Aaron Blair had a rough debut season for the Atlanta Braves in just about every way possible. Traditional numbers – bad. Advanced numbers – nope. Peripherals – ouch. He was terrible.
So why am I writing about him? Well hidden in all that badness was a small but possibly significant glimmer of hope. His slider.
Or curveball.
Statcast and Pitch f/x call it a curveball. Blair calls it a slider. We’ll go with that. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a big deal for two main reason:
- He started throwing more
- It’s a good pitch
Now you may have already heard about Aaron Blair’s slider, specifically as it relates to his last start.