Collette Calls: Should We Believe What We Just Saw?

I am loosely borrowing from the late great Jack Buck who used that line after witnessing Kirk Gibson's improbable 1988 World Series homer off Dennis Eckersley, but just a few days into the season, we have witnessed some improbable pitching efforts to kick off the season by some starters and relievers. I cannot get everyone into this article, but I do want to look at a few pitchers who have opened some eyes and FAAB wallets already this season. Why not begin with the guy who just tossed a rather improbable no-hitter on Monday evening in Ronel Blanco?

Blanco turns 31 later this season and has toiled in the Houston organization since 2016, pairing a history of terrible command with an ability to garner strikeouts in bunches. Last season between Triple-A Sugar Land and Houston, he struck out 133 batters in 125.1 innings while also walking 65 others and allowing 22 homers. Monday night against Toronto, he walked George Springer in both the first and ninth innings but allowed nothing else, providing the Astros with their fourth no-hitter since June of 2022. The rest of the league has seen just three no-hitters in that same time.

I watched most of this game and Toronto looked like they had never even seen a scouting report of Blanco before, and in a way, that wouldn't have even mattered. Last season, Blanco's pitch distribution looked as such:

• Slider - 49%
• Fastball - 40%
• Changeup - 9%
• Curve - 2%

If we drilled down further and looked at how Blanco employed his pitch mix against righties in 2023, we get:

• Slider - 56%
• Fastball - 40%
• Changeup - 3%
• Curveball - 1%

That is a rather straightforward approach for a guy who features a slider and fastball; use those two pitches to attack righties and mix in the changeup against lefties to give them something away. The 2023 data shows us that Blanco threw all of 13 changeups to righties in 2023 in over 52 innings of work, but he almost doubled that total last night alone, with his 25 right-on-right changeups leading to a lot of swings like this:

and this:

and this:

Blanco's final pitch mixture last night looked nothing like his 2023 profile:

• Changeup - 34%
• Slider - 32%
• Fastball - 30%
• Curveball - 4%

His changeup had a 42 percent called strike + swinging strike (CSW) mark last night, with five called strikes plus 15 swings or misses and seven foul balls. There was no new velocity in play, as Blanco's slider and fastball were down one mph from last season, but adding his tertiary offering to his primary weapons was enough to befuddle a talented Jays lineup which has already posted eight or more runs in two of their four games heading into the no-hitter. 

Perhaps this is also a Toronto team desperate to get home after spending all spring in Florida and then opening the season in Tampa Bay before heading to Houston. That doesn't take anything away from Blanco's accomplishment on Monday night as much as this is all to say a change in process led to a change in results, even if it's only for one magical night. We are still talking about a pitcher who has never received even an average grade on his command, but now the advanced scouts know to adjust their reports for righties, who can't just sit fastball and adjust to sliders on Blanco. There is zero chance Blanco does anything other than attempt to ride this new trick as far as it can carry him. What remains to be seen is whether this was merely a moment where he had a great cambio on the day, so he and Yainer Diaz decided to run with it, or whether this was Houston's way of giving an older dog a new trick to allow him to lean into his wildness by throwing a chase pitch that stays in the zone on its journey home long enough to resemble a strike. 

Next up we have Jason Foley, who must have read my AL Central Bold Prediction series where I said Foley is in the zone too often and lacks the swing and miss stuff to live there. Foley has looked unhittable so far this season, throwing his fastball as high as 101 mph while his sinker is coming in 2.2 mph harder than it did last year with more life to it. Just look at this:

Or this, which is what happens when you're looking for Foley's traditional sinker and get 101 at the top of the zone in a two-strike count:

While Foley is facing major-league hitters, these appearances have come against two winless teams in the White Sox and Mets. Still, the simple fact is he already appears to have supplanted Alex Lange as the team's closer despite A.J. HInch's non-committal language on the situation. So far, this is a much different Foley than we've seen in previous seasons with this increase in velocity. The command has always been there for him, but a lack of whiffiness was the biggest factor in keeping him from closing. So far, that no longer appears to be a problem.

Finally, let's look at a guy coming off a season with a 5.52 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP: Brady Singer. I recommended Singer last year and my portfolio had many shares of that disastrous season, so I suffered alongside anyone who follows my advice. This season, I once again found myself invested in Singer, buying in on the dip because I needed innings and because his market price was too cheap, as well as a desire to avoid giving up on a guy a year too early (looking at you, 2023 Tanner Scott.) Singer's first matchup of this season looked lopsided on paper as he squared off against Bailey Ober and the Twins, but Singer was incredible, scattering three hits and one walk over seven innings while striking out 10. 

Singer has always had an east-west profile, with sliders darting glove-side and sinkers diving arm-side along with a changeup to lefties that was merely along for the ride moreso than a weapon of choice. The outing against Minnesota featured plenty of sinkers and sliders, but we also saw a new four-seam fastball for the first time. 

Singer last faced the Twins on July 28th of last season, an outing which saw him only use sinkers, sliders and changeups. He induced 17 swings and misses (16 on the slider) over 104 pitches in that game. The outing this past weekend saw Singer once again get 16 swings and misses with his slider against Minnesota, but he also introduced a new-look four-seamer to lefties rather than just relying on changeups to them to get them off the sinker:

Here is that pitch in action:

It's curious to see Singer implement this change only against lefties so far given that his splits were worse against righties last season, but it is nonetheless an interesting change in process. It's encouraging to see Singer make this type of adjustment coming off his terrible 2023 season as he tries to get back to what made him a fantasy asset in 2022. 

As you continue to look for roster adjustments in the coming weeks, I encourage you to take a look under the hood of some of these players to see whether they have changed something for the better or whether the player is simply the same player they've always been and just so happened to start the season on a heater. We, as fantasy managers, are often quick to cut bait on the hottest new thing early in the season while jettisoning someone we were happy to have on our roster just a week ago. I hope you put the same amount of research into your adds as you do for the players you drop.