Good look at Woody’s evolving change up usage & effectiveness over at FanGraphs today…
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/brandon-woodruff-has-leveled-up-his-changeup/
His 30.5% swinging strike rate on the pitch currently leads all starters who have thrown at least 50 change ups so far.
Will be interesting to see if the improvements hold over the course of the season.
They also did a breakdown of Rowdy’s hot start on Friday…
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/rowdy-tellez-is-absolutely-mashing/
Couple nuggets in the comment section I wasn’t aware of…
Even though he was a 30th round pick, Rowdy got 850k to sign, the highest bonus in the TOR draft class that year. Blue Jays had that extra cash because their 1st round pick decided to go to college, Phil Bickford.
Also noted that Rowdy ranked high in the stats based KATOH prospect rankings that Chris Mitchell used to publish before getting hired by the Twins. Some relevant rankings from his last Top 100 in 2018…
#13 Adames, #20 Urias, #35 Caratini, #77 Burnes, #83 Woodruff, #95 Peralta
Former Brewers on the list included…
#8 Grisham, #11 Brinson, #50 Banda, #100 Dubon
For comparison, out of BA, BPro & MLB, here are the range of rankings for those same players pre-2018…
Adames (15-19), Urias (32-74), Caratini (UR), Burnes (69-80), Woodruff (61-UR), Peralta (UR), Grisham (UR), Brinson (18-27), Banda (UR), Dubon (UR)