The Red Sox have made one trade so far with a little more than three hours remaining before the MLB trade deadline.
They acquired left-handed reliever Steven Matz from the Cardinals for prospect Blaze Jordan on Wednesday night.
Below is a look at Matz’s relevant statistics this season.
1) Opponents are batting .188 against his curveball
Matz’s curveball is his second most used pitch behind only his sinker. He has gone to it 20.6% of the time. Opponents are batting .188 with a .205 expected batting average, .292 slugging percentage and .332 expected slugging percentage against it.
He throws it around the same amount against lefties as he does vs. righties and it produces the highest whiff percentage (24.1%) out of any of his pitches.
It should be interesting to see if the Red Sox increase Matz’s curveball, similar to how they handled reliever Jorge Alcala after they acquired him from the Twins on June 11.
Matz’s curveball this season is the most effective it has been since 2019.
2) Matz throws a ton of sinkers
Matz has used his sinker 59.4% of the time. He has thrown it more than 50% in every season except 2022 when he used it 48.5%.
He’s in the 89th percentile in fastball run value (8) and opponents have batted .258 with a .244 expected batting average, .333 slugging percentage and .369 expected slugging percentage against it.
3) His changeup has been hit hard
Matz’s changeup — a pitch he uses almost exclusively against righties — is his third most used pitched behind the sinker and curveball. He has thrown it 151 times to righties and just 10 times to lefties.
The pitch has been hit hard with a .556 slugging percentage and .521 expected slugging percentage against it. He’s in just the fourth percentile (-5) in offspeed run value.
The left-handed pitcher’s numbers against righties in general have not been good. Righties are batting .313 compared to lefties batting .179. Twelve of the 15 extra-base hits he has allowed have come against right-handed hitters.
Perhaps the Red Sox find a different attack plan vs. righties, including decreasing changeup usage. Matz has held righties to a lower career OBP than left-handed hitters, although righties have always slugged more.
4) He hasn’t pitched well since mid-May after a strong start
Matz gave up only four earned runs in 26 ⅔ innings (1.35 ERA) over his first 11 outings this season. He has a 5.40 ERA, allowing 17 earned runs in 28 ⅓ innings, in his last 21 outings dating back to May 14.
The batting average on balls in play has been high (.356) since mid-May so there might be some bad luck involved. He has a 3.80 FIP during the stretch.
Overall this season, he ranks in 82nd percentile in expected ERA (3.09) and 65th percentile in expected batting average against (.235).
He has done a great job throwing strikes. His walk percentage (4.0%) is in the 98th percentile.
5) He has more meltdowns than shutdowns
Matz has nine meltdowns compared to eight shutdowns this season. He has a Win Probability Added of -0.68. As Fangraphs defines it, “Win Probability Added (WPA) captures the change in Win Expectancy from one plate appearance to the next and credits or debits the player based on how much their action increased their team’s odds of winning.”
For context, Justin Wilson, a similar left-handed reliever to Matz, has a 0.10 WPA and 16 shutdowns compared to nine meltdowns.
A reliever earns a shutdown if his WPA is 0.06 or higher in an outing and a meltdown is given if his team’s chances of winning decrease by -0.06 or more.
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