St. Louis Cardinals: Trevor Rosenthal’s Velocity Appears to Be Back
Trevor Rosenthal’s velocity has returned in a major way during the early part of 2017.
While his biggest issue during a troublesome 2016 season was his loss of control, another major issue for St. Louis Cardinals reliever Trevor Rosenthal was his noticeable drop off in velocity. Rosenthal, who had consistently thrown his fastball in the range of 98-99 MPH during his first three seasons in the four seasons in the majors, averaged a modest 97.2 MPH on his fastball in 2016 according to Statcast.
Despite the fact that he dealt with injuries during spring training, Rosenthal’s velocity has bounced back in a major way during the early part of the 2017 season. Rosenthal, who was activated from the disabled list on April 10, leads the major leagues in average pitch velocity according to Statcast through his first four appearances of the regular season.
Keep in mind that while holding the lead for average pitch velocity is an impressive display of athleticism, it’s not necessarily a foolproof measure of Rosenthal’s ability as a pitcher. It’s more of an indication that Rosenthal just isn’t mixing his speeds as heavily as, for example, Aroldis Chapman.
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Via PITCHf/x, Rosenthal has thrown 35 fastballs (34 four-seamers and a two-seamer) and just seven off-speed pitches (four sliders and three changeups) this season. That’s quite a difference from a pitcher like Chapman, who has thrown 56 fastballs, 13 changeups, and 10 sliders through 2017.
For what it’s worth, though, Rosenthal does make seven appearances on Statcast’s fastest pitches leaderboard, which used to be so heavily populated by Chapman that they implemented a “Chapman filter” to provide a look at which other pitchers around the league were throwing gas. His 101.9 MPH fastball, thrown in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s win over the Pirates, is the hardest pitch thrown by a pitcher other than Chapman this season, and it ranks eighth overall on the list.
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Considering the success that Rosenthal has experienced during the early going, it’s likely that the Cardinals will stick to the same formula with him rather than trying to push him beyond his limits. That means not using him for multiple innings, seeing as a series of multiple-inning outings this spring triggered a couple flare-ups of a nagging lat injury, and probably avoiding using him on back-to-back days as much as possible.