If He Can Figure It Out, Huascar Ynoa’s Potential Is There
This post is the latest in Off The Bench Baseball’s running series on Huascar Ynoa. Find other another take on Ynoa here.
Through 21.2 innings pitched, Huascar Ynoa has given up 23 hits, 13 walks, and 14 earned runs. Those stats earned him an ERA of 5.82, a FIP of 4.89, and xFIP of 5.38.
According to Baseball Savant, Ynoa’s fastball gets thrown 44% of the time and sits at 94.8 mph on average this season, but there have been glimpses of his fastball topping out at 98 mph during relief appearances during the year. Ynoa’s slider and change-up both sit at around 86 mph, but he chooses to throw his slider 47% of the time while throwing his changeup less than 10%.
Ynoa’s 5 starts this season are a product of the Atlanta Braves rotation being depleted. Mike Soroka tore his Achilles, Felix Hernandez opted out, and Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb were demoted after getting suplexed by the Rays and Phillies respectively. The Braves have needed Ynoa to eat the first 2-3 innings of every fifth game and help their staff limp towards the playoffs.
Ynoa has some positive takeaways from this season. According to Baseball Savant, Ynoa’s fastball velocity sits in the 77th percentile of the league, showing that his fastball can keep batters honest, mostly so they can’t sit on his bread and butter pitch, his slider.
Ynoa’s slider is the pitch he throws most often for good reason. Not only does the pitch have a wOBA of .256, xwOBA of .265, and a whiff rate of almost 38% this season, but it has also accumulated 3.1 wSL (Slider runs above average) so far during the 2020 season.
Ynoa’s Statcast shows that he ranks in the 63rd percentile in exit velocity, 54th in Hard Hit%, and 50th in Barrel%. All proof that batters are not squaring up Ynoa’s pitches more than they are against the average pitcher. All of these being positive takeaways for a rookie getting his first taste of major league experience.
Unfortunately for Ynoa, his negatives outshine his few positives from this season.
Ynoa’s walk rate of 13% doesn’t seem awful when you realize it’s the same odds as Chris Davis getting a hit in 2020, but that same walk rate is a whopping 40% higher than the current league average of 9.21%.
Ynoa’s below-average ability to strike batters out doesn’t help him either. Ynoa’s strikeout rate of 17% is as likely as Chris Davis getting a hit in 2019, but it is also more than 27% below the current league average strikeout rate of 23.41%, leaving Ynoa in the 21st percentile of strikeout percentage in the league.
How in Manfred’s blue hell does somebody a mid 90s fastball and an above-average slider not at least sit around the league average in strikeouts? His ball barely spins. According to Baseball Savant, Ynoa’s fastball spin rate ranks in the 9th percentile of the league, in other words, 91% of the league has better a better fastball spin-rate than him. Ynoa’s fastball also has -2.4 wFB (Fastball runs above average) according to Fangraphs.
It doesn’t get much better. The results of Ynoa’s 174 fastballs this year involve a wOBA of .396, xwOBA of .474, and whiff rate of 11.1%. While Ynoa small sample size of 36 changeups thrown this year is nothing to draw concrete opinions on, it resulted in -2.3 wCH (Changeup runs above average) according to Fangraphs. And when these statistics come together, Baseball Savant lists Ynoa’s expected ERA, BA, and wOBA at around 15th percentile or worse.
With fastball velocity in the 77th percentile and an effective slider, it is clear that Ynoa has the tools to become a good pitcher in the MLB. With Ynoa’s fastball being at its best during relief appearances and his lack of confidence and success within his changeup, it would make sense to think the strongest impact he could have would be to come out of the bullpen.
If Ynoa should look to improve on anything during the offseason (besides letting people get to first base for free like a middle school significant other), it should involve keeping his fastball low in the zone. Even with the uptick in launch angle increasingly making low fastballs a less lucrative pitch to throw, pitchers with low spin rate are most able to find success when they keep the ball low and around the knees. If keeping his fastball low further improves his current ground ball rate of 54.4%, Ynoa can find a lot of success out of the bullpen if he can improve his control of the strike zone and keep his fastball down.
-Case Bongirne
