Logan Gilbert has a splitter?!
Logan Gilbert is often forgotten in a stacked Mariners' rotation, but a new pitch could have the 25 year old exploring new heights this season.
On Tuesday a clip surfaced of Mariners’ starting pitcher Logan Gilbert using a new toy, a nasty splitter. This clip comes from Florida Baseball ARMory, where Gilbert trains in the offseason.
The clip shows Gilbert debuting a new offering, an 83 MPH splitter that moves sharply downwards at the very last second. This pitch could help take the right hander to new heights in 2023.
Gilbert’s arsenal from 2023 includes his four-seam fastball, slider, changeup, and curveball. His four-seamer was easily his most effective and often used pitch, throwing it almost 54 percent of the time at an average of 96 MPH according to Baseball Savant.
This pitch was very good for Gilbert, generating 24 percent whiffs on the offering. However, Gilbert lacked other consistent offerings that allowed him to stay away from barrels, and as a result, there are some less than ideal batted ball metrics against him.
Many of these batted ball metrics come as a result of Gilbert being too predictable, and struggling to have a consistent second and third pitch he can throw with consistency.
His second-best offering was his slider which was actually very good, holding opponents to just a .335 slugging percentage. He also generated 25 percent whiffs on his slider.
The interesting part about all of this is that Gilbert also has a changeup that graded out very well, but he rarely used the pitch. He threw his changeup just 8 percent of the time, but opponents hit just .125 against the pitch with a 31 percent whiff rate according to Baseball Savant.
The pitch was actually very good for Gilbert, but it was clear he was not comfortable using it often enough to be a real offering. His curveball got hit hard in 2022, and heading into the offseason it is likely the 6-6 Stetson alum was looking for another pitch.
This brings us back to the splitter in the Twitter video we saw yesterday. If Gilbert is avoiding using his changeup in any meaningful way, the splitter could take over as his third pitch.
An arsenal of fastball, slider, and splitter would mesh together very well and allow him to have very different movements on all three pitches. His electric fastball that rides through the zone paired with a splitter with sharp downward movement could become nearly impossible for hitters to square up.
Gilbert needs a third pitch if he wants to take his game to the next level, but many fail to realize how good he was last season. He ranked as the 25th most valuable starting pitcher according to Fangraphs and was 19th in all of MLB in innings pitched.
The Florida native posted 3.2 fWAR and a 3.46 FIP, making him an extremely valuable number three type starter. He has already proven to be a horse in his first two seasons in Seattle, but more consistency in his secondary offerings can help him take the next leap.
Gilbert is still just 25 years old and will turn 26 in May, leaving plenty of time for him to reach his ultimate ceiling of a high-end number two starter. One of the things I will be keeping an eye on in Spring Training is Gilbert using the splitter.
We should expect him to toy around with the pitch this spring, and if it looks good we may be in for a special season from Logan Gilbert in 2023.