Welcome to the Minor Pitcher Deal Bonanza

It’s been dark here at FanGraphs for a few days, so admit it: you desperately need to read something right now. How about a roundup of analysis on three pitchers who went out of business right before our holiday break?

Griffin Canning, Michael Soroka and Patrick Sandoval all fit somewhere between the back of their new team’s rotation or the front of its starting depth; each received offers commensurate with those expectations. If the going rate for a fourth starter these days is something like $15 million AAV (Alex Cobb got one year and $15 million, Matthew Boyd got two years and $29 million), this trio is probably a tier below that.

Do these three purchases, grouped together, mean anything in particular? Probably not. Every year, the starter/reliever duo becomes more and more blurred, and perhaps one day every pitcher will pitch exactly three innings and the distinction will disappear completely. Perhaps each of these purchases brings us closer to that day; Soroka, in particular, seems better suited to going through a lineup once and then going on his way. For various reasons, the expectation for all of these pitchers should be between 80 and 120 innings for the 2025 season. But no further trends will be charted for now. Without further ado, here are the details on the three pitchers.

Griffin Canning

Canning caught the attention of internet pitching nerds earlier this year due to the remarkably unremarkable shape of his fastball. The image below is courtesy of Max Bay’s dynamic dead zone app:

the deadest area. cc: @choice_fielder pic.twitter.com/krJWXKN4yN

— Alex “Oxlade” Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) October 31, 2024

Because Canning throws his fastball from approximately a league-average arm angle (45°), a league-average release height (5.8 feet), and with a league-average throw (16.2 inches of induced vertical rupture), the field – in theory! – moves on a trajectory that hitters expect. (I say “in theory” because, as Remi Bunikiewicz pointed out, Canning does a great job of hiding his fastball during the windup, complicating any perceptual analysis.)

This fastball was the bane of Canning’s existence in 2024. He qualified for the ERA title, something only 57 other pitchers could claim to have done, but his 5.26 FIP was the worst among qualified starters , and his strikeout rate was third-worst. The strikeout rate dropped nearly eight percentage points from 2023 to 2024, and performance against his fastball essentially explains all of that decline. The smelt rate on Canning’s other three primary pitches remained virtually the same; on the fastball, the percentage of swings that led to errors went from 28% in 2023 to just 14% in 2024.

A drop in speed seems to be the main culprit for the drop in performance. The four-seamer averaged 94.7 mph in 2023; that dropped to 93.4 mph in 2024. Could a 1.5 mph speed difference be the entire explanation? I’m inclined to think the answer is largely yes. But it’s also possible that the decline in slider quality has affected the hitter’s performance against his fastball. Canning’s killball slider dropped three inches lower than in 2023, reducing the separation between his fastball and his primary outfield against right-handed hitters.

Could a reduced role help Canning return to his previous form? These considerations could be part of the plan. The Mets employ something like eight starters; Canning finds himself outside the five favourites. Assuming he’s fully healthy, they’ll likely deploy him in two- or three-inning bursts, perhaps allowing him to get back to that mid-90s velocity on the heater. Even in a swingman role, the $4.25 million contract makes sense: With less responsibility in terms of workload, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect Canning to provide something like a 4.00 ERA over 100 innings or so. And if injuries affect the rotation, it can stretch to a starter’s workload. Regardless, there is a role to play in this era where quality innings can be difficult to come by, especially in the late summer months.

Michael Soroka

Soroka exploded after a midseason move to the White Sox bullpen. As a reliever, Soroka struck out 39% of the batters he faced, which would rank second in all of baseball.

Curiously, it wasn’t Soroka stepping up on 15-shot spurts. Unlike those pitchers at the top of the strikeout charts — Mason Miller, Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader — Soroka did so mostly in big, multi-inning appearances. Soroka pitched 36 innings out of the bullpen; all but 5 2/3 appeared in two or more innings. In those slightly shorter appearances — he averaged nearly five innings per appearance as a starter and 2 1/3 as a reliever — the strikeout rate somehow tripled.

After dedicating himself full time to relief work, Soroka added 1.5 mph to his four-seam fastball. But the four-seam machine is nothing special; instead, at 94 mph with movement in a dead zone, it’s primarily there to set the slider, which generated a whiff rate of nearly 42%.

What’s so special about the slider? It’s not the velocity: He averages just 82.2 mph, well below the average for major league sliders. But its shape is distinct. There are slower curveballs that resemble the motion profile, but other than Bryan Abreu, no one really throws a slider with the combination of depth and sweep that Soroka manages to achieve. Since May 18, when Soroka transitioned to the bullpen role, the slider has averaged -4.5 inches of induced vertical break with 5.2 inches of sweep, moving sharply in two planes.

But averages obscure the whole truth. Soroka can also manipulate pitch to move into a variety of interrupt patterns. Look at the range of motion profiles on his slider, displayed in yellow in the tone graph below:

Soroka can consolidate this, launching it more like an 84 mph gyroscope with zero inches of induced vertical break:

But he can also bend it like a curveball, dropping more than 10 inches further than his firmest sliders:

(Look at poor Spencer Torkelson there: I think he was expecting the gyroscope.)

Between the identical fastball and slider frequency, the distinct two-plane motion profile, and the diversity of potential shapes, Soroka had hitters who swung and missed more than almost any pitcher in baseball.

Evidently, the Nationals, who gave Soroka $9 million on a one-year contract, intend to use him as a “starter.” Given its patterns of use as relief, I’m not exactly sure what that means. I would expect the Nationals to tell Soroka to let go for about 60 pitches, just like he did in Chicago, and he’ll face 12 or 13 batters in a game. Like Canning, I think Soroka will end up closer to 90 innings rather than 180, letting his best stuff cook in outings that fall somewhere between a one-inning reliever and a starter looking to flip the lineup three times.

Patrick Sandoval

Sandoval, who signed a two-year, $18.25 million contract with the Red Sox, fits right into their “no fastballs” organizational philosophy. This guy hates the four now: They made up just 16% of his shots in his injury-shortened 2024 season, by far the fewest of his career. Regardless of the hitter’s hand, Sandoval mixes up all six of his pitches, but works them differently depending on whether he’s facing a righty or a lefty. Many of his proposals to right-handers were changes; for lefties, Sandoval spammed his slider and sweeper more than half the time.

As you would expect from a pitcher who throws all that garbage, Sandoval struggles to get the ball into the strike zone. Last year he ran a 10% walk; even in his excellent 2022 campaign, in which he racked up 3.7 WAR, his walk rate was above 9%. Walks are just part of the package with Sandoval, but the hope is that, at his best, he can work his way around them, hitting enough hitters and staying away from enough barrels with his diverse pitch mix and refusing to throw anything straight.

Sandoval is likely to pitch the fewest innings of this trio in 2025. He tore his UCL and was shut down in mid-June before undergoing Tommy John surgery, so he’ll miss much of next season. When he returns, it looks like he’ll take on the workload of a traditional starter, although after the signing of Walker Buehler, Boston’s rotation looks pretty stacked. Ultimately, this deal is mostly a 2026 proposition, with some depth for late next year as a bonus.

Conclusion

None of these guys are too exciting. They all have stinky fastballs. But everyone has reason to believe he could bring added value with a modest deal. Ultimately, this is what it means to sign a minor pitcher.