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Dylan Bundy is Ready to Break Out as a Right-Handed Johan Santana

The former first-round pick has taken longer than expected to ascend to ace-hood, but he is more than worth the wait.

Dylan Bundy is off to a sparkling start! He has a 1.37 ERA in 26.1 innings pitched through April 21. Before we go into the details, let’s acknowledge that he is getting deeper into games at a more effective level. I will link you to the split about that here. Aside from that improvement, Bundy isn’t a dominant strikeout pitcher, only running a K% of 20.4% this season. His effectiveness comes from getting the most effective outs, infield fly-balls (22.2%). In fact, check out this!

Via FanGraphs

Running a high IFFB% may seem like an unlikely thing to do, but Bundy did it last year too, joining a list of six names out of 2143 eligible pitching seasons. Seeing guys with funky stuff like Tim Wakefield and Orlando Hernandez isn’t surprising here, but the name that should jump out at you is former Cy Young Award winner, Johan Santana. Naturally, I wanted to see if there was a comparison to be made between Bundy and Santana, so I looked into their rate stats.

via FanGraphs

It’s not just me right? There is a legitimate comparison to be made between the two in results. So, let’s move on to their arsenals:

via PITCHF/x

That is not far off. Bundy mixes in his breaking pitches more, but that could change as he finishes his development. Santana threw his change more often, and rightfully so. Everyone knows what made Santana so special was that changeup. So how does Bundy’s compare?

via PITCHF/x

Looking good for Bundy. They move differently, but are seemingly equally effective. Time for heatmaps. Remember, Santana is left-handed, and Bundy is right-handed. Here’s Santana’s changeup location against lefties:

via FanGraphs

Lefties batted .214 and slugged .366 against Santana’s changeup (per Brooks Baseball). It was beautifully located, making batters reach for the low, outside corner. Let’s see where Bundy throws his changeup against lefties.

via FanGraphs

Also beautiful! And guess what — lefties have batted .207 and slugged .370 against it (per Brooks Baseball). That’s definitely similar. Now let’s do the same exercise against righties. Santana’s changeup location against righties:

via FanGraphs

That is symmetrical to where he was throwing to lefties. Again, he made batters reach for the low, outside corner to get it. Per Brooks Baseball, righties hit .188 against Santana’s changeup and only slugged .311. One would hope Bundy follows this model.

via FanGraphs

And the train comes to a screeching halt. Bundy throws his change right down the pipe to righties! Johan Santana does not approve. Righties have hit .235 and slugged a Trout-ian .559 against it, per Brooks Baseball. He could stand to change that. Luckily for Orioles fans, it looks like he’s trying:

via FanGraphs

Thirty-seven changeups are only thirty-seven changeups, but he seems to be going away with them on righties this year. In a perfect world, he will keep them down as well. It’ll be something worth keeping an eye on this season. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with these two GIFs to salivate over.

Special thanks to John Edwards