also using the sinker far more to left-handed hitters and using the changeup more to both righties and lefties, which means he's less reliant on his four-seam fastball, which is a good thing. His strikeout rate and swinging strike rate are the highest they've been since 2022, and his Ideal Contact Rate is the lowest it's ever been, so the new approach is certainly working. However, I'd be lying to you if I said I believed this would last the full season. His sinker is getting hit hard, so I'm not sure using it more is good, and the fastball is still an average pitch. The slider is giving up a decent amount of hard contact, and his changeup appears to be a slightly above-average pitch that's actually underperforming last year. At the end of the day, I think Heaney's new pitch mix and approach raise his floor just a bit, but I don't believe it leads to this kind of ceiling. I think he's in the middle of one of the hot stretches we've seen him go on before, and he now pitches his home games in a park that suppresses home runs, which has been a major weakness of his. That may mean he pitches well enough to stay on deep league rosters all year long, but I don't believe he's going to be somebody you start regardless of who the opponent is.
