A Weird Pitcher
Touki Toussaint is not unique in how frustrating he’s been. Plenty of Braves pitching prospects have similarly teased us with excellent stuff, and the occasional great outing, only to struggle to do it on a consistent basis. Toussaint, on the other hand, does seem unique in the ways he frustrates us.
Among pitchers with at least 20 innings last year, only one Brave ranked among the 25 MLB pitchers with the lowest swing rates allowed - Touki’s 41.3%, the 24th lowest rate in the game. The strategy against Toussaint is to take, take, take. I was curious why, so I looked at possible reasons:
Maybe he’s wild! Guys who throw a ton of balls should induce fewer swings. Toussaint is far from a pitcher who pounds the zone, but this wasn’t really the explanation. Toussaint threw into the zone on 41.7% of pitches, but that was the 258th lowest rate in the game.
Maybe he struggles to find the edges of the zone. Not all balls are created equal, and if Toussaint’s balls were way outside, they’d be more easily distinguished from pitches hitters would want to swing at. This… wasn’t really it either. Through the magic of the Statcast search at Baseball Savant, we can see Toussaint threw 40.6% of his pitches into the “Shadow zone”, that area along the edges of the zone. Again, that’s not exactly a high rate (it ranked 19th among Braves pitchers without accounting for inning minimums), but it is hardly a glaring area of concern. Here’s that leaderboard, if you’re interested.
Hitters knew what they were looking for and were easily able to wait for it. I think we may have found part of the answer. Touki’s pitches outside the zone fooled nobody, as batters stingily offered at just 25.9% of them, the lowest rate among Atlanta pitchers. They also weren’t interested in his pitches inside the zone - the 62.9% swing rate against his strikes was also the lowest against an Atlanta pitcher. It didn’t matter where Touki was throwing it, hitters just weren’t interested. I think it’s because they were sinker-hunting. Check out Toussaint’s pitch selection over the last two years:
There’s nothing wrong with ditching pitches. He threw just 47 sliders in 2020, but hitters hit .700 with 3 homers against them. Killing that pitch with fire can’t really be argued with. The four seamer gave him a few issues, but I don’t know that scrapping it altogether was the best solution. In 2021, batters hit .283 and slugged .543 against his newly featured pitch. The 2020 four seamer missed just 17.2% of bats, but the sinker fared worse, inducing a whiff rate of 12.1%.
In totality, I think it was a bit of all of the above that led to such passivity from hitters. Touki wasn’t going to pound the zone, he wasn’t going to kill you on the edges, and while there was no longer a slider to feast on, that was a pitch batters no longer had to worry about. I can’t find any pitch tunneling data for the 2021 season, but my guess (and it’s just a guess) is that Touki’s pitch combinations would fare poorly, with one exception: hitters swung at his splitter frequently, and they missed a third of the time, leading me to think it made for a decent combo with his sinker. But as much as hitters were fooled by the splitter, they were still able to find a sinker to hit too often. And with no four seamer or slider to worry about and an easily recognizable curve, it was a winning strategy.
But the thing is, Touki really wasn’t that bad in 2021. His 4.50 ERA isn’t going to win him any guaranteed jobs, but it’s not awful, and DRA (4.62) thinks it was a fair representation of his true skill. Many of these prospects tantalize with their ability, but Touki Toussaint’s path to respectability might not be all that far away. Squint a bit and it’s not hard to see a pitcher who refines his pitch mix, cuts back on the walks a tad, improves his command a bit, and turns into a useful swingman/long reliever rather quickly.
Trading Prospects
Last week, the fine folks at Talking Chop ran this article discussing which prospects the Braves should trade. I don’t really have any commentary on their answers. But the question’s concept did rattle around in my brain for a few days.
I think Pache and Waters will be kneejerk responses to this, simply because their prospect ranks have dropped precipitously, but I think that’s faulty thinking, at least on its own. Trading them now won’t turn back time and net the same return trading them a year ago would have. Their value just isn’t there anymore. If the Braves believe in their bats and think they can recoup some of that value, they might as well at this point. With Pache, I’m not sure he can return something considerably more valuable than his current floor of a defense-only 4th OF, so I’d hold onto him just to see if he can hit a bit. With Waters, there might be more upside to a trade, but the point remains: the opportunity for either to be a centerpiece in a megadeal is in the past. Perhaps it’s in the future, but it’s not in the present.
So which prospects should be traded? Any the Braves value less than their trading partner, of course. Also, if there’s a player blocked and at risk of stagnating, there’s a good case for a trade there as well. There seems to be a popular idea that William Contreras doesn’t have much more to gain from being in the minors. I respectfully disagree. Catchers often develop notoriously slow, Contreras just turned 24, and his career 89 DRC+ doesn’t indicate his is a bat that can’t benefit from some seasoning. His framing also leaves something to be desired. If this is Contreras fully-formed, the Braves should probably deal him, because that’s frankly not a particularly helpful player. However, I’m not convinced he’d stagnate in AAA the way I was in recent years with Alex Jackson. There’s still some real potential for growth, so the Braves shouldn’t feel like their hand is forced and give any roster crunch discounts on the young backstop.
Finishing Thoughts
Freddie Freeman remains a big focus, and I’ll try to discuss that a tad next time around. I don’t think this lockout is ending before my next post, so there’s probably not a time crunch.
Adrian Gonzalez retired, and infuriatingly didn’t even mention or acknowledge his time as a Brave. If you’re feeling nostalgic for those days (sic), check out my article at OFR from the end of his tenure in Atlanta.
Andruw Jones, Fred McGriff, and Dale Murphy should be in a Hall of Fame, if a respectable one worth caring about existed. But alas…