TORONTO – Over the past decade, as the average velocity on a major-league fastball rose from 91.5 to 93.4 m.p.h., Tommy Milone’s heater steadily declined from 88.3 to 84 m.p.h. Only 30 pitchers to have thrown at least 50 pitches this season are averaging less than 90 m.p.h. on their fastball and only six are under 86, none slower than San Francisco Giants sidearmer Tyler Rogers’ 82.
Milone is No. 2 on that list.
Yet as the power revolution on the mound has overtaken the sport, the lefty, who starts for the Toronto Blue Jays in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals, continues to carve out a place for himself with a repertoire that runs against the grain.
“It’s a good question,” he replies during a recent interview when asked how he’s continued to find opportunities. “I think part of it is my command. I've always been able to throw strikes and for the most part, quality strikes, keep the ball out of the middle of the plate and kind of the same thing with off-speed pitches. As long as they're not in the heart of the plate where guys can drive the ball, that's where I've had my success.
“And to be honest, now that you see the uptick in velocity in most guys, I think it's actually kind of separated me from them,” he continues. “Guys are throwing mid-to-upper 90's and then I come in and I'm throwing mid 80s, they're not used to seeing guys like that now. They're geared to see guys that are throwing mid to upper 90s. I’m not saying that I'm harder to hit because of that, but it does help a little bit in that aspect.”
Still, it’s led to a tenuous big-league existence for the 34-year-old from Saugas, Calif., who’s on his ninth club in 11 big-league seasons.
Even as velocity has climbed and contact rates have dropped – from 87.4 to 83 per cent on pitches in the strike zone and from 80.6 to 75 per cent overall per FanGragphs data – the quality of contact keeps getting better. Starting in 2015 with the beginning of the Statcast era, exit velocity has increased from 88.2 to 89.1 m.p.h., hard-hit percentage has risen from 33.1 to 39.5 per cent and the barrel percentage, a count of optimal contact, has gone from 4.8 to 8.3 per cent.
Taking the mound without big stuff requires significant conviction in such an environment, which is why starters like Kyle Hendricks and Marco Gonzales are such unicorns, and the retired Mark Buehrle is so underappreciated. And while the pursuit of velocity spawned a cottage coaching industry so effective that big-league clubs are seeking them out to help innovate training practices, Milone hasn’t felt pressure to try and keep up.
“If I try to chase velocity, I might grab a couple of miles an hour and then where am I at? Maybe around 90? If I'm changing it and I'm going to possibly get to 100, that's a difference-maker,” he says. “For me, it's more just trying to work on the mental side of it a little bit more, continue to be the pitcher that I am and work around the corners of the plate, work up or down and just be unpredictable. Instead of trying to chase velocity, I try to work on those kind of things to get better than having to worry about what Statcast numbers say and how hard I’m throwing.”
To that end, Milone tries to slow himself down when runners reach and leverage increases, to trust in his approach and his plan rather than build up the risk at hand -- issues common for any pitcher, regardless of what he’s featuring.
“As a pitcher who works around the plate, I tend to nibble a little bit too much and then I'm missing by just a little bit and then I'm falling behind and now I'm in trouble and I have runners on base, so I'm starting to put that pressure on myself to throw the perfect pitch and not give in and throw to the middle of the plate,” he explains. “It’s still being able to mentally buck down and attack the zone the way that I've been doing and not have to force myself to get in a situation where now I'm behind in the count and have to throw something over the plate, because I don't want to walk another guy or get another guy on base.”
Milone’s approach to pitching is based primarily on his fastball and changeup, throwing both at near equal 40 per cent clips. He also has a curveball and a slider he introduced in 2016, but it’s the other two pitches “that are going to grab that success for me.”
“I tunnel them, I feel like, pretty well,” he says. “If I can keep the fastball out of the middle of the plate and then kind of ride the changeup off of that same tunnel, then usually I'm going to make out pretty well. The slider, curveball, those are pitches I can throw for strikes. The slider has been pretty decent but it's still a pitch that I'm trying to have that conviction in all the time. And then the curveball is just kind of like a strike pitch. So I'll just kind of get it in there and be able to throw it for strikes early in the count, or later if I need to.”
The start Saturday will be Milone’s third game since the Blue Jays selected his contract April 4, allowing one run over six innings of mop-up duty, with eight strikeouts. He signed a minor-league deal with the club on Feb. 25 after being told there were multiple pathways for him to make the team, and even before attrition struck the bullpen, he was brought in to provide bulk-innings-swing-start coverage.
“We all want to win and seeing what this team did last year while winning and having fun, they had the energy. It's something I wanted to be a part of,” says Milone, who held the Blue Jays to three runs over six innings with seven strikeouts in his sole start against them last year with the Baltimore Orioles. “They kind of reminded me of back in the day with the A's. We were very young and a lot of teams wrote us off. We just continued to go out there every day and have fun and kind of keep it loose. That's what makes a good team, just keeping things really loose and having fun and proving to other teams that you're that you're for real.”
