The Launch Angle

I think Chandler Rome’s article is a pretty good review of the pitching staff issues. (It covers some of the ground that I would have covered with an article.) I am particularly interested in the discussion of Bryan Abreu:

No straightforward explanation exists for Abreu’s downturn. His fastball velocity is two miles per hour below his career average, something both Abreu and team officials have attributed to poor mechanics. Even at his best, Abreu has never been a command artist, but walking 13 batters and throwing 50.2 percent of his pitches for strikes across 10 appearances is untenable.

That Abreu has thrown just 42 percent of his fastballs inside the strike zone has neutralized his slider’s effectiveness, given opposing hitters little reason to swing — they’re doing so just 37.6 percent of the time — and, as a result, no chase for someone who sorely needs it.

I have stayed away from blaming pitching coaches without evidence. But Abreu strikes me as an illustration of potential weaknesses among the pitching coaches this year (i.e. Murphy moving to the Pirates). Poor mechanics appear to be causing Abreu’s issues. He has gone through stretches of control problems over the last few years. We can remember those periods lasting for a few days or a week in 2024 and 2025. Yet each time the Astros corrected the problem and got him back on track. Have the Astros lost the institutional memory of how to go about correcting Abreu’s delivery? Abreu gave a quote a couple of weeks ago that he was afraid to throw hard because his delivery is bad and it might cause injury.