*This article was originally published here on Medium.com*
The KBO has been playing games for over two months now, with most of the teams in the league approaching 60 games played. This gives us a pretty good sample size to evaluate players and trends, especially on the pitching side.
Raúl Alcántara, a 27-year-old RHP with 46.1 IP of MLB experience, has had a stellar start to his second season in the KBO, becoming the ace of the (as of July 12th) 3rd-place Doosan Bears. At 6’4’’, 220 lbs, Raúl Alcántara is one of the biggest pitchers in the KBO and takes advantage of that as the hardest thrower in the league. I’ve had the chance to see Alcántara throw 3 times this season, against the LG Twins on June 21st and against the NC Dinos on June 27th, as well as his most recent start against LG on the 9th for data collection purposes. From these three games, I have pitch location and pitch-by-pitch data, giving me just over 300 pitches from Alcántara to analyze.
The purpose of this article is to take the data that I’ve collected from watching 3 of Raúl Alcántara’s starts and paint a picture of him as a pitcher. I’m diving into what his pitch tendencies and results look like and how he attacks hitters. Using that information, we can start to build a game plan for a team or hitter who is facing Alcántara.
Raúl Alcántara has been one of the best pitchers in the KBO this season and a quick glance at the box score that I put together for him supports that; there’s a lot of green there in his season-long stats. He’s top 10 in ERA, FIP, batting average allowed, and LOB% while ranking top 5 in WHIP, BB%, and K-BB% while throwing 68% of his pitches for a strike.
The thing that stands out to me the most about Alcántara is his ability to throw and get strikes. That 68% mark is one of the highest I’ve seen in the KBO and his BB% of 3.8% is one of the lowest, speaking to his command. His overall approach is to throw in the zone and let everything else stem from there.
Another thing that stands out to me is that, despite his fastball that averages ~ 94 mph, Alcántara only has a K% of 21.9%, which is good, but not quite where I would expect given how fast he throws. His secondary pitches are his slider, around 86 mph, and his changeup, also around 86 mph. His slider is his go-to whiff pitch, as it has been since he was with the Oakland Athletics, but he just doesn’t get much movement on any of his pitches. According to his Baseball Savant page, in 2017, with the A’s, Alcántara’s vertical movement was below the MLB average on his main three pitches thanks to low spin rates. His four-seam fastball averaged a spin rate of 2144 rpm, which landed in the 27th percentile. His slider averaged about 2106 rpm, also below average. With that lack of movement, Alcántara tends to pitch a little more to contact and in the zone.
Alcántara really does pound the zone, as the location plot indicates. His strike % is also helped by the fact that he gets a lot of calls on the corners. He tends to work away from both RHH and LHH, keeping his fastball up in the zone, his slider down and away from RHH, and his changeup low to both sides of the plate.
So, we’ve identified the 3 main pitches, plus the curveball, that Alcántara throws. But when does he use each one?
Here’s the answer to that question. Of the 305 pitches I have on Alcántara, I calculated how frequently he threw each pitch in each count and this is the result. We’re going to start with the easiest one: his curveball. Alcántara rarely throws his curveball, maybe 2–3% of the time, and when he does throw it, it’s when he’s ahead in the count, like an 0–1, 0–2 count. It’s a change of pace from his other pitches and that’s about it.
His slider is his go-to swing and miss pitch (as we’ll see with its Whiff % in a little bit). Alcántara uses it in almost every single 2-strike count or when he’s ahead. His changeup isn’t used quite as much, but Alcántara primarily throws it early in the count or when he’s ahead (and usually against LHH). As expected, his fastball is his most-used pitch and the pitch he throws when he needs a strike in any hitter’s count.
Now that we’ve taken a look at his overall approach and background, let’s dive into each pitch in a little more detail.
FASTBALL
Alcántara’s primary pitch is his fastball, throwing it around 55% of the time overall. However, there is a pretty stark usage difference between RHH and LHH, with Alcántara throwing his fastball 64% of the time to righties and just 49% of the time to LHH.
He approaches hitters from both sides of the plate similarly with his fastball. Alcántara keeps his fastball elevated in the 93–94 mph range and uses the fastball as his strike pitch, with a 66% strike % vs RHH and 75% strike % vs LHH. Using his fastball up in the zone helps maximize his secondary pitches and his velocity. As you can see in the GIF above, while his fastball is not his primary swing-and-miss pitch, the ability to ramp up the velocity to 96–97 when needed lets Alcántara induce whiffs when he wants.
Alcántara frequently throws his fastball as his first pitch but stays away from it if he gets a strike on the first pitch. If the first pitch is a ball or he goes down in the count, he’s likely to go right back to the fastball until he gets a strike. His fastball usage is highest in 1–0, 2–0, 3–0, and 3–1 counts, which is when hitters should be sitting fastball up in the zone. Of course, that’s easier said than done considering that Alcántara has the ability to throw that pitch at 95+ mph for a strike.
SLIDER
Alcántara’s slider is his most-used secondary pitch (25% against RHH and 28% against LHH) and is his most dangerous pitch. There’s not a lot of sweeping side-to-side action on it (thanks to that low spin rate), but he routinely throws it in the 86–87 mph range.
Against RHH, Alcántara uses the slider down and away as a chase pitch. Against LHH, he throws it in that same spot or more in the zone for a strike (showing that variety against LHH in the GIF above). It’s effective against batters on both sides of the plate, with a Whiff % of 33% against RHH and a 36% Whiff % against LHH and resulting in a frequent strike for Alcántara. It’s clearly his most effective pitch and I’d love to see him increase its usage a little bit more to induce more swinging strikes.
Alcántara’s slider is primarily used with 2-strike counts as his put-away pitch. Lefties should expect to see the slider earlier in the count than righties should with Alcántara’s reduced fastball usage against LHH and the ability to throw his slider for a strike.
CHANGEUP
Alcántara’s changeup is interesting and its primary purpose seems to be as a change of pace pitch against LHH. Averaging 85.7 mph, his changeup gets a decent amount of arm side run, which explains the disparity of usage from LHH (20%) vs RHH (8%). As shown in the GIF above, that arm side break leads to Alcántara locating his changeup away from lefties.
Other than that, it doesn’t do much on its own besides setting up his fastball/slider combo. He throws the changeup for a strike ~ 50% of the time against both RHH and LHH while inducing 0 Whiffs in the 3 games that I charted. Alcántara really only throws his changeup early in the count and against LHHs. It’s not a pitch that I would recommend hitters sit on, which it appears they don’t, considering that lefties have a 29% swing rate and righties have a 25% swing rate on his changeup. Both his fastball and slider are way more likely to be used in higher leverage situations, rendering his changeup a moot point when game planning against Alcántara.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Right-handed hitters should be looking for a fastball early and slider when Alcántara is ahead in the count. If Alcántara falls behind in the count, expect a heavy diet of fastballs for RHH.
Left-handed hitters should be prepared for the fastball early or when Alcántara is down in the count, but their chances of getting a slider/changeup early are much higher. If Alcántara is ahead early, 0–1, 0–2, 1–1 counts, it’s likely a slider/changeup for lefties.
Raúl Alcántara is a much simpler evaluation than his teammate Chris Flexen is. Flexen throws 4 different pitches, with their usage varying a lot based off of the lefty/righty matchup. Alcántara is a 3-pitch pitcher who really only throws 2 pitches against righties with a little more variety against lefties, but his slider is still his go-to swing-and-miss pitch. Despite less deception and trickery on Raúl Alcántara’s part, he still throws 94+ when he wants to and that’s something that a gameplan can’t account for; hitters can either hit it or they can’t.
*Stats from myKBO.com, FanGraphs.com, Baseball Savant and data I pulled from the KBO on ESPN broadcasts*