After Chris Archer was traded back in 2018, I thought for sure that we’d seen the last of him in a Rays uniform. Well, here we are now two and a half years later, and I’m digging my Archer jersey out of my closet. Last week, the Rays signed Chris Archer to a one year, $6.5 million deal.
A lot has changed in the time Archer was with the Pirates, especially for him. So I thought it would be interesting to dig into how he’s been doing, what he’s changed, and how his overall success has been.
Before we get started, some things that you should know about Chris Archer:
- Archer’s best seasons to date were 2015 – 2017.
- Archer’s worst season was 2019
- Mid-2018, Archer was traded from the Rays to the Pirates
- He was out for the entire 2020 season from Thoracic Outlet Surgery (TOS)
The trade in 2018 will go down as one of the best in history for the Rays, as they received Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow, and Shane Baz. Since then, there has been a lot of pressure for Archer to perform with the Pirates, but it didn’t pan out as well as hoped.
The reason why he didn’t maintain his success from his time at the Rays? Let’s take a look.
Part 1: Reintroduced the Sinker
Way back in 2014, Archer threw a sinker. He cut it out of his pitch mix for the remainder of his time with the Rays, but reintroduced it after joining the Pirates in 2018.
Looking at the most basic stats, the results were not great. Opponent SLG against his sinker in 2019 was .698. This is due, in part, to his sinker being a below average pitch. But more on this to come.
Why did Archer start throwing his sinker again?
Pitches that are low in the zone with high movement and high velocity (like a sinker) tend to result in higher ground ball rates.
It’s a common strategy for Pirates pitchers to throw low in the zone and get their ground ball percentage up.
That being said, the opposite happened to Archer. His ground ball rate dropped over 8% from 2018 to 2019, his first full season with the Pirates.
Archer was never a ground ball pitcher, and I don’t think he ever will be one. He doesn’t need to be, when he uses his stuff the right way he gets outs.
Why isn’t Archer getting better results out of his sinker?
Archer is a great pitcher, with an elite slider. But as I briefly mentioned earlier, his sinker is far from his best pitch.
There are two main reasons for why his sinker isn’t working as well as hoped:
- The sinker isn’t getting enough movement
- It is too similar to his fourseam
The Sinker has Below Average Movement
Compared to other pitchers’ sinkers, Archer’s has below average sink and run (vertical and horizontal movement). The less movement a pitch has, the easier it is to hit it.
He’s also not getting his sinker low enough to make up for the lack of movement. Looking at the heat map below from Baseball Savant, it seems like the sinker is ending up directly in the heart of the zone. Knowing that it has below average movement, this might help explain the 0.698 SLG against.
To back this up, check out the following zone maps (Baseball Savant) with opponent batting averages against his sinker (split by lefty and righty batters). They show that both sides of the plate are having success against Archer’s sinker.
Archer’s sinker is too similar to his fourseam
Archer’s sinker looks a lot like his fourseam, which may be another factor playing into the sinker’s lack of success. If we look at the pitch movement diagram below, you’ll see that the fourseam and sinker mesh together.
To have more effective results, it would be better if the movement of the two pitches were better differentiated.
That being said, a lot of pitches who throw the fourseam and the sinker have similar diagrams. But the difference is, they are using those pitches differently.
Noah Syndergaard, for example, uses his fourseam almost exclusively on one side of the plate, and the sinker on the opposite.
Archer, however, is throwing them both to the heart of the zone. Check out the heatmaps below from 2018:
I don’t think the sinker is moving enough to deceive hitters, and ends up looking too much like the fourseam.
Do you think Archer will be using his sinker this year?
Check out Part 2: Archer’s fourseam and Part 3: Archer’s wind-up to understand other changes he’s made.
Music in the video: Avalon by NiM Available for download on Soundcloud
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