Wednesday, March 12

MLB.com’s David Adler contributed to this edition of the newsletter by digging into the Statcast data. 

PHOENIX -- Sometimes the best work is done in solitude. In the summer of 2022, when Craig Yoho was battling endless injuries and a 1,082-day layoff between college games, and was trying to transform himself from a shortstop into a pitching prospect, he tinkered with a changeup. It would not only propel him into pro ball, but send the right-hander rocketing through the farm system and up prospect charts to where he is today, sitting at No. 19 on MLB Pipeline’s Brewers Top 30 and on the cusp of the big leagues. 

At the very beginning of that process, Yoho was home in Indiana throwing not to a catcher but a large net. When he tried throwing a changeup, he missed the net entirely. 

It might have been the best thing. 

“It was kind of nice because I didn't have to worry about ticking off my catch partner,” Yoho said. “I had freedom with a bucket of baseballs sitting next to me, and I just would throw until it moved the way I wanted.”

He honed the pitch at Indiana University and perfected it after the Brewers gave Yoho a shot as an eighth-round Draft pick in 2023. Now he’s one of the most notable names on Milwaukee’s roster for Sunday’s Spring Breakout showcase, in which a collection of the organization’s top prospects will take on their counterparts from the Reds following that day’s regularly scheduled Cactus League action. The seven-inning game will air on MLB Network with MLB.TV with Dom Cotroneo and Jonathan Mayo on the call.

Yoho has loftier goals than prospect status, thanks in large part to a changeup that conjures recent memories of Devin Williams and his trademark Airbender. Brewers manager Pat Murphy picked Yoho’s change when he was asked to identify the single nastiest pitch in camp. 

“I’m excited for him. I think he’ll make his debut this year,” Murphy said.

The Yo-Yo vs. The Airbender

The Brewers happen to have an opening at “best changeup” after Williams and his Airbender were traded to the Yankees in December. The Airbender is a unique pitch, but Yoho's changeup is almost like a slower version with similar movement to Williams’ -- and that's a lot of movement.

Yoho's changeup drops almost four feet on its way to the plate, and breaks a foot and a half horizontally. The horizontal movement is basically identical to the Airbender, and the vertical movement is close, especially if you adjust for the differences in velocity between the two pitchers. (Williams' changeup doesn't have a chance to drop quite as much as Yoho's because it's thrown harder.)

Williams, 2024 MLB: 84.4 mph / 2,720 rpm / 42" of drop / 19" of fade

Yoho, 2024 Minors: 77.9 mph / 2,306 rpm / 47" of drop / 18" of fade

Yoho's changeup could be one of the nastiest in MLB if you dropped him in the big leagues today. Last season, no MLB pitcher had as much drop on their changeup as Yoho did in the Minors. And Williams was one of only four MLB pitchers who got as much horizontal movement as Yoho. 

That elite movement in both directions is why Yoho's changeup is also such a nasty swing-and-miss pitch -- Yoho induced a 45% whiff rate on his changeup in the Minors last season, while Williams had a 49% whiff rate on the Airbender in the Majors. 

Now, there are a couple of notable differences between Yoho's changeup and Williams' changeup. 

The first one is the velocity. Yoho's changeup sits in the upper 70s, compared to Williams' in the mid-80s. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it gives Yoho a greater velocity differential between his changeup and fastball. In Spring Training, Yoho's sinker is averaging just under 94 mph, about a 15 mph difference from the changeup at 79 mph.  

The other one is the spin. Williams' high spin rate is one of the things that makes the Airbender the Airbender -- a changeup is traditionally a low-spin pitch, but Williams throws his with extremely high spin. It's basically a screwball. Yoho doesn't quite have that, but he's still able to make his changeup break like Williams'.

There's also one other factor that probably makes Yoho's changeup really hard to hit, and that's his release point.  

Comparing it to the Airbender again: Williams releases his changeup from a fairly low, sidearm arm slot. But Yoho goes even lower, and wider. He delivers his changeup from a release height less than five feet off the ground, and a horizontal release point nearly three feet toward third base. 

Yoho's changeup release point vs. Williams' Airbender:

Williams, 2024 MLB: 5.18 feet high / 2.52 feet toward third base

Yoho, 2024 Minors: 4.98 feet high / 2.94 feet toward third base

Murphy has hinted he’d like to see Yoho develop a bit more in the Minors, but patience is one of his strengths. Undrafted out of high school, Yoho went to the University of Houston in 2019, only to see his freshman season cut short by injury after eight games. His '20 season was wiped out by the pandemic, and after a transfer home to Indiana University, elbow and knee injuries cost him all of ‘21 and ‘22.

“It seemed like every single time something bad happened to me, the worst possible thing, it was the best possible thing looking back,” Yoho said. “If I don’t have a weird injury in college, I might have been a decent college third baseman and that would have been the end of my career. That forced me to try to pitch to get to the next level and now I’m here. 

“I was insanely frustrated in the moment, but thank God. Because now I’m here.”

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