StatCast impressions of the day following White Sox-Angels spring training game

Whenever the Angels play at an opposing stadium with live StatCast data, it is an absolute treat -- especially when Ben Joyce is involved. StatCast is a great way to monitor if a pitcher is either maintaining or progressing/regressing in certain aspects of their craft. While it was a spring training game between the lowly Angels and White Sox, there was still a lot of juicy details for fans to sink their teeth into.

José Soriano started and showed more of the same from his outing against the Padres earlier in camp metrics-wise. The most important pitch he threw was an elevated, 2-strike, 99.1mph four-seam with 15" of ride to Chase Meidroth, that he foul tipped into Travis d'Arnaud's mitt for a punch out. That exact pitch will be a massive key to Soriano's success next season in order for him to keep batters off his sinker and not keyhole him in the lower half in the zone.

Who else had some success with their StatCast data?

Anything new for Ben Joyce?

Joyce was just spamming his splinker. Joyce entered the game, and threw his splinker (they are marked changeups) three times in a row to Andrew Vaughn en route to three straight whiffs. He then got a called strike on Josh Rojas, but surrendered a double on it two pitches later as he was able to anticipate it coming. In total, 11 of his 21 pitches were splinkers. Its velocity range was 92-96mph, its IVB range was 0-3" (it has incredible tumble), its horizontal break range was 4-12" of arm-side run, and finally its spin rate range was 1567-1837rpms.

Despite needing to throw his turbo sinker more, Joyce only used his four-seam against Chicago. His velo, unsurprisingly, was 100-104mph. The 104mph heater was his final pitch of the day, a called third strike to Omar Narváez, and included a velocity check from Joyce. That pitch plays when he throws a ton of splinkers, but it has dead-zone metrics and would not work in a vacuum. If he is going to continue throwing a majority of splinkers, who cares? If he is not, then he needs to mix in the sinker.

In a 1-2 count to old friend Brandon Drury, Joyce tossed his only slider of the day. Despite it finishing in the left-handed hitters' batter's box, he was close to getting a chase from Drury (shocking!). The slider was 86mph with 7" of sweep.

For those of you who abhor advanced metrics, Joyce threw 17 of his 21 pitches for strikes. There you go.

More of the same from Ryan Zeferjahn

Zeferjahn, who is a lock for a middle-relief role with the Angels, showed the Angels' evaluators exactly what they saw in 2024: a blistering heater, a true cement-mixer cutter, and an intriguing sweeper that he needs to refine.

The fastball velocity was more of the same: he was 97-98mph against Chicago. He's still cutting his four-seam, making it more inefficient than it ought to be. His cutter was 89-91mph, and it's hard to distinguish it from a slider in terms of the difference in velo from his heater, depth, and sweep. Normally, true cutters have more ride but his offering has more depth.

Zeferjahn threw 4 sweepers, 3 for balls. He landed 1 in zone and generated a whiff from Vaughn. The movement is on-par with most sweepers, as it has great depth and sweep. So, when the youngster can show that he can land it consistently in-zone, then he will really start to turn heads around the league.

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