Brady Singer Explains Improvements to Sinker in 2022

The Royals' best starter from this season credits tweaks to his sinker from back in April.

While the Kansas City Royals fell short of expectations as a team in 2022, starting pitcher Brady Singer was one of the few players whose star shined brighter than just about anyone else's.

Across 27 games (24 starts), the 26-year-old pitched to the tune of a 3.23 ERA with 150 strikeouts in 153.1 innings of work. Singer was worth 2.9 fWAR on the year, and his ability to limit walks and remain effective elsewhere saw him post career lows in FIP (3.58) and xERA (3.97) as well. With a 10-5 record on the year, it's safe to say that Singer was Kansas City's best pitcher for the majority of the season.

Things weren't always going to be that way, though. To begin the year, Singer came out of the bullpen and allowed four runs in three appearances. After that, the Royals sent him down to Triple-A Omaha to allow him to work on some things as a member of the Storm Chasers and be stretched back out as a starting pitcher. In a recent article by David Laurila of FanGraphs, Singer detailed tweaking some things with his sinker prior to being sent down as a development that allowed him to regain his form and ultimately break out over the course of the season:

“I kind of went back to what I was throwing in college,” said Singer, whom the Royals drafted 18th overall in 2018 out of the University of Florida. “We changed the tilt on where my hand position was, and from there, it just kind of came naturally. We got right around that 1:15-1:30, and I’m getting a lot more movement than I had the last two years.”

Per Baseball Savant, Singer's sinker went from having -3.7 inches of vertical drop compared to average in 2021 to -1.9 this past season. With his 17.7 inches of drop improving to 20.6 this year, it made sense that the offering saw more success overall. As such, the run value on his sinker went from 11 in 2021 to -4 in 2022, in addition to hitters going from posting a .325 batting average and .459 SLG against it to those figures being .255 and .387. 

The changes to his hand position led to an improved pitch, but the budding star wasn't sure exactly why he got to the point where he realized he'd strayed from what he used to do in college:

“Honestly, I don’t really know,” the former Florida Gator admitted. “I just kind of lost it. The tilt slowly crept up on me, but somebody saw that and we talked about it. It made sense, so we changed the tilt. From there, my sinker came back.”

With a wipeout slider that produces some Pitching Ninja highlight-reel clips, Singer now has a pretty reliable one-two punch in his arsenal to work with. On top of that, his newfound changeup is still a work-in-progress pitch that took some strides forward in 2022. Singer has plenty of room for improvement in the future while also just enjoying his best season to date. If his sinker is back in full force for the long haul, the rest of his game could keep climbing up the ranks as well.

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