Each pitcher that makes it to the majors is an outlier. The very best athlete from their highschool; probably the most naturally gifted child on their journey ball group; the standout of their faculty program. And even among the many prime 0.01 per cent who attain MLB and stick round for some time, outliers exist, too.
They seem like Max Scherzer. A dominant ace whose consistency, sturdiness, and mixture of innings-hauling amount and offence-suppressing high quality is seldom seen within the trendy recreation.
A 17-season veteran solely 122 innings shy of three,000, 102 strikeouts from the game’s all-time prime 10, and certain one of many ultimate pitchers in historical past to achieve 200 wins (at 153, Gerrit Cole is the lone different with a sensible shot).
A dwelling legend who’s made a begin reverse Jamie Moyer, doubled off Randy Johnson, shared a triple-A clubhouse with Trot Nixon, pitched at Shea Stadium, and struck out Carlos Delgado, Chipper Jones, Manny Ramirez, and Vladimir Guerrero Sr.
A future first-ballot hall-of-famer who, after agreeing to a one-year, $15.5-million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays final week, will likely be older than half his new group’s 12-person teaching employees.
He’s received some miles on him. And as one would count on of a pitcher who’s been at it this lengthy, Scherzer misplaced his greatest fastball years in the past. All through the 2010s it wasn’t uncommon to see him attain again for 98-99 mph when he wanted it. However he’s hit 98 solely as soon as since 2019 and 97 twice since 2021. In 2023 he hit 96 simply seven occasions. The toughest pitch he threw final yr was 95 throughout an injury-marred season during which his common velocity dipped to a career-low 92.5 mph.
And but, when wholesome, he’s nonetheless efficient on the recreation’s highest degree. Nonetheless able to lacking bats at the next clip than a lot of the league. How is he doing it? With creativity, guile, and fixed progress. By perpetually evolving. And for Scherzer, that begins with management and command.
We don’t consider him as a finesse pitcher — it’s an ungainly label to placed on a man who’s labored within the mid-90s with an almost 30 per cent profession strikeout charge. However the consistency with which he’s landed pitches the place he desires them, rapidly figuring out and executing in-game mechanical changes to keep up that accuracy, is the basis of all he’s completed.
Trendy pitch monitoring has vastly aided our understanding of that means. We’ll by no means be capable of measure intent. However the place conventional stats equivalent to strikeout, stroll, and strike charge merely weed out the pitchers we’d by no means contemplate command-and-control artists within the first place, up to date ones equivalent to edge charge — the proportion of pitches situated inside a baseball’s width of the strike zone’s borders — get us nearer to figuring out who’s really hitting their spots.
Scherzer’s been remarkably constant in that class for a while. Every season from the start of the Statcast period in 2015 by way of 2022, his edge charge fell inside a 41-43 per cent band. That isn’t elite. Nevertheless it’s difference-making when you’ve Scherzer’s stuff, aggressiveness, and talent to get hitters to chase pitches off the plate.
And as his uncooked pitch metrics have declined, his location has improved, mitigating any lack of effectiveness. Throughout his final full season in 2023, Scherzer’s edge charge was 44 per cent — a top-30 mark. And throughout 9 begins final yr, it was 47.5 per cent — sixth-highest among the many 446 pitchers to face no less than 150 batters.
Mix that confirmed command with a talented receiver (Statcast graded Alejandro Kirk because the fourth-best pitch framer within the recreation final season), plus a fame bias encouraging umpires to award Scherzer borderline pitches, and hitters know they need to enter plate appearances able to swing. This places Scherzer within the driver’s seat, steering hitters in the direction of providing at unideal pitches to hit.
To wit — Scherzer’s induced swing charges above 50 per cent each season since 2015, a span during which the league common was 47 per cent. His total 51.9 per cent swing charge over that decade is a 97th percentile mark. Solely 15 certified pitchers had swing charges above 50 per cent final season; solely 9 did in 2023.
It’s merely one purpose why, amongst over 150 certified starters since 2019, just one — George Kirby, by a complete half a share level — has the next first-pitch strike charge than Scherzer. In additional methods than one, Scherzer is regularly working forward.
Highest first-pitch strike charge amongst SP, 2019-2024
MLB common: 61.3%
These craftiness measures can assist pitchers alleviate the consequences of an inevitable lack of velocity and stuff as they age. As does implementing extra funk and deception of their deliveries — one thing Scherzer, together with his unusual three-quarters arm angle and slight crossfire motion, was already doing a decade in the past.
One other ploy is deepening the repertoire. Scherzer’s new teammates present telling examples. The standard of Chris Bassitt’s arsenal isn’t overpowering however the amount is overwhelming. Kevin Gausman hasn’t been toying with a slider and sinker as a result of he’s bored. There’s a purpose the Blue Jays maintain attempting to get Jose Berrios to develop a cutter for lefties. As soon as the league has seen you adequate occasions, you could be taught some new methods.
And Scherzer started that course of earlier than Berrios even made his MLB debut, choosing up a curveball and cutter as his profession progressed whereas by no means sacrificing the effectiveness of his fastball, slider, or changeup. In 2023, his age-38 season, all 5 of Scherzer’s pitches graded fringe-average-to-above in each of FanGraphs’ pitch fashions, Stuff+ and PitchingBot. His location and command scores on every pitch have been all above common, too.
We first noticed Scherzer’s cutter as early as 2010, however he wasn’t utilizing it as something greater than a shock pitch till halfway by way of 2017, as he was on his strategy to successful a second consecutive Cy Younger award. That’s when he started incorporating it as an even- or leverage-count pitch towards lefties, significantly when he had two strikes.
Two issues have been working towards Scherzer on the time. His top-end fastball velocity was diminishing whereas league-average velocity was growing, which means hitters have been rising higher accustomed to beating arduous pitches to spots within the zone. This was significantly an issue for Scherzer towards lefties, who might hang around over the plate on the lookout for fastballs. He wanted one thing agency transferring to his glove aspect that he might jam them with.
Demonstrating his means to execute cutters on the within edge backed lefties off the plate and reopened actual property to Scherzer’s arm-side for fastballs and changeups. That his cutter tunnels so effectively off his heater and slider isn’t an accident. As he slowly misplaced the flexibility to out-stuff hitters, it grew to become more and more essential that he put sufficient selection in his information to maintain them from sitting on one thing.
Or, in flip, to offer him sufficient selection to idiot them after they have been. It isn’t arduous to seek out current examples of Scherzer getting lefties to misjudge cutters by nation miles. Even, as poor Spencer Horwitz demonstrates on the finish of this bundle, ones that actually hit them:
After lefties hit .229/.307/.419 towards him in 2016 and ’17 — nonetheless effectively under common for lefties towards righties on the time — these charges plummeted to .197/.262/.347 in 2018 because of Scherzer’s new cutter. You may argue that 2018 was truly the most effective season of his prime. He simply doesn’t have a Cy Younger award on his mantle to commemorate it.
And he’s continued refining the pitch. Fashions cherished it in 2024, with Stuff+ grading it as 21 per cent higher than a league-average cutter. It ranked throughout the ninety fifth percentile of the 277 big-leaguers (minimal 10 IP) to throw a cutter final season.
Now, Scherzer’s base strategy towards righties is well-established and one which’s confirmed efficient all through his late 30s. Exhausting fastballs and tight sliders tunnelled off each other with a sprinkling of changeups operating arm-side down-and-in.
He can assault the skin edge fastball-slider-fastball as he did right here towards Yadier Molina:
Or he can put it in reverse and go slider-fastball-slider in the identical lane like with this sequence vs. Nick Castellanos:
He can dot fastballs on each edges of the plate, as he does right here towards Alec Bohm:
And when he’s received his changeup working off these two pitches, equivalent to on this fastball-slider-changeup sequence on an inside lane to Sean Murphy, it’s recreation over:
But, in 2012, as Scherzer started having points turning over lefty-laden lineups two or thrice, he started creating a curveball to offer himself a weapon that dropped down within the zone, creating separation from the remainder of his repertoire and opening new lanes to assault the other aspect of the platoon.
And through the years, as right-handed hitters started closing the hole with Scherzer, he began exhibiting them curveballs, too. His slider was nonetheless overwhelming. However you realize what’s higher than one breaking ball? Two.
What began as purely a show-me pitch has progressively grow to be one he can use to steal first-pitch strikes and change up sequences his second or third journey by way of. And he’s leaned on it greater than ever during the last two seasons to each side of the platoon:
That Scherzer underwent these changes whereas he was a perennial Cy Younger candidate is what differentiates him. He didn’t wait round for a six-start stretch getting his brains crushed in to alter one thing. He by no means stopped searching for new methods to take advantage of an opponent’s weaknesses, confuse their timing, and differ from the sequences he’d proven them prior.
That is the place Scherzer’s legendary cognitive abilities come into play. All of us see his depth and relentlessness within the brief window of time he’s competing on the mound. What we don’t see is how he applies those self same attributes to the for much longer stretches spent getting ready, crushing video, finding out information, and crafting recreation plans for every outing.
As athletes age, bodily deterioration is inescapable. However psychological lapses are preventable. And far of what’s allowed Scherzer to stay efficient late into an almost 3,000-inning profession has been a dedication to the acumen and guile that’s saved him perpetually forward of hitters which might be solely getting higher.
A technique of illustrating this: Scherzer’s 24.5 per cent in-zone whiff charge since 2015 leads all certified MLB starters. Cy Younger winners Jacob deGrom and Chris Sale rank second and third. Fewer than 20 starters have in-zone whiff charges above 20 per cent over that decade, and it’s a who’s who of elite pitchers — Luis Castillo, Dylan Stop, Gerrit Cole, Shohei Ohtani, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell, Justin Verlander.
And as he’s aged, Scherzer hasn’t misplaced a lot of that unusual means to overlook bats within the zone. His in-zone whiff charge since he turned 36 in 2021 is 22.6 per cent. Even in his calamitous 2024 it was up over 20. He might not throw as arduous or with as a lot motion as he used to. However that hasn’t been sufficient to degree the enjoying discipline with hitters often turning proper when Scherzer goes left:
He shouldn’t nonetheless be capable of do this at his age. He’s carried an immense workload during the last 17 years. He’s offered troves of information and tape alongside the best way. His peak velocity, his greatest chunk — lengthy gone. At this time’s hitters are worlds higher than those he confronted within the late 2000s. They’ve suites of contemporary know-how, sources, and strategies to assist put together them for the duty of hitting towards Scherzer.
And he’s nonetheless forward, eternally evolving. The most effective to ever do it. An outlier amongst outliers.
