Bryan Woo Will start tonight against the athletics in Seattle. I expect he to go six innings. Why? Because this season he went at least six innings in all 24 of his starts. Woo’s Streak, as you probably guessed, is the longest in baseball at some distance. Only two other active pitchers – Cristopher Sánchez And Spencer Schwellenbach – have gone six or more in their 10 most recent starts. (Schwellenbach keeps that line through the end of the year, after he broke his elbow in June.)
The fact that Woo has completed six innings every time he has taken the hill this year is of course proof that he has been consistent. But at the same time this year metronomity was not interrupted by eruptions of transcendence. He has only recorded one in the eighth inning throughout the season. He has not posted back-to-back spotless starts since June last year and he is still looking for the first two-digit strikeout match of his entire Major League career.
On April 12, Woo allowed one run over seven innings in a 9-2 victory over the Rangers, reducing his ERA to 2.84. Since then, his era has always been within half a run in both directions of 3.00. It has not been more than a quarter of a run of 3.00 since the second week of June. The man is a machine.
I recently came to me asking if I intended to describe Logan Webb As one of the “Most pitchers in the NL.” Clearly not; I intended to describe him as “most consistent” and did not stop to drop the adjective. But that made me think about who the “most pitcher” is in baseball, and it can be Woo.
Woo throws five throws, and unlike some other boys with deep repertoires, he throws them all to Hitters on both sides of the plate at least semi-regulatory. (He may not get right -wing changes in every start, but it is not unheard of.)
He has the best command of a qualified starter, according to Pitchingbot (Webb is actually close behind), and he works in the zone (58.1% of the time, according to statcast) more than any qualified starter except Jake Irvin. And many of those strikes are in the middle of the plate; Woo has thrown 31.0% of his pitches in the Hartzone of Statcast, which is 161 players with 1,000 or more total fields this season.
He is not exceptional there, on the aggregate. It is approximately average in generating swings and mistakes and suppressing Woba on the heart of the plate. (In the latter category he is in fact the third among starters whose surnames start with “woo”, then Brandon Woodruff And Simeon Woods Richardson.)
But the variety of things that Woo Throws has, has somewhat paradoxically played its fastball in one of the best in the competition. There is nothing remarkable about his speed or movement, but opponents touch .147 with a 29.5% touch against the age of four, and in terms of aggregated run value it is one of the best pitches in all baseball.
Woo has no electric breaking or from Biter Fastball speed, but he does not walk anyone and let Hitters beat him. What happens. This year Woo has allowed 10 balls with an exit -Velo of 110 MPH or higher, which is one of the 20 highest totals in the Majors. He has also allowed 22 home runs, which bind him 14th in the competition.
But 18 of those home runs were solo recordings. That is because this year Woo has thrown 67.8% of his fields with the bases empty. That is the eighth highest percentage of 161 starters who have thrown 1,000 or more throws this year.
He has also been better – much better – in those rare cases that he has men on the base or in a score position. Woo has a .202 opponent Woba with runners in score position, the sixth best Mark from that group of starters, and 72 points better than his Woba with the bases empty. If you keep the bases clear and stop you when someone goes on, a home run goes from a catastrophe to an annoyance and it is easier to go deep in games.
It also helps to be efficient. Last year Woo led the competition (among pitchers with 100 or more innings) in both the total battle percentage and the first strike percentage. He was the only starter in the Majors who threw more than 70% of his pitches for strikes (including and swing).
He actually took his foot off the gas in terms of the zone this year.
Bryan Woo, on the attack
| Year | GS | IP | Pitches/GS | Pitches/IP | Pitches/BF | IP/GS | Strike% | F-Strike% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 22 | 121 1/3 | 78.0 | 14.2 | 3.64 | 5.5 | 71.0% | 72.9% |
| 2025 | 24 | 152 | 91.0 | 14.4 | 3.64 | 6.3 | 67.7% | 66.8% |
But with regard to the overall efficiency, Woo remains among the leasing leaders. Here you will find the 10 starting pitchers that have thrown the least pitches per board performance.
MLB leaders in pitches per batter opposite
| Name | Team | GS | IP | Pitches/IP | Pitches/BF | Strike% | Era |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germán Márquez | Turtleneck | 20 | 98 1/3 | 16.3 | 3.52 | 62.8% | 119 |
| Kyle Freeland | Turtleneck | 23 | 120 1/3 | 15.5 | 3.52 | 67.7% | 108 |
| Cristopher Sánchez | Phi | 25 | 157 | 14.5 | 3.58 | 66.3% | 58 |
| Zack Littell | TBR/CIN | 25 | 151 | 14.5 | 3.58 | 67.6% | 85 |
| Adrian Houser | CHW/TBR | 14 | 84 1/3 | 14.9 | 3.62 | 65.2% | 65 |
| Framber Valdez | Modern | 25 | 157 1/3 | 14.9 | 3.62 | 64.3% | 82 |
| Sonny Gray | Stl | 25 | 140 1/3 | 14.9 | 3.62 | 66.7% | 104 |
| Spencer Schwellenbach | ATL | 17 | 110 2/3 | 14.2 | 3.62 | 68.7% | 73 |
| Antonio without | Turtleneck | 22 | 104 | 17.3 | 3.64 | 61.6% | 153 |
| Bryan Woo | SEA | 24 | 152 | 14.4 | 3.64 | 67.7% | 79 |
At least 80 innings
You will find that the quality of the pitchers here is everywhere on the map. I actually take that back. There are seven good pitchers and three Rockies here. Because sometimes an attack on the first pitch on Coors Field turns into a Homer of 440 feet.
Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that there are a lot of good pitchers who are one of the competition leaders in pitches per board performance. Freddy Peralta throws 4.22 pitch per plate appearance; That is an extra seven tenth of a pitch for each batter than freeland throws. Zack Wheeler” Mackenzie Gore” Hunter BrownAnd Logan Gilbert are no. 6 by no. 10 on the most-per-battery leaderboard. Paul Scenes is 12th.
But guys who go deep, every game tends to throw fewer fields per board performance. Next to Woo are Sánchez and Schwellenbach-De other two active starters with a 10-game streak to get the sixth inning-in the top 10 in efficiency per battery.
However, if you change the denominator of per seizure to per collection, you will get a much, much stronger correlation with jug quality. Which makes sense; The number of pitches that a pitcher throws per inning is more a function of allowing fewer baserunners than throwing more strikes.
I have marked Schwellenbach in Brown, Woo in Gold and Sánchez in red. Those three are no. 1, no. 2, and no. 4 in the least pitch per inning. Zack Littell, the League leader in permitted solo -home runs, is the only pitcher who broke that group.
Complaints about how pitchers never go deep in games have become a bit tiring. It is now a different game than in the 1960s, or even the 1960s. You can’t just be the zone of beech with a fastball from the mid -90s and expect to get through six or seven innings each time.
Well, “you” can’t, but woo can. Maybe he has a time machine. Admitted, he’s not Nolan RyanHis way through 180 throws a start-woo has only hit the 100-Pitch-Mark three times in its entire career and never gone more than 103 but when a fastball in the zone is an out throw, the rest of the puzzle dissolves itself.
#Metronomic #Bryan #Woo