Diamondbacks 2022 Season Player Reviews: Kevin Ginkel

The hard throwing right hander had an impressive comeback season

© Michael Chow/The Republic via Imagn Content Services,

2022 Contract:  Pre Arbitration 2, League Minimum

Year	Games	Innings	ERA	FIP	xFIP	K%	BB%	HR/9
2022	30	29.1	3.38	2.74	3.61	24.2%	8.9%	0.31
Career	106	98	4.32	4.24	4.42	25%	11%	1.19

2022 Diamondbacks Season Reviews

Season Review

Kevin Ginkel  made his major league debut on August 5th, 2019 and impressed over 25 games that year, posting a 1.48 ERA and over a 29% strikeout rate. The next two seasons were not good for him though, as he struggled with control, walking a lot of batters and falling behind in counts. That led to problems with the long ball. In 44 innings those two seasons he posted a 6.50 ERA, 5.5 Walks per nine innings and gave up 10 home runs. 

The team demoted him to AAA Reno in late June of 2021. After pitching in just one game he landed on the IL with right elbow inflammation and did not pitch again for the rest of the year. 

Recovered from his injury by spring, Ginkel went back to work in Reno. In 30 Games, 31 innings he posted a microscopic 1.17 ERA, striking out 45 batters while walking 12 and allowing just one home run. That earned him a call back up to the majors where he remained for the rest of 2022, posting the solid numbers you see above. 

Ginkel throws primarily two pitches, a four seam fastball and a slider. His velocity was up on both pitches, including 96.4 on the four seamer, and he was getting outs with his slider as his swing and miss put away pitch. 

Baseball Savant

11 of the 14 runs Ginkel allowed came in just three outings, and he was not charged with a run in 24 of his 30 games. His  36% inherited runners scored rate in 2022 was slightly worse than league average 32% however. It's always a good idea to check in on IS% when evaluating middle inning and set up relievers that often come in with men on base. ERA doesn't always tell the whole story. 

Baseball Reference

Ginkel had a reverse split in 2022, actually posting better numbers against left hand batters than right handed batters. Due to small sample size it's not likely that split will be so extreme in 2022, but he is more than capable of handling a left handed batter when he needs to. 

Baseball Reference

2023 Outlook

Ginkel is entering his final pre arbitration season, meaning he will make just slightly more than the MLB minimum. Unless he has a terrible spring training he is likely to be on the opening day roster in 2023. Michael McDermott identified Ginkel as a good holdover candidate to remain in the Diamondbacks bullpen for next season in our series on fixing the bullpen. 

Whether or not Ginkel becomes a consistent high leverage option for manager Torey Lovullo remains to be seen. Last season his numbers in high and medium leverage situations were worse than his low leverage numbers, but the sample size is very small. For his career, which is a slightly larger sample Ginkel has actually performed better in high leverage.  

Leverage	Batters Faced	BA	OBP	Slg	FIP	BABIP
High	70	.217	.304	.317	3.46	.267
Merdium	137	.250	.343	.383	3.47	.333
Low	221	.256	.341	.472	4.97	.310