Article: Peter Strzelecki and the Brewers' Brilliance on High Fastballs

[Matthew Trueblood]

Last year, no team dominated the top of the strike zone with its fastballs better than the Brewers. With Josh Hader’s overpowering high heat gone, though, can they sustain that?

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

According to Statcast, the Brewers allowed a .243 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) on fastballs in the upper third of the zone last season. That was tied with the Dodgers for the best mark in the league. However, the Dodgers threw such pitches almost 2,200 times, while the Brewers threw just 1,800 of them. Only the Rangers and Yankees attacked the top of the zone with heat less often. 

That was with Josh Hader in the mix for over half the season, too. Whereas high fastballs made up just 7.4 percent of all the Brewers’ pitches, Hader used them 14.1 percent of the time. As you would imagine, he was also one of the best pitchers in the league when he did locate there, with a .190 xwOBA allowed. Now that he’s gone, can the Crew come anywhere near having the same success at the top of the zone?

The answer to that question depends heavily on Peter Strzelecki, as does so much of the team’s bullpen hope this year. The former undrafted free agent is such a fierce and awesome competitor, with such a compelling story, that it can be easy to miss the technical and new-age aspects of his brilliance. They’re there, though. Strzelecki can dominate at the top of the zone, thanks to the way his fastball movement interacts with his funky delivery.

Peter Strzelecki is an example of a pitcher who has an elite 4SFB without flashing triple digits. His flat VAA of -4.2 deg induces a SwStrk% of 14.5% and Whiff Rate of 29.9% which are both well above league average (10.4% and 21.5%). pic.twitter.com/Us2Vth4Tcc

— Matt Hinkley (@MH_CSP_Pitching) October 27, 2022

The “flat VAA” referenced in that tweet is a flat Vertical Approach Angle, one of the favored new toys for pitching gurus. It’s a measurement of how steep the trajectory of a pitch is when it enters the hitting zone. For fastballs (and especially high fastballs), a flatter VAA is almost always a good thing, because hitters have trouble seeing and matching that movement. Thus, they swing under the ball, whiffing or popping it up, or they freeze and let a called strike go by.

A fastball’s VAA is mostly a function of its velocity, its spin axis, and the heights at which it leaves the pitcher’s hand and enters the strike zone. Strzelecki, who used high fastballs even more often (16 percent of all pitches) than Hader did in 2022, is just one of several remaining Brewers who have a flat VAA. Freddy Peralta is another. Anyone with that combination of a riding fastball coming out of a low release point will tend to have this characteristic.

When it comes to high heat, though, the challenge is as much a mental as a physical or a geometric one. A pitcher has to attack the top of the zone with conviction, and they need a certain level of fearlessness. Like Hader and Peralta, Strzelecki has that. He’s unabashedly and unreservedly eager for the fight. 

“I always say, you can’t spell ‘compete’ without ‘Pete’,” he said in a podcast interview last year, and while almost no one in MLB could say that without it being rendered hokey through self-awareness, he pulls it off. It’s not some awesome insight, though in plenty of ways, Strzelecki is a thoughtful guy. It’s not a mantra that will miss bats for him; his pitches have to do that. With his mentality and the unique traits of his fastball, though, Strzelecki can deliver much of the swagger and the dominance at the top of the zone that Hader did. The Brewers should continue to win in that area, thanks in large part to their new setup man.

View full article

[DR28]

I'm really excited about Strzelecki, Cousins and Varland... I believe they can be nice pieces in our pen... All throw hard and big strikeouts.

[Joseph Zarr]

Yeah baby. LOVE this! I was touting Strzelecki in Triple-A last season quite a bit. I talked about the tailing movement he has that causes major problems. When he got the call-up I shared there wasn't really a single reliever in Nashville with stuff comparable to his in terms of MLB-caliber stickiness. This little insightful write-up though?

[Brewcrew82]

40 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Yeah baby. LOVE this! I was touting Strzelecki in Triple-A last season quite a bit. I talked about the tailing movement he has that causes major problems. When he got the call-up I shared there wasn't really a single reliever in Nashville with stuff comparable to his in terms of MLB-caliber stickiness. This little insightful write-up though?

Agreed. Though, I'm still mystified why they kept Cousins down in AAA as long as they did. Did he really take that long to recover from his injury? Because he's probably been our 3/4th best reliever over the past two years when healthy. 

Between Strzelecki and Cousins, and then Devin and Bush, I'm optimistic about our ability to hold down leads in the later innings. Would love the bullpen even more if it included Ashby, but hopefully he can return in May/June and star there. 

[Joseph Zarr]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Agreed. Though, I'm still mystified why they kept Cousins down in AAA as long as they did. Did he really take that long to recover from his injury? Because he's probably been our 3/4th best reliever over the past two years when healthy. 

Between Strzelecki and Cousins, and then Devin and Bush, I'm optimistic about our ability to hold down leads in the later innings. Would love the bullpen even more if it included Ashby, but hopefully he can return in May/June and star there. 

If I had to guess, I'd day the Brewers wanted him to ramp back up in Nashville's Playoff push given the length of his injury (despite his solid numbers, I would casually 'argue' he was still searching for consistency in delivering his best stuff) and, additionally, they were fairly deep in their commitment to a relief corps path initiated at the Deadline. 

This being said, it goes without saying: this is a big ST for Cousins and we know he has the stuff and history with the club to reclaim a meaningful bullpen role.

[Brewcrew82]

12 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

If I had to guess, I'd day the Brewers wanted him to ramp back up in Nashville's Playoff push given the length of his injury (despite his solid numbers, I would casually 'argue' he was still searching for consistency in delivering his best stuff) and, additionally, they were fairly deep in their commitment to a relief corps path initiated at the Deadline. 

This being said, it goes without saying: this is a big ST for Cousins and we know he has the stuff and history with the club to reclaim a meaningful bullpen role.

Yeah. The more I study Cousins, the more I'm thinking he could be Adam Ottavino 2.0, with the mid 90s sinker to complement his devastating, sharp slider. Needless to say, that would be a big development for this team. 

[Jake McKibbin]

19 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

If I had to guess, I'd day the Brewers wanted him to ramp back up in Nashville's Playoff push given the length of his injury (despite his solid numbers, I would casually 'argue' he was still searching for consistency in delivering his best stuff) and, additionally, they were fairly deep in their commitment to a relief corps path initiated at the Deadline. 

This being said, it goes without saying: this is a big ST for Cousins and we know he has the stuff and history with the club to reclaim a meaningful bullpen role.

Historically his biggest issue has actually been injuries, he's spent a lot of time on the sidelines, so really hoping he can get a full season under his belt

[Joseph Zarr]

Let's keep the Strzelecki train chuggin'. Here's a fantastic deeper dive by Adam McCalvy into Strzelecki's season last year just one year removed from his dad's  sudden death. This passage really got me:

Quote

... Asked how often his father was on his mind last season, Strzelecki said, “Every time I pitched. People don't understand, once you leave [the stadium], I would ride the waves of positivity and how good it was. But then there would be a wave going down, where like, 'My dad ain't here to witness this.' He sacrificed everything for me and my family, and I'm doing it, and he ain't here to celebrate it. After the first win, the first save, just the crazy situations I came in at times, you would be ecstatic, and then you go back when no one's there, and you would just be like, this kind of sucks.”

This is a very human piece. Highly recommend if you have the bandwidth.

[brewerralph]

20 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

At this point, I'm ready to take a low minors lottery ticket in trade for Hiura and just move on from him. I think Voit is a better fit for the roster on Opening Day.

With Arnold maybe a clean slate will be a good time to DFA Hiura. My question is with his $2+mil does he loose that or if he accepts the Nashville assignment does, he keep all the money, because nobody will pay him that kind of money.

[Brock Beauchamp]

24 minutes ago, brewerralph said:

With Arnold maybe a clean slate will be a good time to DFA Hiura. My question is with his $2+mil does he loose that or if he accepts the Nashville assignment does, he keep all the money, because nobody will pay him that kind of money.

His $2m is guaranteed at this point. The only way to not pay him is to trade him to another team.