2017 Garrett Richards Injured Again Out for the Season
From 2013-2015, Garrett Richards posted a 3.45 ERA across 512 innings of work, including a 32 first/207 inning campaign in 2015. He had become the de-facto Angels ace past 2014 and was mere votes shy of an All-Star Game nod following a dominant kickoff one-half.
In the five years since he has thrown a combined 198 innings and failed to top 16 starts in a season.
To say Richards suffered unfortunate injury luck would be an understatement. A freak articulatio genus injury while covering 1B in 2014 concluded his breakout flavor prematurely, but he came back in 2015 and posted 2.8 fWAR over a good for you 207 innings.
Though he recovered well from his human knee injury, the arm injuries began before long after. A torn UCL ended his 2016 season after just 6 starts, but he opted against TJS—something the Angels have a weird analogousness for. Season-ending flare-ups concluded both his 2017 and 2018 seasons, leading to the eventual TJS heading into free agency. The unfortunate timing led him to sign a backloaded two-yr bargain with the Padres (in line with typical contracts for injured free agents).
With a brief three-starting time stint at the tail end of 2019, Richards entered 2020 healthy for the first time in a while, vying for a rotation spot on a young Padres roster. Though the 2020 season was shortened, Richards won a rotation spot and managed to stay healthy for its entirety. Though he may not be the ace he looked destined to be in 2014, it was a footstep in the right direction for the just-turned 32-year-sometime as he joins the Red Sox on a 0ne-yr deal.
*Intrigue*
Richards has e'er been surrounded with intrigue, but the dominant stretch in 2014 may have unfairly influenced your perceptions (it certainly influenced mine).
Injuries aside, his overall body of work is expert, but not well-nigh as expert as you might've idea:
That's basically league average (108 ERA+) over a full flavour, though the caveat is that Richards has yet to be healthy for an entire 162 game slate. No doubt a serviceable big league starter, but fairly unremarkable for someone who has flashed ace potential.
The Good Stuff
The driving force behind Richards' hype throughout his career has been his stuff, with a fastball/curveball combination that is perennially atop the spin rate leaderboards.
(Spin rate percentiles from 2015-2020 via Baseball Savant)
Richards can spin information technology with the best of 'em, but spin rate isn't everything. In fact, despite the high spin rate, Richards has never really relied on his bend.
The SL is—and always has been—his go-to secondary.
With simply two inches of horizontal motility, his slider profiles more than like a slurve anyhow. Though non his most used pitch overall, he went to it well over 50% of the time when alee in the count. Information technology was his all-time pitch in 2020, with a .264 xwOBA against, 39% whiff-rate, and 26% putaway rate.
He sets up the slider with a four-seamer, which equally mentioned has a 99th percentile spin rate. We typically associate that much spin on a four-seamer with adept ride—and in plough, whiffs. Merely here is where things become interesting; Richards's four-seamer has "natural cut," and averages 19 inches of driblet, which is four inches below league average and well below average for a pitch with that much spin. That's on par with most cutters. But unlike nearly cutters, it has zippo inches of horizontal motion, which even for typical four-seamers, is rare.
That'southward non to say we oasis't seen this profile before. The downside to naturally cutting fastballs is that they tend to run across barrels. It's a fixable trait. One that resembles the pre-Rays versions of Tyler Glasnow and Peter Fairbanks, whom Tampa helped plough into whiff-generating weapons, and the present version of Luis Patiño, whom Tampa volition probable aid make similar alterations.
But Richards' four-seamer doesn't requite up a ton of barrels either.
At this point, you are probable merely as confused as I was. How tin a four-seamer similar this induce so few whiffs while also not getting obliterated on a regular footing?
Such little ride and fade on a pitch with that much spin tin can only be explained by one thing: Gyro spin.
Gyro spin is a rare sidespin that has very piffling touch on the brawl's movement, evidenced by Richards' league-depression spin efficiency. Gyro spin is usually found in sliders, with the few existing gyro fastballs attributed to side-armers or pitchers with below-average spin rates—something Richards excels at.
The consequence of this unique contour is that batters struggle to pick up the pitch out of his paw. It doesn't accept the cutting or fade that a sinker or cutter would, but information technology doesn't accept the ascension that a four-seamer would either. With the lack of horizontal motion it doesn't see barrels, instead only dropping beneath them. The result is lots of weak/topped batted balls, and overall some weird off-residual swings.
The right spin efficiency is paramount for cutting-fastballs though, which are most effective in the 45-65% range. With higher active spin they will flatten out (losing the effective driblet), and with lower active spin volition substantially morph into a hanging slider. At 49.7%, Richards is comfortably in that range.
So Richards' high-spin four-seamer is pretty proficient, but non for the reasons loftier-spin four-seamers typically are.
There are just a few other pitchers who throw a iv-seamer similar this, the most notable being Spencer Turnbull, whose own unique spin metrics have sparked numerous research pieces since he debuted in 2018. If you are one of the many that hype Turnbull every bit a fantasy sleeper, you should be hyping up Richards for all the aforementioned reasons.
Forth with an occasional sinker to left-handed hitters, the curveball rounds out Richards repertoire. Again the spin rate jumps off the page, but with but 7.5% usage and middling results, information technology is cypher more than a change-of-pace offering. He often tries to go looking strikes with information technology (to varying degrees of success), which helps explain its questionable estrus map.
Where Does This Leave Him?
Richards is a 32-yr-erstwhile starter with a lengthy injury history and one of the most unique movement profiles in the league. Is he worth the one-year, $ten million bargain the Red Sox gave him? Probably. That seems near correct for a mid-rotation starter, and there is no such matter equally a bad ane-year bargain. With a rebuild in heed, the Carmine Sox will likely practice whatever they can to maximize his value past the trade deadline. He fits in amongst a fragile-looking rotation, and shouldn't exist relied upon to eat innings. They could even move him to the bullpen, where his spotty control and two-pitch mix would fit in just too.
The stuff is still very intriguing, albeit in a different style than was previously thought. Information technology's possible the Red Sox change nothing, and Richards continues to gyro spin his mode to league average results. But it'due south also easy to meet a connection with Chaim Bloom and the Rays history of altering like pitches. Might the Blood-red Sox attempt to refurbish Richards' repertoire to generate more whiffs? It's within the realm of possibility, and one I volition certainly be watching for in 2021.
Photograph past Samuel Stringer/Icon Sportswire | Design past Quincey Dong (@threerundong on Twitter)
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Source: https://www.pitcherlist.com/whats-up-with-garrett-richards/
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