Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After the 2021 season, Walker Buehler looked like a bonafide ace. He posted a 2.47 ERA, 3.16 FIP, 19.6 K-BB% and logged 207 2/3 innings. Since then, though, he has been anything but. He has dealt with a multitude of injuries, including a second Tommy John surgery, but most concerning is the disappearance of his swing-and-miss stuff.
Buehler, in his last three seasons, is still allowing an exit velocity lower than league-average, so it’s not a problem of allowing too much hard contact, it’s allowing too much contact overall. His plate discipline numbers from 2021 to 2024 are big red flags. (I included his 2022 numbers since he threw 65 innings that season, which was just 10 1/3 fewer than he threw this season.)
| Year | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% |
| 2021 | 28.6 | 67.0 | 48.8 | 52.4 | 85.2 | 76.1 | 52.5 |
| 2022 | 31.1 | 69.6 | 49.7 | 57.7 | 85.5 | 76.5 | 48.4 |
| 2024 | 23.4 | 64.6 | 45.2 | 57.8 | 89.7 | 82.0 | 52.9 |
Among starting pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched, Buehler had the 6th-worst chase rate (O-Swing%) in baseball. With the hitters against him swinging less, making more contact overall and a decreased whiff rate on all his pitches, it makes sense to see him struggle so much this season.
The biggest individual culprit has been his 4-seam fastball. Here are the whiff rates on that pitch in his career.
| Year | 4FB Whiff% |
| 2024 | 16.9 |
| 2022 | 13.2 |
| 2021 | 20.4 |
| 2020 | 26.1 |
| 2019 | 24.5 |
| 2018 | 30.5 |
| 2017 | 31.6 |
Even in 2021, the trend downward started. His 2022 season was limited as he was coming back from an injury, but his 2024 number is poor. If you couple that with his 9.8% PutAway rate on it, well, you have a bad pitch. That’s backed up by being worth -8 runs in the 2024 season, which is after it was a +19 in 2021.
Here is a look at the heatmap for his fastball over the last three seasons.
2021
2022
2024
He lived a lot more in the strike zone with his fastball in 2021 versus the other years, but it was also more effective and just better overall. He has lost almost 200 RPMs on it since 2021 despite a similar pitch velo (95.3 vs. 95 MPH) and extension (6.4 vs. 6.5 feet).
Perhaps the arm slot change has negatively impacted the fastball. Both his horizontal and vertical release points have shifted dramatically over his last three seasons.
Horizontal Release Point 2021-24
Vertical Release Point 2021-24
It could be because of the second TJ. It could be a change in philosophy. Whatever it is, it isn’t quite working.
Because of that, it seems Buehler tried to compensate for the deficiencies with his fastball by throwing it less, with his knuckle curveball and sinker being the biggest beneficiaries of the usage change. While the sinker isn’t traditionally a swing-and-miss pitch, it still fared better than his 4-seamer in both Whiff% (11.5) and PutAway% (13). Maybe it’s time to throw more sinkers and even fewer 4-seamers? Game 3 of the NLCS with the series tied 1-1 may not exactly be the time to do so.
His cutter has backed up a bit, too. He reduced the usage by 5%, his Whiff% and PutAway% were also down from 2022 — and his 21.5 whiff rate was his lowest since 2018, when he was just starting to incorporate it into his arsenal.
What has helped him a bit is the sweeper. He first started using it in 2021 and has enjoyed great success with it since then.
| Year | xBA | xSLG | xWOBA | Whiff% | PutAway% |
| 2021 | .173 | .244 | .180 | 34.4 | 25.8 |
| 2022 | .169 | .336 | .215 | 39.1 | 24.1 |
| 2024 | .146 | .251 | .200 | 29.4 | 24.5 |
Why not throw it more? Well, it’s a pitch he throws almost exclusively to right-handers. He threw three to lefties in 2021 and hasn’t thrown any since. In fact, the last time he threw a sweeper to a lefty was on Aug. 8, 2021, against Brandon Marsh of the Angels. With the Mets having a pretty balanced lineup, it isn’t a pitch Buehler is likely to lean on.
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Buehler’s disappearing whiffs have been the cause of his struggles, and the reasoning for it still isn’t 100% clear — there’s only so much one can deduce from publicly available data. His fastball is bad and he should probably throw it less than the 43% he threw it against the Padres a week ago because the Mets are one of the most productive offenses against the 4-seam fastball. Of course, they’ve been more productive against the cutter (.356 wOBA) and are solid against the knuckle curve (.324 wOBA) as well. Perhaps the sweeper is the answer, as the Mets have a .245 wOBA against it this season, and their left-handed hitters have a .261 wOBA against it. Of course, that would mean asking Buehler to do something he hasn’t done in more than three years, but we’ll see what happens.
Like I’ve been saying a lot over the years, if the offense doesn’t come to play, the pitching doesn’t really matter. However, the Dodgers need the good version of Buehler to make an appearance. Maybe not Game 3 of the 2018 World Series Buehler (because that guy probably isn’t coming back), but something resembling his former playoff self would go a long way in easing concerns about him for the rest of the postseason.
