Garrett Cleavinger is still a great pitcher

Garrett Cleavinger had a 3.31 ERA and 3.40 FIP through July. Since the beginning of August, however, the results haven’t been there, with a 10.38 ERA and 6.79 FIP. He has even improved his first pitch strike rate from the high 50s to the low 70s between both samples, so it’s not like his command has completely disappeared. We’ll look at his key performance indicators to see what’s going wrong:

Cleavinger is really not doing anything fundamentally different compared to what he was doing most of the year before August. His underlying data is still solid and suggests the pitcher the Rays trusted earlier this season is still there. A .385 BABIP has played a major role in his recent rut while a subtle shift in his fastball location has made his stuff a little less deceptive. That BABIP is roughly 100 points higher than his .283 career mark. Some of that is almost certainly variance, but his recent fastball location issues may be contributing at the margins.

Cleavinger has allowed a .390 wOBA for his career on fastballs located on the arm-side third of the zone compared to a .212 wOBA on fastballs located on the glove-side third. He primarily throws both of his fastballs across the zone glove-side and down to that optimal spot as evident in his heat map from March through July:

But lately he’s been missing more to the arm-side as we can see in his August through September heat map:

The fastball still plays there to some extent, but more importantly it loses some of the cross-fire deception and awkward angle Cleavinger creates when spotting it glove-side. He throws his breaking ball to a similar spot across the zone, so landing the fastball there helps the two pitches play off each other. Failing to consistently hit his fastball locations diminishes the effectiveness of his arsenal. He loses some of the deception and tunneling that makes his entire pitch mix difficult to attack.

Because Cleavinger’s delivery doesn’t appear meaningfully different, I wonder if the problem could be addressed through his visual cue rather than a mechanical adjustment.

When Cleavinger throws his fastball, his catcher initially sets up high and near the middle of the zone before sliding toward the glove-side target. Here’s the setup, which is typically more in on lefties:

A similar cue is used against righties, although it’s typically closer to the middle of the zone:

Because Cleavinger still looks like himself mechanically, a potential solution to getting his fastball glove-side and down again could be to shift the catcher set-up. He’s missing arm-side with a high and middle cue, so shifting the cue to high and more glove-side could help him in regaining feel for locating his fastball. This wouldn’t necessarily need to be a permanent change. Cleavinger has a long track record of spotting his fastball at its intended location. The idea isn’t to change his target, but to change the visual cue he uses to find it.

With Cleavinger already on the IL, the timing could actually work in his favor. The break gives him an opportunity to work through the adjustment without having to solve it in a game, but there is some risk in making an adjustment this late in the season. Relievers live on routine, and changing a visual cue in September could create more uncertainty if it doesn’t immediately improve his command. With the postseason approaching, there’s little margin for experimentation.

Cleavinger doesn’t need to reinvent himself. His underlying performance suggests the pitcher the Rays trusted earlier this season is still there. He needs the BABIP pendulum to swing back toward him and, more importantly, needs to regain the fastball location that makes his unusual delivery and arsenal so difficult to hit. If he can consistently get back to glove-side and down, the rest of his arsenal should follow.