Is It Too Early To Say That Kevin Gausman Is Back?

On Wednesday, Kevin Gausman made his spring training debut in Bradenton, Florida against the Pirates. He immediately gave us a reason to let out a long sigh, as his first two pitches were four-seam fastballs that were clocked at 94.2 mph and 95.1, respectively. Gausman threw 38 pitches across an inning and two-thirds, sitting just under 95 mph with his four-seamer and working it up to just over 96. Gausman walked a batter but did not give up a hit or a run in an auspicious start to his 2025 season. 

Ordinarily, we can throw out almost anything a pitcher does in his first spring training game of a particular year, and we should err on the side of caution in this case as well. However, the velocity of Gausman’s fastball has been a specific area of concern for the last calendar year. He came into camp with shoulder fatigue, and after a shortened spring training colored by health concerns, and his fastball velocity remained inconsistent. Some days he’d get out of the gates hot and sit above 94.5 mph with easy velocity reminiscent of 2023, when he finished third in the Cy Young voting. Some days he’d be fighting and grunting to get the radar gun to show 93. Take a look at how drastically Gausman’s velocity fluctuated start to start last season:

Not only was the velocity on his fastball extremely inconsistent, it also ended up with a season average of just 94 mph. That was 0.7 mph below his 2023 average, and his lowest mark since 2020. Gausman will mix in the occasional slider or changeup to righties, but he's essentially a two-pitch pitcher. He throws a rising four-seamer at the top of the zone, and his featured pitch is a devastating splitter that he uses at and below the bottom of the zone to rack up swings and misses. The pitches play off of each other. The threat of a hard fastball in the zone makes hitters susceptible to splitters below it, and vice versa. For Gausman to return to the elite form we've come to expect, he needs to be able to get hitters to swing under fastballs and over splitters. This is why every tick that Gausman loses on his four-seamer means so much. When hitters have an extra tick to discern between the two pitches, Gausman’s whiff percentage drops and he can get into trouble.

A veteran pitcher at this point in his career, the 34-year-old Gausman managed to survive the decrease and inconsistencies in his fastball velocity, without too many catastrophic outings, but his overall performance suffered. His xERA (which uses exit velocity and launch angle to predict the ERA that the pitcher deserved) jumped almost a full run, and he lost almost 10 percentage points on his strikeout percentage. Gausman’s struggles beating hitters with the fastball is by far the most obvious symptom of these problems. 

Given the concerns surrounding his fastball velocity, it’s extremely encouraging to see Gausman average 94.9 mph on his four-seamer so early in spring training, especially considering that the pitch sat at just 94 last season. That's how Gausman sees it too. "Last spring, I think it was a lot harder to get to 86, especially those first couple of weeks," he told reporters. It’s also encouraging that the fastball registered five whiffs on 14 swings. His fastball averaged 17 inches of rise, just like it did last year, an excellent sign considering how much faster it came in. Gausman has clearly entered camp healthy, which is the most important thing for any player.  

We didn’t see Gausman show off the new cutter he hinted at late in the offseason, and during Thursday's game, the broadcast team mentioned that he has said he's still learning how to locate the pitch. That’s something to keep an eye on when he takes the mound again on Monday. If Gausman does indeed show it off, he’ll try to use it as another weapon to try and get in on the hands of lefties, and off the end of the bat against righties. Given the concerns with the four-seamer’s ability to miss bats as he gets older, I love to see Gausman trying to find a way to induce a little bit of weak contact.

Well, we just overanalyzed the crap out of 38 meaningless pitches. It's way too early to worry about results, but Gausman’s first start of the spring still gave us a lot to be happy about. However, I am going to offer a grain of salt to every reader buying Gausman stock, because half of this article was spent highlighting his inability to keep it consistent in 2024! One good start it great, but two in a row would be a lot more meaningful. As he builds up his pitch count, be prepared to see some fluctuations in Gausman’s fastball velocity. But as we get closer to opening day, his ability to keep his four-seamer at or around 95 mph will be the biggest indicator of what 2025 will look like.