What’s going on with Adam Ottavino?
There are many contributing factors to the lackluster performance of Boston Redsox reliever Adam Ottavino who made headlines in 2018 after saying, "I would strike Babe Ruth out every time." Currently, Ottavino has a 3.68 ERA, a FIP of 3.27, and 58.2 innings pitched at this article's time, placing him 119th out of 283 qualifying pitchers. The reason for his mediocre stat line includes his inability to get left-handed batters out, his command struggle, and pitch selection.
Alex Cora (The Red Sox Manager) has done well to put Ottavino in a situation to succeed and without Cora at the helm, Ottavino’s stat line would look much worse. The bottom line is that the right-hander has been an abomination against lefties in 2021. In 19.2 innings pitched, he has allowed ten earned runs, 22 hits, and ten walks. Ottavino's comments to the Boston Herald earlier in the season did not age well, "I have no idea what they're looking for these days in terms of roles and stuff like that, but I do think it would benefit me to get a full season in facing as many lefties as possible so I can put that kind of narrative to bed." It is even more unfortunate, given Cora put faith in his reliever during the first week of the regular season. Cora claimed, "One thing for sure, we're going to give him the ball, clean innings, and he's going to face lefties and righties." So, given that Babe Ruth was a lefty, I highly doubt Ottavino would "whiff" him.
Adam Ottavino stat line versus lefties this season - via Baseball Savant
A potential cause for Ottavino's lefty struggle is his command issues. So far in 2021, Ottavino's BB% is in the bottom eighth percentile in the league, his chase rate is in the bottom sixth percentile, and his whiff percentage is 58th percentile. These struggles are detrimental to the righty, given that his signature sweeping slider makes up 47 percent of his pitches. Ottavino makes his money fooling hitters into swinging at pitches that look like strikes but dive out of the zone. If he's unable to do so, he will have difficulty getting guys out, especially lefties. Lefties have much better statistics against Ottavino; when his sliders miss his glove-side, they hang up right in the middle of a lefties bat path. Ottavino’s other big miss is a yanked slider, which has become the root cause of his walk percentage. It is a different story for righties; when Ottavino misses the initial glove-side target, the slider is still far enough away from a righty batter (in most cases) in which they would either swing right over it, make weak contact to the right side, or take it for a ball. Despite having 8.1 inches above average of horizontal break, Ottavino has had a - 6 run value from his slider in 2021.
Adam Ottavino “Misses by Zone” graph - via Baseball Savant
Adam Ottavino percentile rankings - via Baseball Savant
If you look at Ottavino's best years from an ERA Standpoint, you notice that his two seasons with the Yankees in 2018 and 2019 were elite. A critical difference between those seasons and the current one is his pitch repertoire. Although most of it has stayed the same, he has almost stopped throwing his cutter entirely. In 2018 and 2019, he threw his cutter 9.8% and 13.8%, respectively. In 2021 he has thrown his cutter 1.9% of the time. This is notable because his cutter is essentially a shorter, tighter version of his slider that would seemingly be easier to control. On top of that, in 2018 and 2019, his cutter produced a whiff percentage of almost 50% and nearly 40%, respectively. Also, in 2018 his cutter had 6.1 horizontal inches of break or 3.6 inches above average (143 percent break above average). It wasn't nearly as good in 2019 but still respectable at 3.2 inches of horizontal break, 1.2 inches above average. So far in 2021, Ottavino has thrown his cutter 20 times and it has had a similar break to 2019. If Ottavino were to increase his cutter usage, he could have a complementary put-away pitch that could be an excellent 1-2 punch when combined with a slider that fools batters. Given that they move in the same direction, hitters would have to make an early decision whether to swing based on whether they think the ball will stay in the zone or not.
Adam Ottavino’s measured break on each pitch - via Baseball Savant
Another flaw in Ottavino's game is his time to home plate. In 2019, Ottavino had a “time to home” length of 1.7 seconds, allowing base stealers to run on him successfully 89 percent of the time. This is bad, and Ottavino was aware of it, so he switched up his mechanics to have a faster delivery. According to New York Post, Ottavino worked during the off-season to bring his time down to 1.3 seconds. This may seem like a good thing without much thought, but it turned out to be fatal. Ever since he switched mechanics in spring training of the 2020 season, his ERA has ballooned. This could explain the fact that Ottavino has struggled to consistently locate his pitches—a change like this can alter the timing of the delivery and causes a pitcher’s arm to be late. The result is often hanging breaking balls and pitches that miss to the arm side, two things we’ve commonly seen from Ottavino this year.
Adam Ottavino’s delivery - via MLB Youtube
Ottavino has flaws in his game that have made his ERA skyrocket from his dominant 2018 and 2019 seasons. He has always struggled against lefties, but there is still a bright side for Ottavino. Despite his lefty woes, Ottavino has been dominant before and if he can work on locating his slider better or refinding confidence in his cutter, he can be a dominant pitcher again because he is so good at limiting hard contact. So far in 2021, his xSLG against is 95th percentile, he has a barrel percentage of 97th percentile, a hard-hit rate of 97th percentile, and finally, his average exit velocity is 97th percentile. However, when you walk a guy and allow him to steal, even a bloop single scores a run.
Adam Ottavino’s percentile rankings in 2021 - via Baseball Savant
