Release Points: Sale on Righties

There is hardly a starting pitcher in baseball more dominant now than Chris Sale. His numbers would be the envy of a skilled late-inning relief pitcher. But to some degree he's beaten the odds to get to this stage, as he has overcome doubts about his unusually lanky frame and irregular mechanics.

Even more of a potential barrier to someone like Sale, however, is the danger of severe platoon splits. In general, pitchers with higher arm slots are likely to see smaller platoon splits than sidearmers. This is why someone like Justin Masterson, who has always had a huge split, can little afford to lose fastball speed before left-handed hitters obliterate him. Clayton Kershaw has been able to dominate hitters from both sides of the plate with his straight-over-the-top delivery, while lefty pitchers with Sale's slot are more suited to relief roles as LOOGYs. Minimizing platoon splits is especially important for lefties because most hitters are right-handed.

Sale has managed to become, through experimentation and maturation, a highly effective pitcher against right-handed and left-handed hitters despite his arm slot. His growth has not been linear, though: He has figured out how to conquer each in turn. Let's look back over his time as a starting pitcher to see how he has progressed.

2012
This was Sale's first season as a starter. He produced a fine 17–8 record and 3.07 ERA in 29 starts, instantly becoming a front-line member of the rotation. Take a look at his platoon splits from that year.

Here you see a pitcher who has the essentials already of a great pitcher: excellent strikeout and walk rates and a decent home run rate, with a manageable platoon split. In fact, his .682 OPS was about 160 points lower than the average RHH/LHP OPS in 2012. By this point, Sale is already free of a true weakness, and any improvements he makes are icing on the cake.

2013

Sale took a step forward in 2013, more or less maintaining his solid performance against righties while stepping up against lefties in a major way. His K-BB% improved against both sides, but lefties became basically a non-factor. He didn't allow a single home run to a lefty hitter, and he hasn't in subsequent years, either. A large platoon split opened up, but only because of the advances he made against fellow southpaws.

2014

The next stage of improvement came in 2014, when the other shoe fell and he began to solve right-handed hitters better than ever. His strikeout rates surged across the board, and righties slugged what lefties did just two years before. He has simultaneously maintained his gains against lefty hitters; the platoon split is closing up.

2015

Although he has continued to improve strongly with right-handed hitters, he has regressed a bit against lefties. On the whole, however, this is a trade well worth making. Eighty-seven percent of the batters Sale has faced this year were right-handed, or greater than a 6:1 ratio. As a result, his overall performance against hitters as a whole is stronger than ever, with a 59 cFIP and 2.22 DRA that are each the best of his career.

How has he gotten there? Part of it appears related to adjusting his pitch-selection. As he has gained confidence in his repertoire, he seems to have found the best ways to apply his four-pitch mix of fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup. Tracking with his improvement against lefties in 2013 and beyond was a large decrease in the use of his four-seam fastball and a general trend away from throwing hard pitches (his four- and two-seam heaters).

Meanwhile, right-handed hitters in 2014 began seeing many more four-seamers and changeups at the expense of sliders and sinkers.

He's been using the four-seamer higher in the zone than ever before, giving him a greater variety of eye levels to play with. This is also a fastball that has been steadily climbing in speed the last four years, from 93.5 mph to 95.7. The higher placement in the zone and the increased velocity have combined to dramatically increase Sale’s whiff/swing on the heater; he’s above 32 percent this year, the highest mark in baseball among starters.

Also key to this transition is his changeup, a pitch responsible for 79 strikeouts of right-handed hitters since 2014, compared to the 70 from his slider. Sale’s changeup has consistently produced good results since he’s been a starter—including a .302 slugging percentage against the pitch since 2012—but his increased willingness to throw it has rounded out his arsenal. It has played a role similar to that played by Kershaw's slider several years ago. Everyone was wowed by Kershaw's curve and Sale's slider at first because they were (and are) awesome pitches that make for sexy GIFs, but what has made them truly elite pitchers is developing a full repertoire to attack hitters from both sides of the plate several times each game.

Watch Kris Bryant struggle against Sale’s whole array of weapons in Saturday’s game, striking out on a backdoor slider in the first inning

a high heater in the third,

and a changeup down and away in the sixth.

That’s what a complete pitcher looks like.

Sale has gotten better each year as a starter, and it's not an accident. It's hard to imagine an American League pitcher reaching a higher level of performance than what we've seen from him since the beginning of 2014, and it's all the more remarkable because, to the naked eye, he profiles as someone who would not be able to eviscerate right-handed hitting the way he has. Sale has found a magic formula, and it should continue to work for him as long as he stays healthy and throwing hard.