*This article was originally published on Medium.com*
Major League Baseball may be returning within the next month, but in South Korea, the KBO keeps on playing. ESPN continues to broadcast its games and is helping to fill the void that the MLB labor dispute has created.
Behind the strength of a 2-run outing from Chris Flexen and an 8-run performance from their offense, the Doosan Bears defeated the SK Wyverns easily by a score of 8–2. This is the 2nd time that I’ve seen Chris Flexen pitch this season for the Bears and he pitched much better against SK than he did against the Lotte Giants the first time around, despite allowing more earned runs.
Flexen, a 25-year-old RHP, has some MLB experience from his time with the New York Mets in 2019, throwing 13.2 IP in New York before jumping to the KBO. He’s been fairly successful this season with the Bears, posting a 3.29 ERA and a 3.77 FIP. He striking out 7.68 batters per 9 IP, but walks have been an issue as Flexen has issued 3.51 BB/9 resulting in a K/BB ratio that is in the bottom 25% of the KBO.
In the first start of Flexen’s that I saw, back at the end of May, he pitched a lot to contact, trying to induce weak contact, and it worked, with 10 groundouts vs 3 flyouts and 2 strikeouts. But he also struggled with his command, walking 5 batters and throwing a ball 43% of the time. Against the Wyverns though, he shifted, throwing 71% of his pitches for a strike and inducing an astounding 39.65% Whiff Rate. That’s exactly what I want to see from Flexen.
Flexen, a former MLBer, has velocity that is above average for the KBO. His fastball averaged nearly 92 mph against the Wyverns and he routinely touched 93–94 mph. His slider came in around 87 mph and he was consistently commanding it for a strike or chase pitch below the zone. Flexen didn’t really throw his 12–6 curveball, only using it 11% of the time, but it averaged around 77 mph and spins pretty well, at 2766 rpm in 2019 with the Mets, within the 84th percentile, and a ton of vertical drop. Much like his slider, Flexen located the curveball for a strike or below the zone, inducing 3 Whiffs on it.
His changeup is absolutely a situational pitch against left-handed hitters (LHH), but it was devastating against the Bears with his arm-side run. He threw 10 changeups, with 7 of them to LHH for 5 Whiffs, with another Whiff to an RHH. Of course, it’s an extremely small sample size, but that’s quite a weapon. The changeup comes in around 81 mph and, according to StatCast in 2019, had a spin rate of 1267 rpm, the 9th lowest rpm on a changeup in 2019.
The walks and control issues have been a problem for Flexen his entire career, but against the Bears, he attacked the strike zone relentlessly and walked 0 batters. A potential concern that I identified after his last start was his erratic release point, with all of his pitches being released from different points. Flexen is a big pitcher, standing 6’3” and releases the ball with an over the top delivery. With the side-to-side and up-and-down changes in his release point, it made sense that it could still be a pervasive issue that was hindering his ability to throw strikes. Of course, since there’s no (publicly available) StatCast-type tracking data, it’s really hard to know whether anything has changed for Flexen in that area.
However, his StatCast location plots were all over the place for all of his strikes, notably missing to the sides with his fastball. With the locations from last night, we can see that Flexen was really contained in the strike zone and his overall plot is pretty straight, only trailing into the LHH batter’s box low in the zone, where he threw his slider and curveball that drift glove side. Flexen placed 53% of his pitches in the strike zone, above his 43.4% mark in the majors. I’d need to see more starts to be sure, but it looks like Flexen may have fixed some of his command issues. If he has, I could definitely see a return to the MLB in the next few years, especially as a reliever, given Flexen’s velocity and slider/changeup combo.
For now, while Flexen is in the KBO, expect a heavy diet of fastballs up in the zone. His changeup is his out-pitch against LHH and he has displayed the ability to throw his slider/curveball both in the zone and below the zone for a swing and miss pitch. Throws hard with a good mix of movement and deception depending on the situation. I expect starts like this to be much more the norm for Flexen heading forward in the KBO.