Written by Trevor Filkins
Edited by John Aidala
In terms of league wide surprise, the deal sending Garrett Crochet to the Boston Red Sox was among the top in this year's offseason. In this past season with the Chicago White Sox, Crochet put up a Cy Young caliber season with his time on the bump. For Crochet to have the mental capacity and dominance to perform that well for the worst team in Major League Baseball history is purely admirable. With a change of color in his 'sox, Crochet should be excited for the opportunity to play for an up and coming Boston team. Crochet may highlight the acquisitions made by the Red Sox, but the Boston faithful should be ecstatic for the signing of recent MLB World Series Champ, Walker Buehler.
I expect Buehler to make tremendous strides this season with Boston this season. I see it as one of the most underrated off-season moves that underwent in the MLB. With his former pedigree as a near Cy Young Caliber, I anticipate him to find his way back to a similar status. While Fenway is a hitter friendly ballpark, he will be welcomed by a devoted fanbase who will take him as their own. This season will be the ultimate test for Buehler as he will face a new flurry of sluggers in the American League East.
With Judge and Stanton headlining the Yankee sluggers, a youthful Orioles batting lineup and Santander joining the sole team north of the border, a hostile environment for Buehler is a certainty.
Buehler has also faced adversity among his pitch repertoire. The drop in velocity on Buehler’s 4-seamer has led to it becoming a damage pitch for him. Last year, his average velocity on his 4-seamer was around 95.0 MPH. When he first entered the league his fastball rarely arrived at the plate under 96 MPH. This led to his whiff rates surpassing 20% and his xSLG and xWOBA (stats used for expected damage) to be well above league average. xWOBA is expected Weighted On-base Average and takes into account exit velocity, launch angle and sprint speed on specified balls in play. It better accounts for batters' quality of contact. xSLG is similar to xWOBA and they both provide insight into the quality of contact that is being achieved by batters off of a pitcher. The drop in velocity on his 4-seamer made him susceptible to xSLG and xWOBA numbers that dropped to well below league average. His Whiff% has dropped to 16.9% on the pitch. This is over a 30% drop from what it was at its peak.
The Red Sox approach to pitching development as of recently has tendencies of limited the use of the four-seamer. Red Sox Pitching Coach, Andrew Bailey, has instilled a practice that places emphasis on the use of “good” fastballs. He does this by decreasing the usage of four-seam fastballs and increasing the usage of other pitches, they have placed an emphasis on using the four-seamer as more of a surprise pitch to batters. Tanner Houck, the ace of the Red Sox pitching staff last season, eliminated the pitch he threw 9.8% of the time in 2023. Their young right-hander Brayan Bello, who dropped his usage from 20.6% in 2023 down to 4.8% in 2024. What Bailey did with these pitchers is emphasize the use of their
"secondary" pitches. In terms of Houck, he opted for a higher movement pitch in the sweeper and improved his splitter. He threw those two pitches a combined 46.2% of the time. He scrapped his four-seamer which lacked the movement to be a competitive pitch at the Major League level. He developed a sinker which, similar to his splitter and sweeper, had elite vertical movement. His ERA dropped a whole 2.00 and a FIP improvement of over 1.00. In a similar effort with Brayan Bello, they emphasized the utilization of his Sinker, Slider, and Changeup. He threw these pitches over 95% of the time in 2024 because of average movement profiles and the expected damage. In 2023, he threw these three pitches 77.8% of the time combined. His four-seamer had the highest expected damage of his pitches and which resulted to his utilization to drop to under 5%. While his ERA was higher between the '23 and '24 seasons, Bello’s FIP decreased by nearly half a run. This is due to his improved strikeout rate and decreased home run and hit rates. I’d argue he just took a step and with this year coming up, signs of improvement appear promising.
The Red Sox are going to make Buehler a stud again with a similar formula. I anticipate that Bailey will work with Buehler this upcoming season to scrap a few pitches. In 2024, Walker tossed seven different pitches in 2024. In 2025, I envision him to throw four to five different pitches and optimize on them.
In the statistical categories of expected damage, his four-seam fastball and slider were his worst pitches. We could see a new look in Boston from Buehler as Bailey will severely limit his fastball usage.
His best pitches are easily the Sweeper and Cutter when it comes to the overall numbers. I expect that usage on those pitches to significantly increase in the upcoming season. The Red Sox should definitely have Buehler utilize a Sinker, Sweeper combination against right handers and more of a Cutter, Knuckle Curve, Changeup mix when facing lefties. In this way, his best two pitches can be utilized to the effect of both righties and lefties. I feel that Buehler does not use his best pitch enough and should definitely hone in on the sweeper usage. He might even be able to pick up some movement tips from Houck on both the Sweeper and Slider. Since Houck easily displays some of the nastiest of both in the league, he could serve as a solid mentor in adapting Buehler to Bailey's methodology.
These are the changes that I view should be coming to his arsenal when he takes the mound for the Red Sox in 2025. Look for Walker Buehler to re-assert himself into the conversations as of one of the best pitchers in the game, as the Red Sox attempt to insert their voo-doo pitching philosophy on him.