Diving into Jonathan Stiever’s stats felt like unearthing buried treasure yesterday – messy but exciting. Started around 1am, groggy but curious, hitting Baseball Savant’s search bar like always. Punching in his name had me squinting at the career graphs popping up.
The Curveball Confusion
Remembered seeing chatter about his spin rates dipping last season. Grabbed three years of FanGraphs splits, dumped ’em into a janky spreadsheet. Sorted by month-by-month ERA totals first – total mess. Numbers zig-zagged like a drunk squirrel. WhyTF did I think month order would show anything?
- Scratched head, brewed awful instant coffee
- Switched view to K/9 ratio vs hard-hit percentage instead
- Realized his 2021 IL stint screwed comparisons
That’s when the elbow soreness note clicked. Separated data into pre-injury / post-rehab chunks. Suddenly saw it: fastball velocity flatlined after return. FanGraphs didn’t flag that correlation – my crusty spreadsheet did.
The “Oh Sht” Pivot
Got greedy around 3am. Dug into minor league logs too. Found AAA Indianapolis starts before his September call-up. Threw those into the stew. Noticed something brutal: opponent OPS jumped .200 points facing him third time through lineup. Whipped up this crude heatmap showing exit velocity by pitch count:
- Pitch 1-30: mostly blue/green
- Pitch 60+: fire engine red tiles
Nearly knocked over coffee laughing. So obvious now – dude’s third-inning gas tank leaks like my ’98 Corolla.
Wrapped around sunrise, slapping conclusions together:
TLDR version: Stiever’s not trash, just got wrecked by injuries & stamina issues. That velo dip + late-inning meltdown pattern? Textbook recovery hurdles. Should he start? Hell no until that pitch count puzzle gets fixed.
