Brewers Video
It has been quite some time since we’ve seen Brandon Woodruff toe the slab in the majors. His last outing for the big-league squad was on Sept. 23, 2023, when he pitched five innings against the Marlins to cap an astounding (although already injury-shortened) season. Just two weeks before that, he had thrown a complete game shutout. Unfortunately, just hours before he would have been named as part of the rotation for the Brewers' Wild Card Series showdown with the Diamondbacks, he instead held a press conference to announce that he would need surgery on a torn shoulder capsule. It's sidelined him ever since.
Last month, after a recovery process that lasted over a year, Woodruff began a 30-day rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville. He's made a stop in Appleton to mix things up and sell a few tickets for the cozied-up High-A affiliate, but by and large, he's been with the Sounds ever since. Aside from being a particularly emotional return to the game for Woodruff, that also gave us a glimpse into how his pitching has been affected by persistent injuries and a long layoff. On the surface, it seems like he’s back to business, posting a 2.79 ERA over his two starts with Wisconsin and a 2.63 ERA over three starts with Nashville.
However, a closer look tells us that things are far more different than these numbers may lead you to believe. First and foremost, his velocity has decreased significantly. Here is a table of his average velocities across all levels of competitions over the past four seasons he has pitched:
Data courtesy of Brooks Baseball
Not only is his average velocity down, he isn't able to top out at nearly the same levels as he used to. While he could occasionally touch 99 mph in years past, he has yet to eclipse 96 mph a single time while rehabbing. This dip could be due to several factors, such as needing time to ramp back up to full effort or the adverse long-term effects of two serious shoulder injuries in one year. When asked about whether there were concerns about him getting back to where he was, Pat Murphy had this to say:
Quote“It’s not all about velocity, but it’s about can that fastball be effective? Is he commanding the fastball? We know the secondary stuff is all getting better.”
Based on Murphy’s comments, it seems like he could get back to where he was, but the team isn’t betting the house on it. (This is a noteworthy departure from the tone Murphy struck in March, when he said he expected Woodruff's fastball to come back to its full previous strength.) It also explains some of the other changes to his arsenal. After all, if Woodruff was expected to return to his hard-throwing youth, why fix what isn’t broken? So far, the two biggest changes have been adding a cutter and changing the shape of his slider to a sweeper.
Let’s start with the slider. First off, although it’s classified as a slider, we can pretty much tell it’s more of a sweeper based on its intrinsic characteristics. The dip in velocity is the first hint, but a closer look at the movement profile gives us the smoking gun.
Woodruff’s slider didn’t move all that much to begin with, but a big jump in glove-side break makes it clear that he is working with a different pitch type altogether. Other arms on the Brewers have successfully converted their sliders to sweepers with great results—most notably, this year, Grant Anderson.
As for the cutter, it’s probably just another tool in his belt to get outs. As the dominance of each individual pitch decreases, he’ll instead have to rely on sheer variety to keep batters on their heels. Furthermore, his cutter has a similar movement profile to his old slider, with a little more ride.
When asked about the importance of his new pitches, Murphy remarked that Woodruff has been liking the sweeper. The new pitches are gradually increasing his confidence that he’ll be ready to face big-league bats soon.
Quote“Woody’s mindset and mentality, when he’s ready, no matter what the stuff is, I feel confident. It’s all about him being confident and ready to go.”
For some, it may be equally disappointing and concerning to see slower velocities come out of Woodruff's hand. However, when one considers all the work that he has done to adapt his skillset to his current physical abilities, it’s possible he’ll be just as dominant as he was before—albeit in a slightly different form. His fastball and changeup grade out worse than before, but the sweeper and cutter look like very valuable additions.
With his most recent start with the Sounds possibly being the final one, it won’t be long before we get to see what this new version of Woodruff can do against the highest level of competition.
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