It wasn’t long ago that Mike Foltynewicz was a serious candidate for the NL Cy Young award, but that notion quickly dispelled as the 2019 season came and went. When the Atlanta Braves‘ righty started the season on the Injured List, something seemed off. After allowing 26 earned runs and a .906 OPS through his first seven starts (37.1 IP), it was evident that something was wrong. The 27-year-old continued to struggle through the month of June before the team finally decided to bump him down to triple-A in July. Upon returning in August, the righty made ten solid starts, posting a 2.65 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and tallying 55 strikeouts over 57.2 innings.

Following his rocky start to the 2019 season, there was speculation among the fan-base that Foltynewicz wasn’t 100% healthy. Velocity was down at least a full mile-per-hour for each of his pitches except the curveball, and none of his stuff seemed as sharp as the year before. Perhaps the biggest concern of all was the 13 home runs he gave up in his first seven starts, after allowing just 17 dingers in 31 starts in 2018. Folty finished the 2019 season having given up 23 homers in 21 starts, averaging nearly two per nine innings.

Pitch, please

In 2018, just three of Foltynewicz’s seventeen home runs came via the slider or curveball, a testament to his ability to get guys to put the ball on the ground. He couldn’t continue the trend the following season, though, giving up nearly half of his home run total (11 of 23) on sliders and curveballs. To put that into a greater perspective, 2018 saw 0.26% of his sliders and curveballs leave the yard, as opposed to 1.51% the next year. That’s nearly six times as often!

The first career home run for Keston Hiura is in Atlanta off pitcher Mike Foltynewicz! Congrats @Kestdaddy! #ThisIsMyCrew #Brewers pic.twitter.com/UCkOya4vTS — Keston Hiura Hits Tracker (@KestonHiuraHits) May 19, 2019

Despite the notion that Folty has a nasty, sweeping slider, Statcast has never measured it to be an above average pitch in terms of horizontal break. In the midst of a ‘slider revolution’, Major League Baseball saw the average slider’s horizontal movement increase from 4.3 inches in 2018 to an even 5.0 in 2019. Meanwhile, Foltynewicz struggled to maintain his, losing 0.7 inches of horizontal break (4.2-3.5in) during that period. The end result was a slower, less-effective pitch that broke 31% less than MLB average. The one thing that has made Folty’s slider look great over the years has been his ability to play it off of his fastball.

The curve and slider certainly saw the most drastic change in results, but they were far from being Folty’s only issues in 2019. In fact, the only pitch of his that didn’t see a 150-point increase in xSLG from 2018 to 2019 was the change-up, which actually saw a drop of nearly 100 points (.371 to .273). Although Folty only used the change-up 9.5% of the time, batters whiffed on the pitch an astounding 34.6% of the time, and it was his put-away pitch 21.3% of the time. This could stem from the fact that both the change-up and slider sit around 86mph, look like a fastball at first, and hitters put more emphasis on trying to get to Folty’s slider.

Throughout his career, Mike Foltynewicz has only thrown 165 change-ups to right-handed hitters, which is about a season’s worth of change-ups by his standard. Of those pitches, not a single one has been barreled, and only five hits have been recorded. Although its success may hinge upon the low usage rate, it would be interesting to see how effective Folty’s change-up would be if he used it more often. Foltynewicz had a higher swing-and-miss rate on it than any other pitch, and playing it off of the fastball/sinker could work out better than using the slider nearly 30% of the time.

Is velocity a problem?

With velocity trending upwards around the league, Mike Foltynewicz’s drop in velocity from 2018 to 2019 seems like a huge deal, but is it? His average fastball velocity of 94.8mph is still 1.7mph higher than league average, but that might not be good enough to get away with a sub-par slider almost a third of the time. That mark is still only good for 184th in the Major Leagues, which, compared to being ranked 53rd a year before, isn’t a good sign.

Folty’s four-seam hasn’t been as lively as it once was, and now that his velocity seems to be down, things could get ugly. With an 89.6mph average exit velocity and 44.6% fly ball rate on his fastball in 2019, Folty may have no choice but to transition himself into a sinker-heavy pitcher. There were already signs of that last season, as he saw sinker usage rise from 16.4% to 25.6%, but if velocity doesn’t improve, the movement on his pitches will have to.

In seven of the nine starts in 2019 in which Mike Foltynewicz allowed two or fewer runs, the righty threw less than 30% sliders. Incidentally, in all nine of those starts, he threw at least 20% sinkers. If Folty wants try and induce more ground balls, it’s important for this trend to grow. The average launch angle of batted balls off of his sinker in 2019 was just one degree, while the curve and slider yielded 22 and 19 degrees respectively. It’s not expected that a hard, biting pitch and breaking balls will yield the same batted ball results, but that’s kind of the point. Pitch to not only your strengths, but the weaknesses of the game.

Trade Folty?

After signing Cole Hamels to a one-year deal, the Atlanta Braves’ rotation gets one more log into the jam. Even with Julio Teheran hitting free agency, the Braves still have Hamels. Folty, Max Fried, Sean Newcomb, Mike Soroka, Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint, and a handful of other guys that can contribute at the MLB level in 2020. If the club isn’t sold on Foltynewicz’s strong run at the end of the 2019 season, it’s certainly within reason to move him in a deal for a power bat. The 28-year-old is only under team control for another two seasons, so the prospect attachment would have to be significant, but if the deal nets puts a guy like Kris Bryant of Francisco Lindor in an Atlanta Braves uniform, sign me up.

The perfect time to trade Folty would have been following his strong showing in 2018. He and the team had gone to arbitration over pennies the off-season prior, and 2018 was the first extended display of dominance of his career. Alas, in just a calendar year, Mike Foltynewicz has gone from the perfect sell-high to the perfect sell-low candidate. With Hamels, the Braves’ rotation would still have enough of a veteran presence as the kids grow, and yet there would be plenty of opportunities for guys like Wilson and Wright to get their respective shots at staying in the MLB rotation.

After prioritizing the team’s rebuild around stockpiling as many high-quality arms as possible, Atlanta still finds themselves with holes in the lineup. Given the history of the team’s spending and Folty’s $7.5 million salary in 2020, the Braves’ best move may be to pull of a trade for a young slugger under team control (Matt Chapman, anyone?).

Send Matt Chapman his Gold Glove now! pic.twitter.com/LJQaTOO5Vf — Baseball Scoops (@BaseballScoops) April 17, 2019

The question still remains, can Mike Foltynewicz return to his 2018 form and be the Atlanta Braves’ ace again? The short answer is that I don’t know. The long answer is that nobody knows, and that’s why they play the games.

Chop On!