Pitcherlist: Dylan Bundy Should Make a Few Simple Changes

[rafibomb]

https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-dylan-bundy-should-make-a-few-simple-changes/

According to the article, Bundy upped his sinker usage at the end of the season which was met with better numbers. I believe the same was also said about Teheran. I think this article is worth a read as there are too much data and tables in there for me to summarize on this post.

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Bundy bumped his sinker usage up significantly for three games, and then for the rest of the year, it hovered around 10%, which he had only done in one game prior in 2019. This alone is encouraging, but the results were too.

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Again, this is a crude, patchwork way of going about finding his future xwOBA with a better pitch mix, but with a more balanced repertoire (and it’s not even close to Corbinian yet), Bundy becomes a touch better than league average (which was a .319 xwOBA in 2019). Theoretically, we could see Bundy’s slider get worse as he throws it more, but that’s not certain. We needn’t look further than Corbin to see that using a pitch more doesn’t mean it becomes less effective.

Of course, there’s a chance that none of this works. Jerad Eickhoff threw 61% breaking pitches this season and was still bad. I am neither the first to say Bundy should throw his slider more, nor the first to say he should throw his fastball less. There are an infinite amount of possibilities for what Bundy can do to be a better pitcher. There are several ways that this can all go wrong, but if he goes to the right team, I’m giddy to see what Bundy can do with a few tweaks. We could see the Bundy of old, we could see him develop into a Corbin, or if he moves to the bullpen, we could see him limit his repertoire, reach back for a few more ticks, and become something along the lines of Drew Pomeranz as a reliever. We’ve seen plenty of Dylan Bundy not at his best, but chances are, whoever his new team is should get more out of him than the Baltimore Orioles did.

 

 

[Second Base]

Man, I sure hope so. Bundy becoming a good starting pitcher would be HUGE for this team.

YUGE.

[tdawg87]

Teheran needs to do the same thing.

[AngelsLakersFan]

17 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Teheran needs to do the same thing.

I was reading some theories on him that his ability to beat his FIP might have something to do to his throwing all five of his pitches at similar rates. He was among, if not the most difficult pitcher to predict in terms of what pitch was coming next. He might see better 'results' by emphasizing his better pitches, but batters might start seeing more success on contact.

[tdawg87]

His fastball is about as bad as it gets. As he gets older, it's only going to get worse. 

His sinker though 

[Second Base]

Maybe Eppler knew what he was doing and got with Calloway and Maddon and identified Bundy and Teheran as pitchers that are just one small tweak away from reaching another level. And they both for Eppler's demographic of targeted pitchers. Former top prospects, short term deals, could be had for cheap.

Of course, that perfectly describes Harvey and Cahill, so we know it's not fool-proof.

I'm really excited to see Bundy and Teheran though. Today I don't get that excited over back end starters, but in both cases there seems to be legitimate reason to believe they're going to be better than what we've seen.

[Pancake Bear]

1 minute ago, Second Base said:

Maybe Eppler knew what he was doing and got with Calloway and Maddon and identified Bundy and Teheran as pitchers that are just one small tweak away from reaching another level. And they both for Eppler's demographic of targeted pitchers. Former top prospects, short term deals, could be had for cheap.

Of course, that perfectly describes Harvey and Cahill, so we know it's not fool-proof.

I'm really excited to see Bundy and Teheran though. Today I don't get that excited over back end starters, but in both cases there seems to be legitimate reason to believe they're going to be better than what we've seen.

Bundy, yes. I’m less bullish on Teheran. Thing with Bundy is, we’ve seen his floor. But a 4.5ish starter with 160+ innings? That’s better than anything we had last season. By a lot.  

[Second Base]

7 hours ago, Pancake Bear said:

Bundy, yes. I’m less bullish on Teheran. Thing with Bundy is, we’ve seen his floor. But a 4.5ish starter with 160+ innings? That’s better than anything we had last season. By a lot.  

Teheran has a sinker too. It's a pretty good one. Sinker ball pitchers aren't nearly as successful as they used to be though.

[Stradling]

I don’t get the comparison between Bundy/Teheran and Harvey/Cahill.  One pair is very consistent with their performance, have started about 30 games every season, pitched a lot of innings and have been healthy.   The other pair were inconsistent, relegated to the bullpen or hasn’t been the same in a few years because of injury. 

[Second Base]

3 hours ago, Stradling said:

I don’t get the comparison between Bundy/Teheran and Harvey/Cahill.  One pair is very consistent with their performance, have started about 30 games every season, pitched a lot of innings and have been healthy.   The other pair were inconsistent, relegated to the bullpen or hasn’t been the same in a few years because of injury. 

No one is comparing their ability. It's comparing their profiles.

[Angelsjunky]

The only way we'll see the "Bundy of old" (assuming  the author means fulfilling the prodigious talent that saw him drafted fourth in 2011) is if he somehow manages to re-find 5 mph on his fastball...and that's probably not going to happen. But the Corbin comp is interesting, although the problem is that Corbin adapted to a slower fastball after already being a dominant starter. With Bundy we're hoping for a mid-career breakthrough. I think the best-case scenario  is that he becomes a strong #3: 3-4 WAR, 3.50-4.00 ERA. The only way that happens is if he finds a way to stop giving up so many damn HR: 70 in the last two years. 

Teheran seems to be what he's been: a solid #4. No shame in that. But I wouldn't expect anything better.

The floor is that these two guys give the Angels 300-350 IP of solid #4 pitching...that improves the team a lot from last year.