I was in the process of writing up Los Angeles Dodgers' starting pitcher Roki Sasaki for an upcoming article after seeing him perform well against the Phillies. Sasaki had a 21.4% swinging-strike rate with a 33% ball rate.
🆙He was throwing over 1 mph harder across the board, specifically with his four-seam ( 1.5 mph), slider ( 1.2 mph), splitter ( 1.4 mph), and forkball ( 2 mph) on Saturday. Sasaki's four-seam added 1 inch of induced vertical break, with the slider losing 2 inches of downward movement.
🌬️Sasaki was locating his four-seamer in the upper third of the zone, eliciting a 21% swinging-strike rate on Saturday. Meanwhile, Sasaki's gyro-like slider generated a 28% swinging-strike rate as he often threw them low and below the zone. For context, Sasaki was throwing his slider in the zone 36% of the time on Saturday, over 10 points below his season-long average (46.7% zone rate).
I have some regret about cutting Sasaki in a 12-team league.