Guardians need Bieber to find his curveball again
As Shane Bieber takes the ball on opening day in Oakland, he’s entering a crossroads. And what path he takes depends on his curveball.
Since winning the American League Cy Young Award with a dominant 2020, Bieber has made small changes to how he pitches, how he sequences his repertoire and how he attacks hitters. The changes have coincided with a drop in his velocity, which has tanked from 94.1 mph in 2020 to 91.3 in each of the last two seasons.
Sandwiched between a tremendously effective 2022 season (2.88 ERA, 200 innings) have been a couple of injuryplagued years in which he failed to throw more than 128 innings. Last season, his ERA rose to 3.80.
“I feel there’s more in there, and I’m losing power somewhere,” Bieber said.
So, Bieber went to work with Driveline in Scottsdale, Arizona, just 15 minutes from where he lives. The idea was to find, not only more velocity, but also better movement on his curveball.
Over time, Bieber has thrown his curveball less and less, and his other off-speed pitches (slider, cutter) more and more. In 2020, his Cy Young year, Bieber used his curveball around 26.3% of the time. In 2021, he used it even more, 31.2%. But as he lost power on the mound, his curveball usage rate dropped to 17.9% in 2022 and then 13.7% last year. His whiff rate with the pitch has also suffered, dropping from 51.3% in 2020 to 32.2% a year ago.
As Bieber lost power (and thus, spin rate), his curveball flattened out to a more horizontal offering instead of having a sharper drop, and it no longer had the proper profile to complement his slider and cutter.
“But it was hard to really get too deep into working on it,” said pitching coach Carl Willis. “We were also trying to navigate around his health.”
If Bieber can find more velocity for his fastball and more spin rate on his curveball he can work them into his repertoire more and keep hitters off balance. “I love the term ‘being unpredictable,’” Willis said.
The Guardians have Bieber under club control for one last year. If not for an injury last summer, he might have already been traded. He could still very well be dealt at this year’s deadline, depending on where the Guardians stand in July.
A lot is in the air when it comes to Bieber’s 2024 season, both as it pertains to him personally as a pitcher and the Guardians’ plans. How it all unfolds likely rests with his curveball, and just how much power he was able to discover with Driveline.