Odorizzi making himself at home
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Astros welcome their new pitchers with a deluge of data, instructing them to scrap this or spin more of that. A time arrives every spring when the organization’s army of analysts bring the new acquisition in for a meeting. Pitching coach Brent Strom attends.
The information can be overwhelming. The requests may be daunting.
Jake Odorizzi heard all the stories from former As
tros pitchers scattered across the sport. Ten days ago, he arrived in West Palm Beach “really looking forward” to the conference. Odorizzi is cramming seven weeks of spring into three, balancing an urge to be ready by April with not harming himself by ramping up too fast.
“This is new territory for me, obviously, so we’re doing our best that we keep everything in check and on the right progression and just be as honest as possible,” said Odorizzi, who signed with the team on March 9, nearly a month after the first workout for pitchers and catchers. “This isn’t like I have to rush to get ready, it’s more of ‘Let’s take it and be ready to go when the time comes.’ ”
Odorizzi does not need the overhaul other new Astros endured. A mainstay in his six-pitch arsenal is an elevated four-seam fastball — the foundation of Houston’s pitching infrastructure. The 30-year-old righthander received nothing drastic during his meeting on Wednesday,
only affirmation of what he perceives as a perfect fit.
“The stuff that I do well I feel like is what a lot of new guys come here and get turned into doing,” Odorizzi said. “If (I am) doing something well to begin with and then coming here, I feel like I can almost accentuate it and take the next step with it. It’s been good to this point now, maybe I can make it great.”
Odorizzi did not divulge
any of the Astros’ specific instructions, but intimated it was nothing immense. His time with the Tampa Bay Rays introduced him to the analytical assistance cutting-edge teams provide. He trains during the offseason with TrackMan data nearby and an Edgertronic camera capturing his every move. Odorizzi already knew or accepted most of what the Astros presented him Wednesday.
“It was stuff that I thought
from a pitching standpoint I could do relatively quickly from just a couple of tweaks,” Odorizzi said. “Nothing was taken away from me. There was no pitch that (they) said ‘scrap this’ or ‘go heavy with this.’
“I’m kind of unique when it comes to all that stuff. Multiple pitches and not high in velocity, so everything kind of plays off each other for a reason. They’re comfortable with everything that I have, and now we’re just going to emphasize execution of some certain things just in a different way.”
Odorizzi can show six pitches. He has two primary fastballs — the elevated fourseamer and a two-seamer — to go along with a cutter. A splitter, slider and rarely used curveball round out his arsenal.
Odorizzi made only four appearances in 2020, offering too small of a sample size to analyze his exact pitch mix. In his 2019 All-Star season, Odorizzi peppered lefthanded hitters with the sinker, four-seamer and splitter, according to Brooks Baseball. He utilized his slider and cutter more against righthanders.
By usage rate, Odorizzi’s
splitter and slider are his two primary breaking pitches, but he can throw any pitch of his wide array in any count. He’s compard to Zack Greinke, who is unafraid to throw any pitch at any time. Odorizzi experienced a velocity increase after altering his winter training in 2018, but he still sits just in the low 90s with his four-seamer. He indicated on Friday that the Astros showed him the benefits of tinkering with the velocity of all his offerings.
“It’s pretty unique to see some of that stuff laid out in front of you — the metrics that go with it, the reasoning behind it, adding, subtracting, if the velocity of this is this, it makes it better, subtracting from a different thing, this makes it better,” Odorizzi said.
“Stuff that, as a pitcher, you may think about in your head, but getting the data to back it up and understanding it, it’s pretty unique to see it on the screen there. Seeing it laid out in front of me this way is a much easier way for me, visually, to work on it.”
Whatever the Astros suggested, Odorizzi has two more weeks to implement it. He acknowledged on Friday it is “reasonable to expect” that he will not pitch on the Astros’ six-game season-opening road trip. A debut during the team’s first homestand in mid-April is a more optimistic target.
Odorizzi only has reached the 30-pitch threshold of his preseason buildup. He simulated two innings and threw more than 30 pitches on the back fields during a workout on Friday. Manager Dusty Baker said Odorizzi is scheduled to make his Grapefruit League debut Wednesday against the Nationals. Odorizzi expressed hope he could finish three innings then and fall into a five-day schedule. It leaves him only one other spring training game in which to work.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot,” Odorizzi said. “I’m at probably where I normally am in spring training, if not a little bit in front of where I’m normally at the first 10 days of spring training. But, again, just trying to progress on a steady uphill and being ready to go hopefully sooner than later.”