The goods: This is a complete TBD, but it also illustrates why adding a pitch isn't always about the pitch itself. Stuff+ does not like it -- perhaps because among the 65 pitchers who have thrown at least 25 splitters this season, Kremer's ranks 58th in velocity (83.5 mph) and 63rd in spin (777 rpm). That lack of spin, though, might not be a bad thing. In addition to its solid downward movement, Kremer's splitter tails from lefties, against whom he has thrown nearly three-quarters of the pitch. And so while Stuff+ and Pitching+ both are dubious, batters are hitting .143 in 21 at-bats that end on the split. It generates swings and misses. It plays with his other pitches. It has been effective. No harm in using it until all those elements are no longer.


The pitcher: Erick Fedde, RHP, Chicago White Sox

The pitch: Split-change

The goods: This isn't exactly a new pitch. It's just new to MLB. When Fedde left the majors following the 2022 season, he was a bust -- a first-round pick who, over six seasons with Washington, posted a 5.41 ERA and was annually one of the worst starters in baseball. During a one-year sojourn playing in Korea, Fedde learned a sweeper and splitter, won KBO MVP and returned on a two-year, $14 million deal with the White Sox. He's 4-1 with a 3.10 ERA, and the split -- which is held with his index and ring fingers hugging the outer edge of the ball and his middle finger the last digit to touch it -- is holding hitters to a .205 average and .295 slugging percentage. Only in his last start did Fedde allow his first homer on the split-change, but it's not like he hung it. Daulton Varsho had to reach below the zone to golf it out. Even good pitches -- and Fedde's is very good -- aren't infallible.


The pitcher: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

The pitch: Two-seam fastball

The goods: When a pitcher signs the largest contract ever for his position in a league in which he has never pitched, this is the potential consequence. Yamamoto has been very good, even great at times, but a $325 million pitcher should not have a four-seam fastball that's getting tuned up to a .453 slugging percentage and 50% hard-hit rate. So he is tinkering, trying something new, listening to suggestions from the Dodgers -- going about it slowly. First, on May 7, eight two-seamers sprinkled in -- a called strike, a foul, a foul tip and five balls. Six days later, it was six -- five for strikes, including the last one, a weak sixth-inning popup. In his most recent start, the two-seamer was a weapon: three groundouts among the 11 he threw, all running in on right-handed hitters. Maybe Yamamoto is finding a new fastball, one that works here. Maybe he isn't. Either way, it's fascinating to see unfold.