Justin Armbruester 2023

[orioles22]

Khrebiel and Cnarles with one shutout inning each in relief. Maybe help for the much-maligned pen eventually.

[nvpacchi]

I'd love to see some statcast data come across from him.  Fangraphs gives him a 50 grade fastball, so the shape of the pitch may be better than the middling velo would have us believe.  Pair it with another 50 grade on fangraphs slider, and the right tweaks to the changeup, then you can squint and see how he can be on the same path as Tyler Wells.

I saw this Kyle Boddy tweet in reference to Emmet Sheehan's rise through the Dodger's system and I've been thinking about it a lot recently.  The odds may be low, but maybe Armbruester's the one to sneak up on us.

 

 

[emmett16]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

Excellent debut: 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K’s.   This guy is sneaking up on us.  

I’ve been holding out hope he could help out in the pen down the stretch to save some arms.  I haven’t seen him pitch in person yet, but on TV (sounds weird saying watching on my phone) he looks like a pretty big guy that should be able to dial up his stuff for shorter outings.  We don’t have many SP slots to slide into for a non-TOR type guy.   He looks like a guy that can read bats and knows how to pitch.  

[Birds08]

Another strong showing tonight. Hard to believe with this much success it’s just BABIP luck

[jabba72]

This is the only info I could find on his start yesterday

Justin Armbruester 

 

 

---

 

	Pitches		Swings								Plate Discipline					Pitch Velocity			Spin (RPM)			Exit Velocity
Pitch Type	Count	%	Swings	Whiffs	%	CS	CS+Whiffs	CSW%	Fouls	BIP	Zone%	zSwing%	oSwing%	zContact%	oContact%	Max	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Avg	Avg	Min	Max
4-Seam Fastball	51	53	29	8	28	10	18	35	14	7	61	65	45	75	67	94.3	89.6	92.1	2547	2098	2368	92.6	82.0	110.3
Cutter	20	21	13	5	38	2	7	35	4	4	45	78	55	71	50	88.6	86.1	87.1	2491	2234	2349	94.1	80.0	104.7
Slider	17	18	9	2	22	3	5	29	3	4	47	63	44	100	50	83.5	79.8	81.1	2570	2268	2390	87.4	77.6	96.3
Curveball	8	8	5	2	40	1	3	38	0	3	38	67	60	100	33	80.8	78.6	79.6	2374	1984	2216	95.1	87.4	104.4
ALL	96		56	17	30	16	33	34	21	18	53	67	49	79	55	94.3	78.6	88.1	2570	1984	2355	92.2

[Just Regular]

Strikeout spike first few AAA games will be interesting to see if it sticks, lack of familiarity with new guy may have been some of that.

He and DL Hall are only about a month apart, though by the time pitchers hit 25, there isn't much age stuff left on the spectrum.

[nvpacchi]

AAA statcast data has started coming across for Armbreuster - and his fastball sits 13th in the Int'l League in vertical ride (minimum 50 fastballs).  Plus ride ala Tyler Wells should make the pitch play up despite only 92 MPH velo.

15.5% swinging strike rate  on the FB suggests the league is so far struggling to adjust to it too.  I'm cautiously staying excited...

[nvpacchi]

Thought I'd do a mini post to try to bring everything together on Armbruester.

Full disclosure: I'm combining bits and pieces of data together from different places and there's a lot of conjecture and assumption going into this post, but I guess that's the nature of TINSTAAP at the end of the day!

I think what made me ambivalent towards Armbruester in the past was his fastball velocity.  Its average starter velo at best and probably a tick below average - quite surprising for such a big bodied starter.  But now as more data becomes available regarding pitch shape, and what makes a fastball (un)hittable (or any pitch for that matter), velo has become just one (albeit still important) of many pieces of the puzzle.

Induced vertical break (IVB) or pfx_z on baseball savant, or in scouting terms: ride, has become the first thing I look for now.  Obviously combining ride with premium velocity is optimal, but pitchers with below average velocity can still find success if their ride can offset their fastball velo.

Consider the chart below:

2023 MLB Four-seamers: Swinging Strike Rate Bucketed by Velocity and Fastball Ride

There's a diagonal cut-off through the chart (the blue line of terror) that pitchers obviously want to be on the ride side of.  Armbruester makes it - thanks to his ride.

Armbruester lives in the black bolded area - making the cut.  MIddling velo, but elite ride.

Obviously everyone would want to be top right like Felix Bautista, but there's still a world where Armbruester lives with an average to even an above average fastball thanks to his ride.  He can't live off fastball whiffs like a Spencer Strider, but he should be able to induce swing and miss at an average rate, perhaps higher given that he seems to have relatively decent control/command (at least based off his minor league walk rate).

A still missing piece to the story and one thing that could make Armbreuster's fastball play up even further is his release point.  Convention suggests that the higher your release point, the more ride you're able to get on your fastball - with guys with extreme over the top deliveries (think a 7 foot release point like Tyler Wells) averaging 19.1" of IVB.  Armbruester is still able to get that amount of IVB from an arm slot a full foot lower!  Thinking about this from a comparison perspective - his 3/4 ish delivery should on average produce a fastball with about 16" of IVB.  This puts his fastball IVB about 19% above average for his arm slot.  Its tough to quantify what sort of advantage this can give him, since there isn't really a pitcher that has his release point, combined with his height, combined with his IVB.

Here's a list of pitchers with at least 100 fastballs this season with a similar release point height that also have average fastballs with at least 19" of IVB.

Jeremiah Estrada

Nestor Cortes 

Cody Bradford

Kutter Crawford

Rico Garcia

Taj Bradley

Estrada, Bradley, and Crawford all throw harder than Armbruester, and I admit I've never heard of Rico Garcia or Cody Bradford.  But Nestor Cortes is an interesting enigma that has puzzled the MLB for the last several seasons.  While he's struggled with injury a bit this year, he's been successful the last several seasons despite a middling fastball velo, with his elite IVB likely saving him.  His fastball/cutter combo was elite last season - and guess what 2 pitches Armbruester throws the most? fastball/cutter.  Still Nestor Cortes is 5", at least, shorter than Armbruester, so its even difficult to use these two as a like for like comparison.

This is conjecture as well, but his arm slot suggests that he should have a flatter fastball than average for his release slot, another piece to help him overcome his velo (I need statcast data to confirm this one first).

Ultimately it has me excited to see what a pitcher with a unique fastball is able to do.  I don't want to anoint him a top 100 guy, but he's definitely someone that has an interesting story to that the surface level data may miss.

Combine a nice fastball shape, with a seemingly good cutter/slider combo, and average-ish command, I don't think there's any reason to not give him a shot to be a back-end guy and see if he can have a similar ascension as Tyler Wells (another high IVB low velo guy).  Maybe not this year with 40 man implications, but definitely next year I hope he gets his shot (as long as he keeps performing in AAA).

Some spots I got my data:

Chart and MLB comparison data was created with baseballsavant.com data

Release point data came from the game log of Thursday's game (7-6-23): https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player-scroll/game?gamePk=723714&player_id=701859#pitch_release

IVB data came from the great Prospects Live AAA statcast leaderboard: https://www.prospectslive.com/2023-aaa-statcast-data

[7Mo]

57 minutes ago, nvpacchi said:

Thought I'd do a mini post to try to bring everything together on Armbruester.

Full disclosure: I'm combining bits and pieces of data together from different places and there's a lot of conjecture and assumption going into this post, but I guess that's the nature of TINSTAAP at the end of the day!

I think what made me ambivalent towards Armbruester in the past was his fastball velocity.  Its average starter velo at best and probably a tick below average - quite surprising for such a big bodied starter.  But now as more data becomes available regarding pitch shape, and what makes a fastball (un)hittable (or any pitch for that matter), velo has become just one (albeit still important) of many pieces of the puzzle.

Induced vertical break (IVB) or pfx_z on baseball savant, or in scouting terms: ride, has become the first thing I look for now.  Obviously combining ride with premium velocity is optimal, but pitchers with below average velocity can still find success if their ride can offset their fastball velo.

Consider the chart below:

2023 MLB Four-seamers: Swinging Strike Rate Bucketed by Velocity and Fastball Ride

There's a diagonal cut-off through the chart (the blue line of terror) that pitchers obviously want to be on the ride side of.  Armbruester makes it - thanks to his ride.

Armbruester lives in the black bolded area - making the cut.  MIddling velo, but elite ride.

Obviously everyone would want to be top right like Felix Bautista, but there's still a world where Armbruester lives with an average to even an above average fastball thanks to his ride.  He can't live off fastball whiffs like a Spencer Strider, but he should be able to induce swing and miss at an average rate, perhaps higher given that he seems to have relatively decent control/command (at least based off his minor league walk rate).

A still missing piece to the story and one thing that could make Armbreuster's fastball play up even further is his release point.  Convention suggests that the higher your release point, the more ride you're able to get on your fastball - with guys with extreme over the top deliveries (think a 7 foot release point like Tyler Wells) averaging 19.1" of IVB.  Armbruester is still able to get that amount of IVB from an arm slot a full foot lower!  Thinking about this from a comparison perspective - his 3/4 ish delivery should on average produce a fastball with about 16" of IVB.  This puts his fastball IVB about 19% above average for his arm slot.  Its tough to quantify what sort of advantage this can give him, since there isn't really a pitcher that has his release point, combined with his height, combined with his IVB.

Here's a list of pitchers with at least 100 fastballs this season with a similar release point height that also have average fastballs with at least 19" of IVB.

Jeremiah Estrada

Nestor Cortes 

Cody Bradford

Kutter Crawford

Rico Garcia

Taj Bradley

Estrada, Bradley, and Crawford all throw harder than Armbruester, and I admit I've never heard of Rico Garcia or Cody Bradford.  But Nestor Cortes is an interesting enigma that has puzzled the MLB for the last several seasons.  While he's struggled with injury a bit this year, he's been successful the last several seasons despite a middling fastball velo, with his elite IVB likely saving him.  His fastball/cutter combo was elite last season - and guess what 2 pitches Armbruester throws the most? fastball/cutter.  Still Nestor Cortes is 5", at least, shorter than Armbruester, so its even difficult to use these two as a like for like comparison.

This is conjecture as well, but his arm slot suggests that he should have a flatter fastball than average for his release slot, another piece to help him overcome his velo (I need statcast data to confirm this one first).

Ultimately it has me excited to see what a pitcher with a unique fastball is able to do.  I don't want to anoint him a top 100 guy, but he's definitely someone that has an interesting story to that the surface level data may miss.

Combine a nice fastball shape, with a seemingly good cutter/slider combo, and average-ish command, I don't think there's any reason to not give him a shot to be a back-end guy and see if he can have a similar ascension as Tyler Wells (another high IVB low velo guy).  Maybe not this year with 40 man implications, but definitely next year I hope he gets his shot (as long as he keeps performing in AAA).

Some spots I got my data:

Chart and MLB comparison data was created with baseballsavant.com data

Release point data came from the game log of Thursday's game (7-6-23): https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player-scroll/game?gamePk=723714&player_id=701859#pitch_release

IVB data came from the great Prospects Live AAA statcast leaderboard: https://www.prospectslive.com/2023-aaa-statcast-data

Thanks for gathering all of this. Terrific.

[RZNJ]

 Can they please put this guy out of his misery and make him a full time reliever.  ERA over 9 and climbing.  Staked to a 3-0 lead going into bottom 1.  Tides currently down 4-3 and the inning isn’t over.   

[baltfan]

9 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

 Can they please put this guy out of his misery and make him a full time reliever.  ERA over 9 and climbing.  Staked to a 3-0 lead going into bottom 1.  Tides currently down 4-3 and the inning isn’t over.   

How would making him a reliever help if he is giving it up in the first?

[RZNJ]

22 minutes ago, baltfan said:

How would making him a reliever help if he is giving it up in the first?

It’s a mental thing.  He’s not bad but he’s been awful.     

[RZNJ]

[Frobby]

21 hours ago, RZNJ said:

 Can they please put this guy out of his misery and make him a full time reliever.  ERA over 9 and climbing.  Staked to a 3-0 lead going into bottom 1.  Tides currently down 4-3 and the inning isn’t over.   

I’m wondering if there’s something physically wrong with him.  He’s not the same guy as he’s been the last two years, and not just because he’s now pitching in AAA.

[RZNJ]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I’m wondering if there’s something physically wrong with him.  He’s not the same guy as he’s been the last two years, and not just because he’s now pitching in AAA.

On April 26, in relief, he pitched 4 innings, 1 hit, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts.  I think he’s fine physically.