Oller eager to test changes after rough ’22
MESA, Ariz. — Adam Oller outlined three lessons from his 2022 season with the Oakland Athletics. He needed to throw more strikes. He needed a better breaking pitch. And his command had to improve.
Not exactly the little things.
More was required after Oller, acquired in the trade of Chris Bassitt to the Mets, went 2-8 with a 6.30 ERA in 19 appearances as a rookie. His struggles cost him a spot in the season-opening rotation and, the righthander admits, some confidence.
But Oller, 28, is encouraged by changes he made this offseason. He looked with A’s pitching coaches Scott Emerson and Mike McCarthy for flaws in his delivery and found he was “over-rotating,” which might have led to more velocity but didn’t help his control or the natural ride on his four-seam fastball.
“I’m not opening up on my front side, causing me to sail or yank pitches, which is what I was doing last year,” Oller said. “The strong suit with my fastball is the carry on it. So instead of focusing on how hard I throw, it’s how best I can use that and cleaning up some movement patterns. Through that, we found the fastball’s riding a lot better and the velocity’s still there.”
Oller also is throwing a new breaking pitch after searching for a consistent one all last season. He threw a breaking ball in the minors that he gripped with his middle finger along a seam with his index finger spiked, but he said he couldn’t create the same action using an MLB ball with lower laces: “It would come off my index finger and just knuckle.”
Oller trained this offseason at Dynamic Sports Training in the Houston area, where he’s from, and said he talked there with Astros pitchers Lance McCullers Jr. and Spencer Arrighetti.
McCullers threw more than 50 percent breaking pitches for Houston last year, and Arrighetti, an Astros prospect, throws a sweeping slider. Oller said he tried McCullers’ curveball grip and Arrighetti’s slider but didn’t master either.
“But when Spencer showed me his grip, it kind of turned into a hybrid of the two,” Oller said.
The result is a “slurve” pitch, with more vertical break than a sweeping side-to-side slider, which Oller hopes will play well off his fastball. Importantly, he thinks he can throw it with consistent movement and command.
Oller said he “struggled a lot mentally with confidence” last year and is “trying to take a more positive mindset” into this season. He is pitching as a starter this spring but might be a bullpen option for the A’s if he does not make the rotation out of camp.
After watching Oller face hitters in a live batting practice Tuesday, manager Mark Kotsay deemed it “probably the best Adam’s thrown the ball.”
“I’m very excited to get into games,” Oller said, “and start attacking guys with what I know I have.”