The first pitch of the season hasn’t even crossed the plate yet, but we may already have a contender for the best comparison of 2018.
Jeff Samardzija has worked hard this offseason in an effort to revamp his pitching style. The 33-year-old veteran has incorporated new grips on old pitches in an attempt to disguise his fastball and emphasize his off speed.
He’s integrated a two-seam changeup and reestablished the grip on his curveball after a season where he admitted hitters sat heavily on his fastball. Yet it’s a new development on his splitter that has Samardzija the most excited.
“The split is more of a save for an out pitch,” he said after a recent outing in Scottsdale. “It’s an aggressive pitch, but location isn’t necessarily that type of pitch’s specialty. We wanted something else we can work behind the count and get (hitters) off the fastball.
“My splitter I’ve equated to a hot girlfriend before,” he added. “If you give it a lot of attention, worry about it all the time, it doesn’t like you. But if you ignore it and don’t practice with it, all of a sudden it’s really good. It’s got a mind of its own.”
After giving up 30 home runs in 2017, the emphasis on utilizing a variety of off speed pitches is the route Samardzija will go as he attempts to thwart hitters off his fastball. He’ll rely on his curveball and changeup heavily, and leave the splitter for special circumstances.
“The curveball is just about maximizing the spin and getting the most out of that rotation, and making it look more like other pitches,” he said. “The way it was coming out of the other grip looked like a two-seamer almost, in a way. We just want to get a little more bite out of it, move the ball around and get more laces in the air.
“The change is just a matter of having a pitch to throw early or anytime in the count that we can throw that change of speeds. The split wasn’t there for us in that sense of a strike pitch. It’s an out pitch and I think it will always be.”
While Samardzija’s 9-15 record and 4.42 ERA last season signifies the need for a bounce-back season this year, the right-hander was the only arm out of the rotation to pitch over 200 innings and accumulate over 200 strikeouts. He also walked just 32 batters compared to striking out 205, making for the fourth-best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the big leagues for 2017. But the long ball was Samardzija’s most troublesome stat and signaled to Samardzija that it was time for a change.
“People are sitting fastball on me,” he said. “For me to have another pitch I can change speeds with, it makes the fastball more effective also.
“It’s going to be huge for us. To get some cheap outs along the way and not have to strike as many guys out is the name of the game, especially if they’re keeping our pitch counts down.”