The Indianapolis Indians wrapped up their first full week of play last week, taking five of six against the Louisville Bats.
Indianapolis has some of the better prospects in the Pirates system. With the automated strike zone starting to get implemented, we actually have some stat casting available on the games through Baseball Savant.
So now that they are nine games into the season, here are some very early observations based on the date available so far.
— It really doesn’t take Statcast to tell you this, but Luis Ortiz may have the best singular pitch in the system in the slider. By far his best pitch, the success he has with it helps make up for his fastball not really being able to generate swings and misses.
Luis Ortiz walked Votto in the 1st but otherwise looked great. Fastball pumping 97-98 and slider looking sharp. pic.twitter.com/fGeY9HIJwS
— Jim Rosati
The slider, in the 10 plate appearances that was determined from it, three were groundouts, three strikeouts and no one has picked up a hit on it.
Due to a system error during his last start, the data isn’t complete, but there’s still enough there to confirm what we already know.
— It sounds like Cody Bolton is really enjoying the shift to bullpen, and so is his fastball. Batters have swung at 20 of them this season, and have missed nine times. The 45% whiff rate would rank first in the majors as of the morning of April 10 of all pitchers with at least 10 plate appearances decided by a fastball.
— There’s been questions about Quinn Priester’s fastball, but really shouldn’t be any about the sinker, which continues to emerge as a strong pitch. The pitch has generated a 46% ground ball rate and the 15% strikeout rate would be a top 20 number in the majors.
–The concerns about Nick Gonzales facing non-fastballs are really growing, and we have data to go with it now.
Against the fastball, Gonzales has mashed to a tune of a .363/.384/1.000 slash. He’s hit the ball hard, with a well above average exit velocity of 91.6 EV, and has a barrel rate of 13.3%.
It’s been a completely different story against everything else, as with the data available (two hits aren’t accounted for by statcast), but for now he has yet to pick a hit on anything else and has a strikeout rate of 60%.
He has a 53.8% whiff rate on non fastballs, faring much better with fastballs (36.6%). He does have 14 swings accounted for (three being whiffs), which can help things a bit, but the eye test is showing the same issues as the numbers are.
— Endy Rodriguez, on the other hand, has just a 15.3% whiff rate on non-fastballs but isn’t hitting the ball nearly as hard as Gonzales is. His average EV is just 83.16 mph, but is still holding a decent line drive rate of 22.7%. The launch angle is helping him find spaces, even if he isn’t hitting the ball hard yet.
First pitch Endy Rodriguez sees this season is a two run home run, 97.4 mph off the bat #LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/HILXx7qhi9
— Anthony Murphy (@__Murphy88) March 31, 2023
— Maybe no one suffered from losing out on some of the data lost over than Travis Swaggerty, as none of his batted balls from his four hit double-header day was tracked. That included one of his home runs among it.
He’s still hitting the ball at a surprisingly decent rate, despite an average exit velocity of 83 mph. His hard hit rate of 31.8 is just below what is generally league average. Factor in a couple of those extra-base hits he got, it’s a different story.
His line drive rate is also really good, sitting at 27%. The one issue he’s running into has been the struggles against offspeed pitches. While he’s managed to go 2-for-5 with a double against them, he’s also sporting a whiff rate over 50% as well.
The sample sizes are still really small, but they are certainly trends that will be worth monitoring going forward, especially how it may impact any potential promotion or their performance in the majors.
