Article: A Theory: Sasaki’s Splitter Kept the Blue Jays in the Running

[Davy Andrews]

Familiarity with Sasaki's signature pitch could give the Blue Jays a leg up. Maybe. Possibly.

As we've been swept away in the unfolding Roki Sasaki saga, one thing we've stressed over and over again is that we don't know exactly what Sasaki is looking for in a team. His agent, Joel Wolfe, has made it clear that pitching development is a priority, but neither the Rays nor the Guardians were even granted a meeting. Sasaki presumably wants to win, but the Yankees and the Dodgers were the only division winners granted a meeting, and three of the eight teams he met with had losing records in 2024. There are rumors that Sasaki may or may not want to pitch for a team that already has a Japanese player, that he may want to avoid the intense scrutiny of the biggest media markets, and the understandable assumption that he'd prefer to pitch on the West Coast. However, it's clear that the 23-year-old phenom has been extremely thoughtful about the process, even if we can't piece together all of the variables from the outside. He set up firm rules about the way his free agency would be run and he moved in stages. This is someone with a plan.

As such, I'd like to throw out a theory about why Sasaki is considering the Blue Jays. That's all it is, though: a theory. Sasaki boasts a fastball that hits triple digits and an above-average slider, but his pride and joy is an unhittable splitter that racked up an absurd 57% whiff rate last season. Sasaki employed the splitter 27% of the time, and in 2023, that number was above 35%. Few pitchers throw a splitter that often, at least in Major League Baseball. Splitters and forkballs are widespread in Japan, but after a rash of injuries in the 1980s, they've been rare over here. The splitter has made a comeback over the last few years, with 2024 being dubbed The Year of the Splitter (following 2023, The Year of the Cutter). Still, it's not a very common pitch; in The Year of the Splitter, it was thrown just 3% of the time, up from 2.2% in 2023. As pitching development is one of the few criteria that Sasaki has actually made public, it's not unreasonable to guess that he may prefer pitching for a team full of coaches and teammates who are comfortable with his signature pitch. Enter the Blue Jays.

In 2024, the Blue Jays threw 1,724 splitters, which made up 7.4% of their total pitches. Both of those numbers were the highest in baseball. The Twins just beat them out for the crown in 2023, but if you go all the way back to 2020, the Blue Jays still lead baseball with a 5% splitter rate. The Toronto rotation is led by Kevin Gausman, who threw his excellent splitter 32% of the time in 2024. His 959 splitters were over 100 more than any other MLB pitcher threw. Fellow starters Bowden Francis, Chris Bassitt, and Yariel Rodríguez also throw splitters. In fact, were Sasaki to join the Blue Jays, he would likely leave José Berríos as the only starter who doesn't throw a splitter. No other team can boast that kind of knowledge base.

Once again, this is only a guess, but the splitter's reputation for harming pitchers made it taboo for a long time in MLB. As such, many major league pitching coaches are likely less familiar with it than they are with other pitches. Institutional knowledge from the biomechanists, the analytics staff, the coaches, and the players, not just about how to harness the pitch, but about how to make adjustments and how to throw it safely, could be a separator. But that's only a theory.

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[Vancouverite]

Good read. Thanks for sharing

I agree Sasaki seems to be a man with a plan and the jays track record with the splitter and developing pitchers at MLB level has been pretty good.