What's driving Tyler Chatwood's breakout season in Blue Jays' bullpen

Shi Davidi and Arash Madani look at the Blue Jays' robust list of top prospects, and Davidi explains why it isn't in the team's interest to trade away the young talent as they have in the past.

When the Toronto Blue Jays signed Tyler Chatwood to a one-year, $3-million deal in January, it wasn’t met with great fanfare — but there was an understanding that the team deserved the benefit of the doubt with veteran relief arms.

Since the current front office took over, the club has had success getting strong contributions from inexpensive journeymen like Dominic Leone, John Axford, Joe Smith, Daniel Hudson, Tyler Clippard, Rafael Dolis and David Phelps (twice). Not only have those players thrived, the Blue Jays have flipped them in deals that have landed them players like Randal Grichuk and Thomas Hatch.

It’s that track record that prevented pessimism around the Chatwood signing, though it would have been warranted based on his recent production.

The right-hander was coming off a three-year, $38-million deal with the Chicago Cubs during which he was worth 0.6 WAR in 199 innings and produced the only season in which a pitcher has walked more hitters than he struck out in 100 or more innings since 2009. Considering the modern way teams value strikeouts and fielding-independent stats, it might be the last for some time.

He didn’t even show vastly improved results out of the bullpen, either. From his MLB debut in 2011 to 2020, Chatwood produced a slightly better ERA and FIP as a starter (4.38 and 4.65) than he did as a reliever (4.53 and 4.66).

Somehow from that mess the team saw a guy that could be a high-leverage arm — something they were talking about before the season even started and the bullpen was hit with a massive wave of injuries. They were on the money, too, as early in his Blue Jays career he’s sitting on a 0.60 ERA, a 1.34 FIP and a WAR of 0.6 — equalling his entire Cubs tenure. The question is how, and the answer comes from less than 20 innings, none of them out of the bullpen.

In his brief 2020 campaign that included just five starts, only two of which lasted more than three innings, Chatwood flashed a trait that had always eluded him — the ability to miss bats.

After eight consecutive seasons with a below-average strikeout rate, the right-hander found his groove in that department, a trend that has continued this year.

Chatwood’s surging K rate didn’t come from a velocity surge, or a new pitch, instead it seems to have originated from a change in approach last season. The right-hander effectively ditched his four-seam fastball and threw cutters at the highest rate of his career — a tendency that’s become even more pronounced since he joined the Blue Jays.

It’s a move that must have been difficult to make, especially since Chatwood’s four-seamer came in around 95 m.p.h. and had 96th percentile spin rate in 2019 — the year before he marginalized it. It should be a good pitch, but Chatwood didn’t command it well and it ended up filling up the middle of the zone. This is the heatmap on the pitch in 2018 and 2019, just before the veteran put it on the backburner.

Switching things up wasn’t just about getting away from his four-seamer for Chatwood. More importantly, he was emphasizing his most impressive pitch, a cutter that got progressively better over his three years as a Cub in terms of horizontal movement:

Last season, Chatwood showed he had a strikeout pitch for the first time — one that was effective diving away from right-handers...

…and crowding lefties:

The idea that the evaluation of a pitcher should change dramatically from 18.2 innings — especially when they come with a 5.30 ERA and 5.27 xERA — seems silly on the surface, but there are cases where it’s justified. Chatwood’s 2020 was a proof of concept for what he could do with a different approach that put a heavy emphasis on a rapidly improving pitch.

The Blue Jays saw the potential there, pushed his cutter usage even higher, and have been rewarded handsomely.

After years of running mediocre strikeout rates, Chatwood is now throwing a pitch that elicits a 45.5 per-cent whiff rate 47 per cent of the time — and it’s no surprise that his K/9 sits at a healthy 12.60/9. The Blue Jays have found themselves a reliable high-leverage arm, and Chatwood is having himself a heck of a platform year before hitting free agency again. Even if there is no such thing as a bad one-year contract, it’s rare to find that kind of win-win.

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