Vladimir Gutierrez Needs a New Fastball, and the Brewers Can Give Him One

The starting rotation was the most precarious area of the Brewers’ roster entering the season. Milwaukee added to that mix last week by acquiring righthander Vladimir Gutierrez. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Nashville, but could soon make some starts or long relief appearances for the parent club as it continues to chew through arms early in the season.

Gutierrez’s big-league numbers do not point to someone who can offer much help. The 28-year-old was once a highly-regarded international prospect, but has struggled to a 5.47 ERA, 5.62 FIP, and 6.02 DRA in 33 MLB appearances (30 starts).

Much of those struggles stem from his fastball. Gutierrez’s slider has shown promise, but his four-seamer has been borderline unusable against big-league opponents. According to Statcast, the pitch has cost Gutierrez 25 runs in his brief MLB career, and hitters have slugged .621 against it.

Gutierrez’s four-seamer has below-average spin and has averaged 14.6 inches of induced vertical break. The observed vertical movement of his fastball is about an inch less than the average four-seamer thrown at a similar speed with a comparable release distance.

Many effective four-seam fastballs have higher spin rates and greater induced vertical break. These qualities help the pitch minimize the effect of gravity as it approaches the plate, giving it the illusion of rising action that hitters often refer to as “life” or “ride.” Because Gutierrez’s four-seamer lacks these qualities, the pitch looks flat to opponents, causing it to run into barrels frequently.

Gutierrez needs a reliable fastball to make an impact at the big-league level. There are a couple of different paths to making that happen.

One option is for the Brewers to help Gutierrez get behind the ball and generate truer backspin to produce more vertical movement. They helped Bryse Wilson make this tweak last season, and his four-seamer went from one of the worst in baseball to holding opponents to a .213 slugging percentage last year.

The other route is to replace Gutierrez’s four-seamer with a two-seamer or sinker. J.B. Bukauskas made this transition, but he started with a fastball with even less vertical movement than Gutierrez’s heater, so converting to a heavy sinker was quite natural.

The final option is, perhaps, the most likely route: having Gutierrez throw both a two-seamer and a four-seamer. Milwaukee has increasingly emphasized having their pitchers throw two kinds of fastballs. Wilson, Joel Payamps, Hoby Milner, and Colin Rea are among the current examples. These pitchers use sinkers in the bottom third of the zone and elevate four-seamers to change eye levels. Even if neither pitch is effective in isolation, the idea is that the difference in shape and location helps both offerings play up.

At any rate, we know one adjustment Gutierrez has already made, which might be what prompted the Brewers to scoop him up. He's drastically increased his release extension this spring, in addition to adding a tick to his raw fastball velocity. That effectively makes his heater 1.5 MPH hotter than it was last year.

With those fastballs on which his extension approaches eight feet, Gutierrez is as much an outlier as Bryan Hudson or Hoby Milner. The Brewers love to target guys with good extension, and Chris Hook and his staff teach it well, to boot. They also like to create tough angles for the hitter by moving a pitcher to whichever side of the rubber renders him most extreme, but Gutierrez has already done some of that work himself, too. His release point is farther toward third base and a few inches lower than last season, contributing to a flatter vertical approach angle (VAA) on his heat.

This doesn't mean the fastball is already fixed, but it does underscore an important point: there's something there with which to work. The Brewers like this kind of project, and this one offers more to their chief pitching lab techs than meets the eye.

Gutierrez has yet to make his debut in Nashville. As he starts working with Milwaukee’s pitching development system, expect the qualities of his fastball and the role it plays in his pitch mix to change.