The NL’s Most Balanced Pitcher (psst it's Mikolas)

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Jocephus
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The NL’s Most Balanced Pitcher (psst it's Mikolas)

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The National League’s Most Balanced Pitcher
by Craig Edwards
July 12, 2018

When I think about control artists, I think about pitchers who consistently hit their spots, particularly on the edges of the strike zone. These thoughts are further associated in my mind with low walk totals. So when I look at the National League leaderboard in walk percentage and see Miles Mikolas at 3.9%, I assume, he is good at painting corners. Then I look at his heat maps, and I don’t see that at all.
When he gets to two strikes, he minimizes his sinker usage, but other than that, he keeps hitters guessing and off-balance. This isn’t to say Mikolas has solved some weak-contact riddle to give him a .260 BABIP, an 8.2% HR/FB rate, and a 2.65 ERA. His FIP is still a very good 3.20, that HR/FB rate isn’t as low as it appears considering Mikolas has a healthy 12.4% infield fly-ball rate, and if he can keep walking players just 4% of the time, his 18% strikeout rate is more than acceptable. There were a lot of free agent pitchers available this past offseason, but so far the Cardinals have gotten the best one as Mikolas has carried over what made him successful in Japan.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-nat ... d-pitcher/

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Tim
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Re: The NL’s Most Balanced Pitcher (psst it's Mikolas)

Post by Tim »

Boy I was wrong about that guy

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