Here's a look at the new arms acquired by the Red Sox
Boston recently acquired three pitchers through a pair of trades.
Mauricio Llovera
Red Sox trade pitching prospect Marques Johnson to the Giants for Mauricio Llovera (written before his two outings with the team)
Llovera, 27, is a two-pitch right-hander that has spent the last three years with the Giants organization after a half-dozen with the Phillies — the organization that signed him in 2015.
Through 29 career major-league outings in three seasons, Llovera has slated a 6.14 ERA, including a 1.69 ERA in five games this year despite ugly batted ball data.
The stuff is there for Llovera. It’s a common slider/sinker two-pitch combo for him with roughly 50/50 usage, as the righty throws the sinker (110 Stuff+) at ~95 mph while the slider (127 Stuff+) sits at ~83.
Though, the thing that jumps out immediately whilst looking at the movement profile is his horizontal tunnel between the two pitches. The sinker gets 16" of run (arm-side) and 7" of ride at a ~-5.5° VAA while the slider gets 16" of sweep at a -7.5° VAA and a -5.3° HAA (-1.6° more than average)— that gives the two pitches a 32" separation horizontally, which is not ideal at all; that’s not too far from three whole feet.
In Triple-A this season the slider is getting decent whiff action (15 SwStr%/36 Whiff%) while the sinker induces a hefty amount of grounders (55 GB%) but with high separation between the two pitches his stuff won’t really play in the majors. Some work is likely needed on his two-pitch arsenal.
That’s why, realistically, adding a cutter would make a ton of sense for Llovera. Ideally, it would have ~0–2" horizontal movement on it while sitting around ~90, which would basically split the horizontal separation and velocity difference in half of his two pitches and add deception to both the sinker and slider. A changeup could also help him too if it’s given a similar ~16" of arm-side run as the sinker.
Nick Robertson
Red Sox trade Kiké Hernandez to the Dodgers for Nick Robertson and Justin Hagenman
The 25-year-old right-hander Robertson is another two-pitch arm that occasionally mixes in a slider, though it’s largely a fastball/changeup mix at an elite 7.2–3 feet of extension at his large 6-foot-6, 265 frame.
The changeup is what really garnered some attention over Twitter as soon as the trade was announced — and for good reason. Robertson has a nearly 60 GB% on the pitch in Triple-A to go along with an even more impressive 25 SwStr% and a 43.4 whiff% on it. It gets ~4" IVB and ~15" of run on it at ~87 mph, which tunnels decently well with a four-seamer that gets 15–18" of carry at ~95 along with ~8" of run to the arm side.
The slider however is barely ever used, which makes sense. There’s 16" of horizontal separation between the fastball and slider given its 8" of sweep, likely making it hard for there to be any deception between the pitches and hard for it to really work at higher levels. His older scouting reports describe him more as a fastball arm that throws a slider to righties and a changeup to lefties, though the slider usage has fallen off of a cliff considering he uses it well under 10% of the time now — making him basically a two-pitch arm.
Robertson has a 2.54 ERA in 27 Triple-A outings this season to go along with an impressive 13.34 K/9, but he also holds a 6.10 ERA in nine big-league appearances this season along with very ugly batted ball data — which includes a .500 BABIP despite his still solid 11.32 K/9. His changeup usage went up to around to about 50/50 when he got to the big leagues whereas it was around 60/40 fastball in Triple-A.
Quite simply, the current changeup/fastball combo doesn’t really play for him at the big-league level. When he got to the majors he was no longer generating nearly as many whiffs (11.3 SwStr%) and hitters could get ahold of his pitches much easier. With just an 87 Stuff+ on both the fastball and changeup and nothing that plays horizontally along with good but not anywhere elite tunneling, success for him will be hard to come by with his current pitch mix.
Considering he could definitely use something to work with horizontally, I’m aware this is exactly what I concluded with for Llovera, but an addition of a cutter once again makes sense for Robertson. Both his fastball and changeup have an HAA below -1°, and the slider (~-3.3° HAA) doesn’t really play as stated largely due to its 16" of horizontal separation between it and the fastball. So, adding a cutter, ideally with 0–2" of run and a ~-2° HAA could both let the slider actually be effective and overall be a very useful pitch for him.
Justin Hagenman
We’re a little bit limited on the data I can get for Hagenman given that he hasn’t ever pitched a big-league game, but I’m still able to get a decent amount of the movement profile for Hagenman.
The 26-year-old righty in Hagenman definitely has a much lower ceiling than Robertson and Llovera. He had a 2.78 ERA with Oklahoma City in 25 games (five starts) before joining Triple-A Worcester, but the stuff is very fringe.
His sinker is a dead zone fastball at ~13" of ride and ~12" of arm-side run which he’s throwing at a rate of over 50% of the time at just ~92 mph along with around a -4.5° VAA on it. His changeup, which I’m guessing is a two-strike pitch given its 64 OZ%, gets ~15" of arm-side run along with a -7° VAA at 86.5 mph — it doesn’t get whiff action (11 SwStr%) but gets good ground ball action at 52%.
The gyro slider then comes in at ~4" of sweep at a -7° VAA and gets decent swing-and-miss rates on it at a 15 SwStr% but nothing anywhere near impressive at the Triple-A level.
I wish I had the data to see what changes he made from this year to last given his 6.08 ERA in 41 outings for Oklahoma City in 2022, but regardless the stuff still doesn’t really project well at all despite some decently soft contact produced at the Triple-A level.