Article: José Berríos Is Cutting Back on His Signature Slurve

[Leo Morgenstern]

José Berríos is off to a solid start in 2025. With a strong effort against the Red Sox last week, he brought his season ERA down under 4.00. If you ignore his rough Opening Day appearance, the numbers from his last six starts are particularly impressive. Since his April 1 outing against the Nationals, he has a 3.03 ERA and a 3.59 FIP in 35 2/3 innings pitched. Perhaps his most impressive number in that time is a 48% groundball rate. He has also been durable, averaging just a smidge under six innings per start. 

This is the kind of performance the Blue Jays have come to expect from Berríos. Throughout his career – aside from an uncharacteristically poor showing in 2022 – he has been a safe bet to give his team about six innings every five days with an ERA in the mid-3.00s. This year looks like it’s going to be more of the same. 

Yet, while the big picture might look a lot like it has in years past, a closer look reveals that Berríos is doing things differently in 2025. Or, at least, he’s doing one thing differently: He’s throwing his signature slurve less often, specifically to right-handed hitters.

The chart below shows Berríos’s slurve usage in each season of his career, according to Baseball Savant:

Season	Slurve%
2025	25.1%
2024	28.6%
2023	29.6%
2022	30.9%
2021	30.5%
2020	29.8%
2019	28.3%
2018	30.4%
2017	30.0%
2016	21.1%

So far in 2025, he’s throwing fewer slurves than in any season since his partial rookie campaign in 2016. But those overall rates are actually underselling what’s going on. This next chart shows his slurve usage by season against right-handed batters:

Season	Slurve% to RHB
2025	24.7%
2024	37.0%
2023	31.7%
2022	32.2%
2021	33.4%
2020	34.0%
2019	34.2%
2018	38.7%
2017	38.9%
2016	30.1%

For the first time, Berríos is throwing his slurve less than 25% of the time to same-handed hitters. In fact, this is the first time he has thrown his slurve less than 30% of the time to same-handed hitters. That's a significant drop, especially considering that his 37% slurve rate to righty batters in 2024 was his highest rate in six years. If you'd prefer a more detailed representation of how unusual this is for Berríos, take a look at his slurve usage against righties in each month of his career:

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Berríos used his slurve for 34.1% of his pitches against righties during his disappointing Opening Day start. That’s right in line with his career average rate. Since then, however, he has only used the breaking pitch 22.6% of the time against right-handed batters. He hasn’t thrown it to them more than 26% of the time in any of his last six games. As is the case for any pitcher with a diverse arsenal, Berríos’s exact pitch mix fluctuates from game to game and opponent to opponent. Yet, never before has he used his slurve so sparingly against righty batters in six consecutive starts. 

What makes this so surprising is that the slurve has long been a useful weapon for Berríos against right-handed batters. These are good stats!

Jose Berríos's Slurve vs. RHB by Year

Year	wOBA	xwOBA	Whiff%
2024	.288	.303	30.2%
2023	.208	.275	30.6%
2022	.245	.264	32.4%
2021	.201	.250	34.7%
2020	.183	.232	35.3%
2019	.324	.306	32.0%
2018	.274	.236	38.4%
2017	.243	.262	34.1%
2016	.402	.313	25.0%
2016-24	.258	.270	33.1%

As recently as the second half of 2024, right-handed hitters produced a .264 wOBA and a matching .264 xwOBA, as well as a 36.9% whiff rate, against Berríos’s slurve. And as recently as his Opening Day start this season, he was confident enough in his slurve to throw it to righties as often as any other pitch in his arsenal.

There’s no doubt Berríos struggled on Opening Day. There's no doubt his slurve was part of the problem. Still, it’s hard to understand how one bad start could have scared him this badly. He has trusted his slurve as an essential tool in his belt for years. That kind of trust shouldn’t just disappear over night.

In place of those missing slurves, Berríos has been leaning harder on his sinker. He has thrown it almost half of the time (49.5%) to right-handed batters since his second start of 2025. He is also using more changeups against righties than ever before (13.2%). That part, at least, makes a bit more sense. His offspeed stuff has always worked well for him. Over the past ten years, his changeup has induced a .260 wOBA, a .262 xwOBA, and a 34.5% whiff rate from righty batters. It’s less clear why Berríos would want to throw so many sinkers. His sinker is a perfectly fine primary fastball, but it’s never been much of an out pitch. Maybe he likes how his sinker and changeup tunnel together, given their similar movement profiles? Regardless, none of this is nearly enough to explain why he has decreased his slurve usage so dramatically.

Discussing his slurve with The Athletic in 2022, Berríos said he had used “the same grip, same pitch” since he was a teenager. He even mentioned how well it paired with his fastball. He said that when his slurve was at its best, he could throw it “no matter how many times.”

“That pitch is a special thing for me,” he said. And it was. 

As long as Berríos is pitching well, there's no reason to complain about his arsenal. Even so, I wish we had an explanation. Why is José Berríos trying to fix something that didn't seem to be broken? Why is he cutting back on his signature slurve?

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