Chris Archer’s In-Zone Movement is Everything

Yesterday, we took a look at how Jameson Taillon went about fooling hitters into swinging and missing at pitches in the zone. Today we’ll do the same for Chris Archer.

First, a quick refresher on how the Pittsburgh Pirates do at a team level in terms of swing and miss in the zone:

In-Zone Whiff Figures

On the surface, this snapshot look might not be much of a surprise. Archer had effectively been a two-pitch pitcher for much of his career prior to the Pittsburgh Pirates bringing back his sinker late last season:

Let’s take an aside here.