The Kids are Alright

An analysis of four young starters on the rise.

Introduction

My last article featured a format that I enjoyed, so I decided to write one about pitchers that will debut in the coming weeks — three for the first time, and one for the first time in 1.5 years. I had to sneak Eury Perez in there, sorry. I also stuck to pitchers with a good amount of publicly available data, so no Chase Burns or Jonah Tong, unfortunately. Let's see how they get on.

Bubba Chandler

The Pirates' top prospect offers a true four-pitch mix built with nearly unparalleled velocity. I expect him to be an above-average starter immediately upon arrival to MLB and exceed his teammate Jared Jones’ debut season in turn. The extra pedigree is reflected in a deeper mix than Jones, despite perhaps having even less accuracy on the individual offerings.

His best pitch is his changeup. It averages 92 mph, maxes out at 94.9 mph (that's harder than the average MLB fastball), and creates 10+ inches of separation on both axes despite just a 6 mph differential in velocity with the 4-seam. The shape is most akin to Lucas Erceg and Robert Suarez, but each of their offspeeds is still 2 mph slower than Chandler's. Their changeups are elite at contact mitigation with 75th percentile whiff rates, so expect that at a minimum from BC. Such results would already qualify it as a ++ offering in my mind.

The four-seam fastball has elite induced vertical break (IVB) with a great approach angle (VAA), a good amount of cut to distance itself from his changeup, and sits at a sizzling 98 mph. He zones it only 38% of the time, yet has achieved an 18% swinging strike rate, 34% chase rate, and 35% CSW on it in Triple-A. Additionally, its zone-contact rate (Z-Con) of 70% should give him some more wiggle room to be aggressive with it in the future. It is prone to get hit around, but I believe that will improve in time. Given its makeup, I think it's an elite option in any count.

The slider gets its own speed range at 88.5 ticks and has enough sweep (3 in.) not to be a true “gyro” slider, but it's not far off. It’s reminiscent of Jared Jones’s slider in that regard (or Matthew Boyd’s from the opposite side) and creates a narrow 4-seam and slider tunnel that is conducive to whiffs while utilizing his great changeup to avoid as much of the typical punishment with it. The chase rate is a strong 37%, but the Z-Con lags at 82%, a mark that feels too high for a pitch of this quality. Regardless, it's his third pitch to feature a swinging strike rate greater than 15% for him this season, a difficult feat.

Lastly, he features a 12/6 curve at 84 mph. It has a 30% called strike rate, and the elite velocity makes it difficult to square up even if one wanted to contest the free real estate. Paired with his fastball and changeup, Chandler offers LHB a truly arduous day at the office.

The one thing possibly keeping Chandler down (other than financial considerations) is his command. As alluded to earlier, there are some real command issues here. Matt Collier believes it could be as bad as the bottom 2.5% of the league if debuting tomorrow, and his zone rate is under 50%. That is OK, of course, if he can get an adequate amount of chases. His strike rates this year have remained reasonable, but then again, he is plainly a level above everyone else in Triple-A right now.

Bubba Chandler is so unique it’s difficult to compare him to anyone. I see a lot of Jared Jones here with the 4-seam slider combo, but his extra offerings and velocity put him in a tier above. The crazy hard 4-seam/slider combo with a great approach angle gives some flashbacks to one Jacob deGrom, but I’m not sure he has the finesse to let me pull that one off. There's just no apt comparison, frankly.

Andrew Painter

Andrew Painter has been a top-tier pitching prospect for years, first catching my eye after his age-19 season in 2022 with a 1.56 ERA and 32.5 K-BB%. After Tommy John, he's looked like his old self with his upper-90s heat and high strike rates with all pitches.

His 4-seam is an easy 97 with his 6’7” frame, but it lacks the underlying metrics to stand as a truly great pitch. Despite his imposing stature, he has below-average extension at just over 6 feet, and his great IVB metric is aided by his high arm slot, creating a mediocre at best VAA of -5.1°. Chandler's, for reference, is -4.1°, where values closer to 0 are better. One benefit is its great cut - just 5.5 inches - to ensure extra whiffs, but the pitch will simply be good at the top of the zone overall. In contrast, his cutter has a truly outlier shape. Only Jameson Taillon throws one anything like it (grading out as well above average) amongst present MLB starters, and Painter throws his 4 mph harder with 2 more inches of carry. If the 4-seam doesn't translate well with its dead zone tendencies, the cutter can take over.

The slider is a soft 84 or so, and it certainly brings a change of pace. The low velocity allows for great movement in both directions, and it’s even been sweeper-esque in some games with double-digit horizontal movement. Some prospect outlets grade the pitch as elite, and it reminds me of Spencer Strider’s slide piece overall. In his limited rehab sample, it hasn't been back to its best shape yet with high Z-Con and low chase.

He also throws a curve and changeup, but it’s done so sparingly that it’s difficult to find concrete data on them. The changeup appears to be 90 mph with high vert and low run, typical of someone with the supinating tendencies that Painter demonstrates; it’s reminiscent of guys like Gore and Ragans of recent times. The curve is high 70s to low 80s according to JustBaseball, and is similar enough to the slider that my various references seem to disagree on where one starts and the other ends. The curve for Painter generally features more run and depth, which possibly makes the occasional “sweeper” mentioned earlier actually a misidentified curve. Either way, he has a stockpile of pitches to pound the zone with.

I've alluded to Painter's command throughout this segment, and it's the critical piece of his puzzle. He consistently posts 65+% strike rates in the minors, and he’s able to avoid damage despite the aggressive approach. In that 2022 season, he allowed just 5 HR despite pounding the zone frequently enough to earn that 6 strikeout-to-walk ratio. My one concern would be if the 4-seam is strong enough to stick the landing of an ace, although it's difficult to fully understand what he's doing with the pitch classification squabbles. I see some George Kirby here with the great authority he has over his deep mix, although I believe Painter's cutter is better than any offering Kirby possesses.

Jacob Misiorowski

Unquestionably the riskiest proposition here, Misiorowski invokes memories of the most dominant pitchers of the league. His imposing 6’7” frame allows for easy velocity and extension, and with a modestly improved appreciation for the strike zone, he looks like an absolute monster - so long as he can stay on the field.

I usually start with the 4-seam, and this one is straight out of a fever dream. It sits at 98 mph like an elite reliever, is as flat as those thrown by VAA king Bryan Woo, and is delivered with the extension of Tyler Glasnow, nearly 7.5 feet away from his body. It’d immediately be a top fastball in the league and can dismantle AAA lineups completely on its own. It is tarnished a little by its 11 inches of run, which makes it less conducive to whiffs, but that’s small potatoes overall.

His second most-used pitch is the slider, which clocks in at a blistering 93.5 mph. The shape is reminiscent of Robbie Ray’s or AJ Smith-Shawver’s sliders with gyro spin, imparting tons of vert and no run, which makes it effective against hitters on both sides of the plate. deGrom was famous for his hard slider, but even he only topped out at 92.5 across a calendar year.

His last typical offering is his curveball, with a ridiculous 11 inches of depth and 6 inches of horizontal break at 86.5 mph. I could find 4 curves thrown with a good amount of regularity at the major league level above 86 mph, and none surpassed 7 inches of depth or 3.5 inches of sweep. It's a completely unicorn pitch that will be impossible to barrel up, especially with the 4-seam and slider in the forefront of the hitter's mind.

He also wields a 91.5 mph changeup, and while sparsely used, it’s still impressive. It has 17 inches of run, and while it separates far less with the 4-seam than Chandler at a similar velocity, it's had outlandish chase rates so far. In recent starts, he's turned to it more in preparation for his upcoming MLB debut. I suspect it'll be used scarcely in the bigs as a third-time-through-the-order weapon or when the other options aren't working quite right.

I think a long-term vision of Misiorowski may be largely fastball/slider, like the man who he reminds me most of - Jacob deGrom. Overpowering heaters at the top of the zone with a devastating slider over 90 mph is peak Jake, although he lacks the same pinpoint accuracy that created several Cy Young awards. Despite improving his strike rate to 65% overall and walking 2 or less in all but one of his starts since mid-April, the zone rate has only improved to a paltry 52%, despite full knowledge that he can blow his stuff past anyone in the International League. Keith Law, amongst others, deems him more of a reliever long-term as a result. Regardless, I'd try handing him the keys over Quinn Priester or DL Hall to see what happens. It'll be entertaining either way: pure cinema, or a car crash.

Eury Perez

Eury is the one Major Leaguer featured in this article, but he’s a special case with his arrival to the majors being just past his 20th birthday. For instance, Misiorowski wasn’t even drafted by that age. Despite his expedited path to the majors, he immediately proved he belonged by flashing three different pitches with a 45% whiff rate or higher, a truly rare accomplishment. Blake Snell managed it in 2019 and 2023, but his style is much more dogmatic, and frankly, refined than Eury’s by either of those points. Snell was 26 in 2019, and Perez just turned 22!

Perez’s golden offering is his slider, which is a gyro variant with more induced vertical break than any other I could find since 2023 with a reasonable sample (6.1 inches according to Alex Chamberlain’s leaderboard). It is particularly effective vs. LHB, with a 55% whiff rate in 18% usage with a pitiful 21% ICR. Against RHB, it ran a 45% whiff rate across 44% usage, which may be even more impressive. Eury's ticket to the top is predicated on this offering holding up.

His fastball is perhaps his weakest pitch, in part because of his focus on the lower third of the zone with it. It carries strong vertical break with 6 ¾ feet of extension, but his high arm angle makes it simply above-average in approach angle. Despite the focus on attacking below the belt, it manages to produce virtually no ground balls while still getting killed in the air. It generated a decent amount of swings and misses with its 97.5 mph velocity, but it feels a little underwhelming overall.

Eury’s great fastball carry makes a truly unique shape for hitters to deal with [Max Bay’s Dead Zone App]

The next piece of artillery is the curve, which is the most devastating of his three offspeed offerings. A 56% whiff rate against LHB is comical given its .282 xwOBAcon, insinuating that even if they manage to put it in play, it won't be on a grade-A swing. Its chase rate is only average, but he also frequently misses with it out of harm’s way in the other batter’s box. Against RHB, it’s great as well with its low amount of sweep (4 inches). A whiff rate of 51% against that group is outstanding, and a swinging strike rate of 25% is crazy considering it is in the zone only a third of the time. It doesn’t get the same usage as the slider (18% vs. LHB and 8% vs RHB), but the pitch can dominate MLB hitters at 25% usage when it’s in the right mood.

If anyone knows me, they know I love a good changeup. Luckily, Perez has one; 90 mph with nearly 10 inches of vert and a whiff rate of over 52% against LHB. He seems to gameplan it like Snell - out of the zone to avoid damage at any cost - and it suffers because of it. The approach is so dogmatic that it's to a fault in its performance. It’s almost certainly a command issue; there’s no way it would get knocked around if it by chance landed in the zone, and it costs him a lot of balls early in counts. Regardless, it ties its target demographic into knots, and that’s what we care about.

Funnily enough, the right-handed Perez seems to have built a repertoire to slaughter LHB (~55% whiff rate against LHB with his three secondaries) while lacking a true killer pitch to get righties. The slider is nasty enough to do the job, but the 4-seam gets killed trying to bear 40% of the remaining load. In rehab starts, he’s experimented with a sinker to jam them inside and looks sharp aside from a slight loss of extension. Assuming he stays on track, Perez should be completely overbearing on the mound once again.

Conclusion

1. Eury Perez - The shapes on the secondaries don't scream “unhittable” to me, but the results speak for themselves. Paired with an approach that led to borderline elite walk rates while surpassing a 16% swinging strike rate in all but two games across a 10-week stretch, Perez could push himself to top 10 SP status within the next year and a half.

2. Bubba Chandler - The changeup is otherworldly and the entire mix just makes sense to me. As soon as he can consistently poll below a 10% walk rate, he should be a dominant force.

3. Andrew Painter - I prefer the ceiling of Perez and Chandler to Painter, and for what it’s worth, his floor is by far the highest of anyone here. Perhaps I can’t appreciate the boring, stable option enough.

4. Jacob Misiorowski - Every part of me wants to put him higher. Misiorowski looks as dominant as ever: he can turn it up to 102 at will, and it feels as close to an elite reliever throwing 90 pitches as one can get. But the improvements in command may be more exploiting weakness in Triple-A hitters and less reigning in his blazing heat. Aram’s latest prospect update (from two hours ago) has his command at a 40, for example. That’s barely tolerable for a starter.

Sources

FanGraphs

BaseballReference

Alex Chamberlain's Pitching Leaderboard

Robert Orr's Realestmuto Dashboard

JustBaseball

TheAthletic (Keith Law)

FABIO (Matt Collier)

Max Bay's Dead Zone App

TJStats Pitching Summary