Righty reliever Darren O’Day recently inked a four-year deal to remain with Baltimore which will earn him $31 million over four years. O’Day throws side-arm and often struggles to push his fastball past 86, but he’s undeniably one of the toughest relievers to hit in MLB right now. O’Day combines high strikeout rates with moderate walks, but as you’d expect from a soft-tossing righty, his success depends in part on his ability to generate weak contact. O’Day isn’t a ground-ball pitcher, but his funky arm angle and ability to back-door his slider to left-handed bats not only allows him to produce fly balls without too many HRs, it allows him to avoid the platoon splits that you’d figure given his pitches and how he throws them.
Steve Cishek and the Framing Effect
