A new analytical snapshot from Baseball Savant has turned the spotlight on a handful of Cincinnati Reds pitchers, revealing that their most effective weapons are not just fastballs but a suite of secondary pitches that are generating unusually high rates of weak contact and swings and misses.
The ‘flailed’ leaderboard
At the top of the ‘flailed’ ranking — a metric that tracks how often a pitch is hit into weak contact — sits Andrew Abbott’s changeup. The pitch flails 71 percent of the time it is put into play, the highest mark in the majors, and it also boasts a whiff rate of 43.2 percent, placing it 55th among the 914 pitches evaluated.
The data also shines a light on other arms in the Reds’ bullpen. Chase Burns’ slider ranks third in whiff rate across the league, while Graham Ashcraft’s slider sits at 25th. Starter Brandon Williamson climbs to sixth in the flailed stat with a 66 percent rate, and Rhett Lowder’s two‑seamer lands at 29th, Nick Lodolo’s two‑seamer at 54th, and veterans Emilio Pagan and Abbott’s four‑seamer sit at 58th and 59th respectively.
Implications for the rotation
What the numbers suggest is a bullpen that can lean on a diverse mix of breaking and off‑speed offerings to keep hitters off balance. The high contact‑avoidance percentages for the two‑seamers of Williamson, Lowder and Lodolo indicate that even the starters are benefitting from the same pitch‑design work that has made Abbott’s changeup a league‑leading weapon. If the trend holds, the Reds could see a deeper reliance on pitch‑mix strategies rather than pure velocity.
The analysis, compiled by Baseball Savant and reported through its partnership with Major League Baseball, underscores how modern metrics are reshaping how teams evaluate pitching talent. As the season progresses, the ability to command weak contact and generate whiffs will likely become an even more critical metric in roster construction and in‑game decision making.