Why Softer Pitchers Have Been Harder For the Royals So Far This Season
Velocity sits at the center of the baseball universe these days. Elite pitching prospects train to throw 95 in high school, and hitters work to maximize exit velocities in an effort to smoke balls into gaps and over fences.
In 21st century baseball, velocity is king.
But against the current Kansas City Royals lineup, velocity isn't kingly at all. It's more like the court jester — at best. It's not velocity that gives Royals hitters night terrors, it's a lack of velocity.
The soft tossers, as they are commonly known, have routinely gotten the best of the Boys in Blue this season. The subject came up when my co-host and I were previewing the Rays series during our weekly podcast, Royals Weekly. We focused for a moment on Rich Hill who would go on to carve up the Royals like a Christmas turducken. My curiosity piqued, I decided to dive into some numbers.
To scratch my brain itch, I developed a list of opposing pitchers who have thrown 10 or more fastballs at 91 mph or lower, be they four-seam, two-seam, cutter, or sinker. I call this group the "soft tossers." Then, I did the same for pitchers who have thrown 10 or more fastballs at 95 mph or higher. I call them "power pitchers.
My digging yielded 18 soft tossers and 33 power pitchers. From there, I searched for data on how the Royals have fared against each group.
It's not universal, but the results are pretty clear. The Royals prefer spicy to mild.
Five of the six hitters with the most plate appearances for the Royals have lower wOBAs against the soft tossers than the power pitchers, including large differences for Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler and Andrew Benintendi.
Player | BA_DIFF | SLG_DIFF | OBP_DIFF | WOBA_DIFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Merrifield, Whit | -.035 | .04 | -.035 | -.002 |
Santana, Carlos | .098 | .077 | .048 | .053 |
Perez, Salvador | -.079 | -.116 | -.054 | -.065 |
Soler, Jorge | .013 | -.001 | -.127 | -.084 |
Benintendi, Andrew | -.096 | -.170 | -.110 | -.116 |
Lopez, Nicky | -.061 | -.177 | .047 | -.022 |
Taylor, Michael A. | .135 | .161 | .140 | .128 |
Dozier, Hunter | -.05 | -.075 | -.105 | -.083 |
Alberto, Hanser | .028 | .079 | .066 | .070 |
O'Hearn, Ryan | -.043 | .175 | -.014 | .057 |
Perez and Soler fit fairly neatly into a narrative that explains why they struggle more with soft tossers than power pitchers. Both are mashers who rely on big leg kicks and timing fastballs to hit home runs. Soft tossers can mess with their timing and entice them to swing at breaking pitches and slow fastballs outside and on the edges of the zone.
Benintendi is a more confusing case. A deeper dive into the numbers may tell us for sure, but I suspect that he has struggled with soft tossers because left-handed pitchers are a larger proportion of the soft tossers than the power pitchers. He's hitting much worse against lefties than righties this season (.216/.259/.255 vs. LHP; .315/.385/.426 vs. RHP). Also, he's probably had a little bad luck against the soft tossers with a .235 BABIP.
Only two regulars are hitting significantly better against soft tossers than power pitchers (three if you count Kelvin Gutiérrez as a regular, which I don't yet): Michael A. Taylor and Carlos Santana. Taylor's dominance against soft tossers is driven primarily by an unsustainable .478 BABIP against them so we'll see if his success against soft tossers continues.
Santana, on the other hand, is practically the anti-Perez. He has such great discipline and pitch recognition, it's harder to get him to chase breaking pitches or slow fastballs outside the zone for whiffs and weak contact. It makes sense that he would have more success against soft tossers; he forces them to throw him very hittable pitches, which explains his excellent .302/.423/.558 slash line against them.
While it can be frustrating to see the Royals struggle against pitchers whose fastballs couldn't knock over a yard sign, the inverse would actually be worse. There are far more power pitchers in today's MLB than there are soft tossers. The soft tosser is a dwindling breed. And the Royals actually followed a similar playbook during their back-to-back World Series runs in 2014 and 2015, as they tore through power pitching in the playoffs. Of course, good teams can mash both, but if your favorite team has to only be good against one, it's better to be good against the power pitchers these days.
It's still early in the season, and the sample of soft tossers is still relatively small. But the Royals' struggles against them are worth keeping an eye on. I certainly will. Because, sometimes, it's so baffling to see I can't look away. I just stare at my television and think to myself, "Why can't they hit this guy?! He's only throwing 88!"
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Marcus Meade is a contributor to Inside the Royals and a writer of many genres and forms from fiction to scholarship to baseball blogs. He previously wrote for Baseball Prospectus and Kings of Kauffman and also currently writes (occasionally) for Royals Farm Report. He is the host of the Royals Weekly podcast with his brother, Mike. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook @RoyalsWeekly.