The 5 Best New Pitches in MLB
Jesús Luzardo, MacKenzie Gore, AJ Smith-Shawver, Joe Boyle, Shane Smith
This article will highlight 5 pitchers throwing new pitches in MLB this season while answering what makes them effective! This list is by no means exhaustive; there are plenty of new pitches being thrown this season. You can find a full list using my MLB Pitch Data App.
I also created some nifty new graphics to highlight each pitch’s characteristics. They are inspired by Kyle Bland’s work with Pitcher List.
Jesús Luzardo - Sweeper
Jesús Luzardo is on a roll to the start the 2025 season! He currently holds a 1.73 ERA and 2.01 FIP across 36.1 IP and has been constantly dominant in each of his starts. He is also throwing a sweeper, a pitch he added into his arsenal this season. And it is not just an auxiliary pitch; his sweeper is his most used pitch after his fastball!
Luzardo’s sweeper isn’t really a sweeper by the conventional definition. It sits in the bottom 5% of sweepers by glove-side movement while also being amongst the hardest thrown. I would not typically call a pitch with these characteristics as a “sweeper”, but it is labelled as a sweeper to distinguish it from his slider. With the nomenclature out of the way, let’s get to what makes this pitch so effective: usage and command.
Luzardo tosses his sweeper 51% of the time to LHH where its ~10” of glove-side movement causes it to drift away from batters as it approaches the plate. He leans on the pitch early and ahead in count and uses it as his main put away offering against lefties. His tendency to locate the pitch low and away pairs well with its sweeping action to generate some gnarly swings, like this one from Nathaniel Lowe.
Luzardo is also not afraid to use the pitch against RHH early in the count to pick up called strikes. He is comfortable zoning the pitch which allows him to get ahead early and allow the rest of his dynamic arsenal do the talking.
MacKenzie Gore - Slider
By all ERA indicators, MacKenzie Gore is currently underperforming his results despite having a solid 3.51 ERA across 41.0 Innings. The Nationals lefty has been striking out batters seemingly at will this season with a 35.8 K%, and his slider may have finally solved his issues vs LHH.
Gore has always struggled facing same handed hitters as he never had a pitch that ran away from LHH. He experimented both with a slider and a sweeper in 2024, but didn’t stick with them, only throwing 54 combined. This season he drastically increased his slider usage and has exclusively used it against lefty bats. His usage vs LHH spiked all the way up to 40.9%, where he utilizes the offering in all counts to excellent results. The pitch has an absurd 50.0 Whiff% and 40.5 O-Swing% which makes it one of the most effective sliders in MLB.
This clip of Gore’s slider makes it abundantly clear as to why it is such a hassle for LHH. It’s subtle cutting action paired with its vertical drop gives it that additional movement to evade bats as batters reach for the pitch low and away.
Another dominant aspect of the pitch is its ability to generate in-zone whiffs. Its 56.5 Zone% ranks amongst the highest in MLB which allows its elite 35.5 Z-Whiff% to swifty put away batters. In this clip we can again see how the slight glove-side movement on the slider causes the pitch to be out of reach of Andrés Giménez’s swing.
AJ Smith-Shawver - Splitter
AJ Smith-Shawver technically threw a splitter last season, but this iteration is so different that I have no other choice but to call it a new pitch. This version of his splitter is 3 MPH slower while demonstrating a much greater variation in shape. After all, it is not often you see a pitch range between 2 feet for both vertical and horizontal movement.
One factor behind its extreme movement is its low-spin nature. Pitches with lower spin experience reduced Magnus force (the interaction between the ball and the air), which often results in sharper, late-breaking downward action. This helps explain the lower iVB splitters. As for the high iVB splitters with minimal arm-side action, those are likely explained by his grip. AJSS employs a grip which sometimes results in him cutting the pitch much more than intended, hence the cutter-like shape on the the pitch break plot. While this may indicate that he doesn’t have the greatest feel for the offering, its results speak for themselves with a 44.8 Whiff% and 52.2 O-Swing%.
AJSS typically utilizes his splitter in 2 strike counts and attacks both handedness at an even rate. He has displayed solid command of the offering, placing it low and away vs LHH and low and inside vs RHH. This clip against Jake Cronenworth is a perfect example of Smith-Shawver’s splitter at its peak. This pitch had 20” of arm-side movement and over 3 feet of vertical drop to land just below the strike zone. When this pitch is perfectly located there is essentially nothing a batter can do. It’s absolutely nasty!
Joe Boyle - Splitter
Joe Boyle has always been a fastball/slider guy who severely lacked a consistent off-speed pitch. The shallowness of his arsenal in tandem with his already shaky command have made it all but inevitable that Boyle will end up in the bullpen sooner rather than later. But wait! The Rays decided that Boyle had the makeup to stick as a starter, so they went out and acquired him this past winter.
Now, Boyle is currently dominating AAA with his brand-new splitter, a new pitch which we got a glimpse of in his lone MLB start this season. What makes this pitch absolutely nuts is its combination of velocity and arm-side movement from his higher release point (6 ft). It sits in the mid 90s with 16” of arm-side run and over a foot of vertical separation from his fastball. That amount of arm-side run is well above expected, so much so that the pitch has been aptly dubbed a 'splinker,' a hybrid between a sinker and a splitter.
Just look at how this pitch runs in on the hands of Sean Murphy. What seemingly looks like a fastball out of Boyle’s hand both had the velocity of one, but moved in a completely different manner which induced a nasty sword. Boyle may end up in the bullpen given his control issues, but no matter where he plays his ‘splinker’ will be a disgusting weapon.
Shane Smith - Changeup
I have written quite a bit about Shane Smith this season, and it’s all been warranted. The #1 pick in the 2024 Rule 5 Draft has made his mark thus far with a 2.23 ERA and 3.45 FIP, making the Brewers look foolish for leaving him unprotected. Well, when Smith was drafted in the Rule 5 Draft he was kind of a perplexing pick in my opinion. There was not much in his profile that intrigued me, and I was quite surprised he was selected in the Rule 5 Draft, yet alone 1st overall. I was proven wrong immediately as Smith added in a brand-new changeup into his arsenal that has turned him into one of the best Rule 5 picks in recent years.
Smith’s changeup falls under the umbrella of “kick changeup”, a subset of changeups that maintain higher velocity and experience greater depth than others. This is due to his grip which allows him to use his middle finger to “kick” the ball into its axis to generate side spin. Smith’s changeup is amongst the hardest in the league, sitting at 90 MPH while generating a ton of vertical separation from his fastball. The combination of these characteristics causes some ridiculous pitches, like this one to Carlos Correa for Smith’s 1st career strikeout:
Smith consistently locates the pitch in the bottom of the zone where its late break and tumbling action slips underneath bats. Even more impressive is the feel he is exhibiting with the pitch. He is not afraid to throw the offering to both handedness and typically weaves it in no matter the count. Smith’s changeup has returned +3 Run Value this season will be the key to him remaining a starter long term.
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