The hidden lefty neutralizer in the Blue Jays bullpen

TORONTO — On the surface, it appears the Toronto Blue Jays have a rather wide gap on their roster when it comes to left-handed relief.

The club used lefties to cover 175.2 innings from its bullpen last season — 125.1 of which were thrown by Genesis Cabrera, Ryan Yarbrough, Tim Mayza and Brandon Eisert, none of whom are still with the organization.

That’s over 70 per cent of 2024’s lefty relief innings. And Toronto has done little to backfill them this winter, adding only Josh Walker, a 30-year-old who was DFA'ed twice last year, on a split contract at the MLB minimum. He joins Brandon Little and Easton Lucas as the only left-handed relievers on Toronto’s 40-man roster. Together, they combine for a whopping 87 innings of big-league experience.

So, let's say it’s opening weekend at Rogers Centre. Blue Jays lead the Orioles, 3-2. Jordan Westburg just reached with one out in the seventh inning. Jackson Holliday and Gunnar Henderson due up. Who does manager John Schneider have warming up in his bullpen to gain platoon advantage on those two lefties in a big spot?

Cue Nick Sandlin's music. He hasn’t only pitched more high-leverage innings than the three left-handed relievers on the Blue Jays roster combined. He has a higher K-BB% and lower batting average against left-handed hitters over the last two seasons than that trio as well.

And he has a potent weapon left-handers could barely touch in 2024, one he threw more than any other pitch against that side of the platoon. His splitter.

Left-handed hitters vs. Nick Sandlin’s splitter in 2024

Sixty-six pitchers across MLB threw at least 50 splitters to left-handed hitters last season. None of them had a lower xwOBA with the pitch than Sandlin. Only one had a lower xSLG. Just six had a higher whiff rate.

Sandlin used splitters to finish 16 of his 29 strikeouts against lefties while allowing just three singles off it all season. Of the 155 he threw, 63 per cent resulted in strikes. The last time a left-handed hitter turned around Sandlin’s splitter for extra bases was a year-and-a-half ago.

Not that righties have fared particularly well against it either. They came away with only three hits off Sandlin’s splitter last season, whiffing 50.8 per cent of the time they swung at it. You can see why he’s started throwing it so often:

It began around this time last year, when Cleveland Guardians bullpen coach Brad Goldberg suggested Sandlin throw it more often to left-handed hitters and even utilize it as a surprise pitch against righties every so often. Sandlin was on board. During the season’s opening month, he threw more splitters than he did in all of 2023, and over twice as many to righties as he had in his entire career.

Then, in early-July, Goldberg and Sandlin decided to take things further. The pitch was working incredibly well — Sandlin didn’t allow a hit off it over the season’s first three months and batters were whiffing over half the time they swung at it. So, why not lean further into it against lefties and work it a bit more often inside to righties?

Suddenly, in July and August, Sandlin’s splitter was his most-used pitch to both sides of the platoon:

“A couple other pitches weren't performing quite as well as I would like them to — and the splitter was doing better than anticipated. So, we just tested the limits on it and saw how much we could throw it,” Sandlin says. “I was already feeling really confident throwing it. So, it was just a matter of getting on the same page with the catchers and utilizing it more.”

The tipping point was an outing on July 11 in Detroit, when Sandlin inherited a one-out, bases-loaded, sixth-inning mess from Pedro Avila. The Guardians were already down badly, 6-1. And things were about to get much worse as Sandlin promptly walked in a runner on four pitches before Gio Urshela hooked a well-located, 0-2 pitch just inside third base for a back-breaking double.

But never mind all that. The interesting thing was that the first two pitches of Sandlin’s outing were splitters. As was his second pitch to Urshela, a right-handed hitter. And after Urshela blew the lid off the game, Sandlin kept going back to the well. He started Javier Baez — another righty — with two more splitters and threw it again in a 2-1 count. Massive deficit or not, throwing splitters to righties was clearly something Sandlin entered his outing intent on doing.

And after walking Baez of all people, it started working. Sandlin jumped ahead of Justyn-Henry Malloy — yet another righty — with a fastball away before doubling up on his splitter to get a foul ball and a swinging third strike:

Wenceel Perez was next, and after Sandlin got ahead of him with a first-pitch slider, he doubled up on splitters again, got into a 2-2 count, and finished the at-bat with one final splitter that started knee-high before diving down beneath the zone:

That is not a pretty swing. Yet they’re ones Sandlin was able to generate frequently over the remainder of the season as he continued leaning on his splitter at the expense of his sinker and slider:

“The splitter’s been the last pitch to develop for me. I always had the split grip. But I was working on a circle changeup in college and just put it on the back burner for a while,” Sandlin says. “Getting into pro ball, I could throw the changeup and it would tumble. But I feel like hitters could pick up on it a little easier. So, I started using the split grip to give me that changeup-like weapon against lefties. That was the grip that gave me the best late movement to where I could get the swing-and-miss on it.”

From that Detroit outing on, Sandlin’s splitter was his most-used pitch. He finished 41.5 per cent of his strikeouts with it; hitters whiffed 42.7 per cent of the time they swung at it; he allowed only six hits, four of them singles, off splitters the rest of the season. Sandlin’s 25.8 per cent strikeout rate entering the July 11 appearance jumped to 29.8.

It appears he found something. And it may have a little or a lot to do with the uncommon arm angle Sandlin pitches from. Statcast measures arm angle in degrees, with zero being perfectly horizontal to the ground. Hold your arm straight out to your side. Anything above that is measured in positive degrees and anything below is negative.

So, Chris Flexen, who pitches extremely over the top of his body like he’s reaching for the sky, has a 70.1-degree arm angle. Tyler Rogers, whose knuckles practically scrape the mound as he submarines his delivery, has a -64.1.

Sandlin’s arm angle averages out to 11.8 degrees, the 18th-lowest among MLBers to throw at least 100 pitches last season. For reference, that’s a degree higher than Chris Sale and a couple lower than Ryan Yarbrough. It’s something Sandlin’s been doing since he began pitching in high school 10 years ago. 

As a hitter, take a couple trips around the league and you’ll encounter guys who throw from similar sidearm slots. Not every night, but enough to get somewhat comfortable against the peculiarity of a ball coming at you on such a flat plane. There are plenty of organizations helping pitchers use lower arm slots and extension to re-create the vertical approach angle Sandlin comes to more naturally as a five-foot-11 athlete with a drop-and-drive delivery.

What you won’t confront, however, are pitchers who throw splitters from down there. Sandlin is one of only 79 pitchers to throw at least 50 splitters in the majors last season. And of those 79, Sandlin’s vertical release point — 4.5 feet from the ground, on average — is the lowest. Conversely, the angle at which the ball leaves his hand, both vertically and horizontally, is baseball’s highest. Sandlin’s splitter is an outlier pitch:

Tayler Scott, a veteran journeyman who worked to a 2.23 ERA out of the Houston Astros bullpen last season, is the closest replica hitters will encounter across MLB. Like Sandlin, Scott uses a lower arm slot to manipulate vertical approach angle and give elevated fastballs the illusion of rising, which creates greater movement discrepancy from the splitters he throws down in the zone.

But Scott released pitches from an average of 4.78 feet above the ground last season — nearly four inches higher than Sandlin, whose release point was the seventh-lowest among qualified pitchers. That made the approach angle of Sandlin’s fastball even flatter.

Think of drawing a straight line from the mound to the plate rather than one that slopes down. That’s how Sandlin’s fastball approaches a hitter, as if its defying gravity. It’s not. But it is tricking the batter’s eyes and muscle memory, goading them to swung right under it because they’re so accustomed to facing fastballs that are coming toward them on a steeper downward plane. Elevating those fastballs while burying splitters creates an expanse of strike-zone air in the middle for hitters to swing through.

Here's Isaac Paredes experiencing what that looks like last August:

And here are those two pitches slowed down and overlayed:

“Yeah, that's the idea behind it,” Sandlin says. “It’s not necessarily going to be like an 18-to-20-inch-ride four-seam fastball. But whatever it is, it will play better from the lower slot.”

Throughout the season, Sandlin stays on top of his fastball and splitter characteristics using Trackman data gathered from game appearances and side sessions. If he’s deviating too far from what makes his pitches most effective, he’ll make an adjustment.

Staying ahead of any slippages is critical. A fastball that doesn’t ride enough, or a splitter than doesn’t drop enough, can easily become a batting-practice heater that catches a ton of plate. Making those mistakes in games is how relievers give up homers and fubar their ERAs.

Kirby Yates, one of the most effective relievers in baseball last season, is another pitcher who uses a riding fastball and low arm angle splitter to confound hitters. That’s not to say Sandlin has as good of a splitter as Yates does — he doesn’t. Yates throws his harder, does a better job of killing its spin, and gets an extra inch of arm-side tail. But the veteran is a good example of how effective the pitch can be from a lower arm slot if Sandlin can keep improving his.

One of the best things a team’s bullpen can have is variety. Righties, lefties, riding fastballs, sinking fastballs, swing-and-miss stuff, groundball generators. Another is uniqueness. If hitters don’t see particular pitch characteristics often, their eyes and brains don’t have patterns to recognize. Or they’ll misidentify the pitch’s pattern and trigger muscle memory that executes a swing inappropriately aligned with the flight of the ball. In other words, they’ll look lost — as Jacob Hurtubise did against three consecutive Sandlin splitters last June:

Sandlin is obviously still a work in progress. The Guardians are one of the best pitching development organizations in baseball, and while they helped him achieve remarkably identical 3.75 ERAs with 27.6 per cent strikeout rates in each of his last two seasons, they’ve struggled to address the double-digit walk rates Sandlin has run each season of his career. Cleveland has also shied away from him in the game’s highest-leverage moments and left him off its post-season rosters come October.

But as an uncommon look with an outlier pitch who can keep games close in the sixth or seventh innings, enter with runners on to get a critical strikeout and help his team out of a jam, or even open a game against the right lineup, Sandlin has a clear role in a big-league bullpen when deployed optimally. And an increasingly effective weapon he may only be scratching the surface of — one that may help bridge the gap to higher-leverage opportunities and give the Blue Jays a much-needed weapon against tough left-handed hitting late in ballgames.