Javier Assad Has to Return to Earth Eventually, Right?

The largest constructive of this irritating Chicago Cubs season has been the emergence of Shota Imanaga as a frontline starter. As you in all probability keep in mind, Imanaga was launched to the broader American baseball-watching public when he began the gold medal recreation of the 2023 World Baseball Basic for Staff Japan.

Effectively, he’s not the one Cubs starter who had a breakout efficiency towards Staff USA on the 2023 WBC. Throughout pool play, Javier Assad got here out of the bullpen at Chase Area and mowed down three innings’ price of American hitters. With solely 9 appearances’ price of main league expertise, Assad was a relative unknown on the time. Since then, he’s claimed a daily spot in a superb Chicago rotation, and pitched very nicely.

He’s one among simply 91 pitchers who’s thrown 200 or extra innings over the previous two seasons. Of these, he’s eighth in ERA, with a mark of three.13. The factor is, I’m probably not certain how he’s doing it. FIP takes a particularly dim view of the right-hander, who turned 27 on Tuesday. Assad’s FIP is 4.59 this 12 months, and over the previous two seasons mixed, it’s 4.43, which is 68th out of these 91 pitchers over the previous two seasons.

And it’s simple to see why. Assad, regardless of being within the backside half of that record of starters in strikeout fee, has the fifth-highest stroll fee:

With the instruments obtainable a decade in the past, we’d simply take a look at that and dismiss Assad as a fluke. Clearly that BABIP and that strand fee are going to regress, and his ERA will likely be again within the fours very quickly.

Even with trendy instruments, I’m at one thing of a loss on the subject of explaining Assad’s success. His Stuff+ doesn’t pop off scale. His high quality of contact numbers are higher than his bat-missing numbers, however they’re not any higher than common. He’s proper in the midst of the Baseball Savant leaderboard for EV50 and xwOBA. The one space wherein Assad is close to the highest is opponent contact fee on pitches outdoors the zone; Assad’s opponents are making contact on 69.8% of swings outdoors the zone, which is the fifth-highest mark within the league. Assad additionally has the fifth-smallest hole between his in-zone and out-of-zone contact fee.

If an irregular proportion of Assad’s contact is coming outdoors the zone, that might enable him to get by together with his low-strikeout/high-walk peripherals. However he’s simply giving up a whole lot of contact all over the place. This season, 238 pitchers have allowed 25 or extra balls in play on pitches outdoors the zone. Of these, Assad has the 57th-lowest opponent wOBA on these balls (.232), however 20.6% of his opponent contact comes on balls outdoors the strike zone, which is a hundred and tenth.

One factor Assad has is a extremely various repertoire. This season, 502 pitchers have thrown 250 or extra pitches, however solely 45 of these pitchers have thrown 5 or extra completely different pitch varieties no less than 10% of the time. Assad is a kind of, and he has a sixth pitch, a changeup, that he’s thrown 3.6% of the time.

These six pitches cowl a spread of greater than 20 miles per hour, and in the event you take a look at the clock chart for the motion profiles of these choices, it appears like a illustration of the time a school junior spends at Jungle Jim’s on Thirsty Thursday: It goes from 7 o’clock all the best way to 2:45 or so. Expressed on a graph, it appears like this:

Fairly, isn’t it? Kermit the Frog checked out that graphic and instantly reached for his banjo.

I feel it’s honest to say that Assad has an overfull toolkit of pitches, which forces opponents to cowl an infinite vary of velocity and motion profiles. Assad segregates a few of his pitches by opponent handedness (curveballs and changeups to lefties, sliders to righties), however he throws his fastballs to opponents on both aspect of the plate. It’s loads for a hitter to maintain monitor of, however the advantages of such an eclectic pitch combine appear to be intangible.

However right here’s the factor about ready for Assad to regress. Since 2010, there have been roughly 1,900 particular person pitcher seasons of 100 innings or extra. On solely 79 events has a pitcher of that prime quantity outperformed his FIP by greater than a run. Solely six pitchers have accomplished it twice, and solely three of these have accomplished it in consecutive years:

Assad is at present at 94 2/3 innings, which implies that both in his begin on Friday or the one after, he’s going to make it seven. See, after I mentioned his ERA would go “again” to the 4.00s earlier, I meant that figuratively, as a result of Assad has by no means posted an ERA within the 4.00s over a season. Not solely that, he’s by no means not outperformed his FIP by greater than a run:

The gathering of pitchers on the record above, except for Cueto, have all been oddballs. Snell wrecked his FIP in each of his (contentious) Cy Younger seasons, however by no means on some other event. Fiers and Younger had been each excessive fly ball pitchers, whereas González and Hellickson had been each 6-foot-1 righties with kitchen sink-y, pitch-to-contact repertoires. Similar to Assad.

Can Assad hold doing this? Defying the percentages to outperform his peripherals? I suppose. He’s by no means accomplished the rest.