North Shore Tavern Mound Visit: Can Contreras answer the call?

If you watched Contreras in 2023, you probably already knew this. I heard in-season that Contreras was going to commit hard to trying to find that fastball velocity this winter and that throwing softer was more frustrating to him than anyone. If he can find those extra two or three mph that he lost, then he's on a very solid path back to a major-league rotation.

That's easier said than done, though. The Pirates sent him to Driveline when they were in Seattle this season to see how he is pushing off the mound, and it didn't yield much in-season. If he doesn't regain that speed, the journey to making him a starter becomes much harder.

But Contreras' problems were not limited to fastball velocity. He needs all of his stuff to play like it used to.

I wrote about Contreras' pitch mix a couple times last season, once focusing on his abundance of sliders (which we know now was him trying to hid his drop in fastball velocity) and again showing how the fastball wasn't working off of his slider like it used to. While there isn't as much data to pull from minor-league Statcast, Contreras did show slightly different pitch shapes in the minors. Is there anything to take from those outings?

Let's start by looking at his start on Sept. 12, his final start of the season (he would make two more appearances out of the bullpen). Contreras threw 75 pitches, half of them fastballs. Of course there is going to be some fluctuation of how each pitch moves, but the vertical break ran between 12 and 18 inches all night. Could he have been experimenting with his grip? He was tracked as throwing sinkers earlier in the minors, though they were later reclassified as four-seamers.

If they were indeed all four-seamers, it moved differently than what we saw in the regular season, getting an average of 16 inches of vertical movement and six inches of horizontal movement. That's two more inches of drop and run than normal. It's also pretty close to the rest of his September averages.

That could be a good or bad thing. Ideally, four-seamers have the illusion of rise and less actual movement because of the spin, but spin on fastballs directly correlates with velocity. A fastball is going to perform differently when it's not being thrown as hard as the pitcher expects. When you don't have speed, movement and location have to be your friends. 

The slider held steadier, with most starts being at 40 inches of vertical movement and six of horizontal. He had less horizontal movement in 2022 (4.3 inches), but it's not too far off its normal break. His slider is more of a dive pitch, and despite Contreras' struggles last year, it still yielded good results. That was until he went into the bullpen and hitters batted .368 against it in June and July. The normally reliable pitch that helped him fake through his first couple months as a starter started to get hit hard when he went to the bullpen:

Was this a product of him throwing it too much, not having the fastball to tunnel off of it or losing feel on the pitch? I'm inclined to believe it's one of the first two options because the movement profile was similar in June and July. If that's the case, he needs the fastball. 

Again looking at that Sept. 12 start, Contreras had some misfires with his slider, but even in what was a pretty pedestrian outing (4 2/3 innings, two earned runs on three walks and two hits), he showed the pitch can play in different parts of the zone:

If you're looking for a good sign, I think this is about the closest you're going to get. The curveball and changeup are fallback third pitches. It's the slider and fastball that matter the most here. A major-league hitter would probably get to a couple of those hanging breaking balls, but the slider is moving like it's supposed to. That's half of the equation.

Contreras is entering a pivotal season of his development. He is out of minor-league options, and while the Pirates insisted last year that they view him as a starter moving forward, he has to earn that job in spring training. If he doesn't, it may be back to the bullpen for him. But the Pirates really could use him as a starter.