Matthew Boyd Reunites With the Tigers

Matthew Boyd has been on fairly the baseball journey over the previous few years. After spending the majority of his profession with the Tigers as a promising member of their rotation, an unlucky elbow harm in 2021 resulted in Detroit non-tendering him after the season. He signed a one-year take care of the Giants and spent the primary half of this 12 months rehabbing from his flexor tendon surgical procedure. He was traded to the Mariners on the commerce deadline and returned to the massive leagues to pitch 13.1 innings for his hometown workforce in September as they labored in the direction of breaking their notorious playoff drought.

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Along with his childhood dream fulfilled and a clear invoice of well being, Boyd will now return to the Tigers on a one-year, $10 million take care of the potential for a further $1 million in efficiency bonuses.

Along with his latest harm historical past, the one-year contract doesn’t come with out its share of threat. And even when Boyd’s elbow is totally wholesome, he wasn’t precisely essentially the most constant performer in Detroit. In 2019, he posted a career-best 3.2 WAR behind a 30.2% strikeout charge and an above-average stroll charge. Sadly, each his ERA and FIP sat above 4.00 that 12 months as a result of he additionally led the league in dwelling runs allowed. The lengthy ball had been a constant downside for him all through his profession, however the enhancements he made to his strikeout-to-walk ratio appeared like they might offset the variety of balls flying over the fence.

Sadly, he couldn’t match his breakout 12 months throughout the pandemic shortened season. A hamstring difficulty dogged him all through the marketing campaign, and his ERA and FIP ballooned to six.71 and 5.78 respectively. His strikeout charge dropped again to the place it was earlier than his breakout and he once more led the league in dwelling runs allowed. The beginning of the 2021 season was a little bit higher; Boyd didn’t permit his first dwelling run till his fourth begin of the 12 months and he took a 3.75 FIP by way of his first 13 begins. Numerous that enchancment was a mirage, nonetheless, pushed by some extraordinarily fortunate outcomes on contact. His strikeout charge fell even additional after which he injured his elbow in mid-June. He made two extra begins in late summer season, however his injured elbow derailed his season and he was subsequently non-tendered along with his well being up within the air.

The pitch that drove Boyd’s breakout three years in the past was a revamped slider. He had debuted within the majors with a fastball-heavy method and a shallow slider that wasn’t actually an out pitch for him; the pitch’s whiff charge throughout the first three years of his profession was round 25%. To his credit score, he tinkered with that breaking ball all through his early years within the huge leagues. He lastly discovered one thing that labored for him in 2018, including some depth to the pitch; these adjustments pushed its whiff charge as much as 32.7%, a career-high at that time. The subsequent 12 months — his breakout season — his slider ran a 43.6% whiff charge and opposing batters produced a paltry .244 wOBA in opposition to the pitch. He continued to earn whiffs with the pitch in 2020, however his outcomes on contact took successful, and when he began finding the pitch within the zone greater than half the time in ‘21, the swings and misses dried up.

The form of his slider was intact throughout his temporary time within the majors this 12 months, and the whiffs returned as properly. Boyd began finding the pitch off the plate once more and batters chased after it like that they had earlier than, resulting in a 34.6% whiff charge. He additionally elevated his utilization of that pitch again to the place it was in 2019, making up practically a 3rd of his pitch combine.

Boyd’s slider is clearly an necessary piece of his arsenal, and its effectiveness will seemingly drive a variety of his success in 2023, however there’s a 3rd pitch he developed just a few years in the past that would show to be a key differentiator for him subsequent 12 months. Along with his fastball- and slider-heavy method working for him in 2019, he labored on honing his curveball and changeup within the ensuing offseason to assist him be much less predictable on the mound. Regardless of specializing in his different breaking ball throughout that offseason of labor, his offspeed pitch wound up being the extra impactful one the following season. With 5 inches of extra drop and 4 inches of added arm-side fade, his changeup reworked right into a beast of a pitch with above-average motion in each instructions.

In 2020, his first season along with his revamped changeup, Boyd ran a 42.5% whiff charge with the pitch, throwing it virtually completely to right-handed batters. The subsequent 12 months, he began finding it within the zone extra typically — identical to his slider — and noticed the variety of swings and misses fall drastically. He didn’t have nice command of the pitch throughout his return to the mound this 12 months, throwing it within the zone simply 27.8% of the time. That didn’t actually matter; its whiff charge jumped to 58.8% and opposing batters put simply 5 of the 36 changeups he threw in play.

With a confirmed skill to generate strikeouts along with his breaking ball and a lethal changeup that has labored as a secret weapon since overhauling it, Boyd has all of the items he must comply with up on his breakout season, albeit three years delayed. Returning to a well-known metropolis and membership offers him a comfortable touchdown spot to rebuild his profession after his elbow harm. For the Tigers, $10 million might look like quite a bit to put money into a pitcher with some important query marks surrounding him. Nonetheless, their pitching workers is in shambles after dropping Casey Mize to Tommy John surgical procedure and Tarik Skubal to the identical flexor tendon surgical procedure that knocked Boyd out a 12 months in the past. If Boyd is wholesome and as much as the problem of beginning full-time, he would slot in the midst of the Tigers rotation behind Eduardo Rodriguez and forward of Matt Manning and Spencer Turnbull.

Courtesy of Dan Szymborski, right here is Boyd’s ZiPS projection for subsequent 12 months, in addition to a number of projection percentiles:

The early market totally free agent beginning pitching appears to be favoring gamers to this point. Mike Clevinger obtained $12 million from the White Sox and the Rays signed Zach Eflin to a three-year, $40 million deal. In that context, $10 million for Boyd doesn’t look like that a lot. Regardless of the danger, there may be actual upside in his arsenal and the Tigers are betting he’ll lastly have the ability to fulfill the promise he confirmed all these years in the past.