This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95
using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)
-
Skenes knows about The Demon, and he’s making changes to stay out of its clutches. Sitting 97, and more than that struggling with command and location of his many secondary pitches, Skenes has had the roughest stretch of his career since the middle of May: a 5.06 ERA and 3.31 FIP in 17 starts. His average four-seamer has come in at 96.7 mph in that time. What doesn’t come up as much is what happened before that: Skenes started the year with a 1.98 ERA and 2.48 FIP in nine starts...and his four-seamer averaged 97.2 mph. For all the focus on this midseason slump and the concomitant loss of velocity, no one noticed that Skenes had dialed back his four-seamer without any loss of effectiveness for almost two months from Opening Day.
Paul Skenes hasn’t lost velocity. Paul Skenes intentionally dialed back his velocity in an attempt to not end up like Hunter Greene.
-
You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95
using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)
