Randy Vasquez: Can you ever throw too many strikes?
Randy Vasquez was one of the main return pieces in the Juan Soto trade, and has been, to put it lightly, pretty inconsistent at the big league level.
A brief overview of his numbers & achievements
Randy Vasquez was ranked 13th on the Yankees’ 2023 Top 30 prospect list of MLB.com, ahead of AL Rookie Of The Year winner Luis Gil, and was ranked 90th overall by Baseball Prospectus in 2022. His 2021 season in the minors was great, finishing with a 2.52 ERA, 28.6% K% & 1.20 WHIP through 107 IP at 22 years old.
However, ever since then, he’s lost all of his shine and hasn’t returned the results you’d expect from someone with his talent.
The good: Stuff+, pitch mix & walk rate.
His arsenal is incredibly well-rounded when you go by stuff+. 5 out of 6 pitches have min. 100 stuff+, with his slider peaking at 116. This varies by source, as PitchProfiler has only 3 out of 6 above 100, with a dreadful 78 score on the sinker. Either way, there’s something there. For reference, I will be referring to ‘stuff+’ as the PitchProfiler version of it.
His pitch mix is deep, and a real starter’s mix:
4-Seam Fastball: 28.4%, 98 stuff+.
Curveball: 19.7%, 101 stuff+.
Sinker: 15.8%, 78 stuff+.
Cutter/Slider: 13.7%, 104 stuff+.
Changeup: 12.4%, 93 stuff+.
Sweeper: 10%, 120 stuff+.
It’s a deep and balanced mix. On first glance, the sinker stands out. It doesn’t grade out well in the models, and it’s his third most-used pitch.
Another standout skill is his ability to limit walks. Vasquez had a 6.7% BB% & 60% first-pitch strike number, proving he really attacks hitters and isn’t scared to work within the zone. Even though this looks great on the surface, it could be the reason why he’s struggling to get results.
The bad & the ugly: Location, home runs, and missing enough bats.
Locating his above-average pitches for strikes isn’t an issue. However, locating his strikes in locations where they are difficult to hit or get whiffs has proven to be extremely hard.
As you can see above, he barely works outside the zone. The darker the color, the more pitches he threw in that specific location. Nearly all pitches have plenty of blue in the middle part of the plate, shown by his 20+ heart% on every pitch type. His cutter even has a 31.2% heart%, meaning that 1 in 3 cutters end up middle-middle.
This further impacts the whiff & chase% on his pitches:
4-Seam Fastball: 22% whiff%, 24.9% chase%
Curveball: 23.6% whiff%, 27.1% chase%
Sinker: 11.3% whiff%, 31.5% chase%
Cutter/Slider: 17.1% whiff%, 30.4% chase%
Changeup: 12.2% whiff%, 26.6% chase%
Sweeper: 24.7% wjoff%, 22.9 chase%
This further results in an extremely low K% of 14.4% and overall whiff% of 18.9%, with opponents hitting .301 off of his pitches. They don’t have to worry about the strikeout, because there’s a 1 in 4 chance they get a middle-middle pitch, which technically means he will throw a middle-middle pitch at least once every at-bat.
His sweeper, curveball & fastball all have whiff%’s around or just below league average, which isn’t bad considering Gerrit Cole registered a 24.8% whiff% last year.
Home runs are another problem, which, logically speaking, makes sense. He gives up 1.19 HR’s every nine innings, which puts him in the bottom 30 of MLB starters. An obvious result of throwing too many pitches over the heart of the plate.
The future: Number five starter, for now.
Let’s start with his Spring Training numbers. Vasquez pitched eight innings to a 3.38 ERA, a 17.9% K%, 2.6% BB%, 1.88 WHIP, and had opponents hit .368 (!) off of him. Not very encouraging, and Mike Schildt has mentioned he will eventually get into trouble because he keeps allowing traffic on the bases. He worked himself out of it successfully during Spring, but this won’t last. He is, with the injury of Darvish, set for a spot in the rotation. There really is no doubt about that, and we’re going to see him pitch in the majors soon.
On a positive note, his SwStr% is up to 12.5% compared to 8.1% in 2024, and he has actually allowed less overall contact despite the insanely high BAA.
Vasquez has the skills to be more than a number five. All it depends on, is whether or not he can actually get to that next level. He has an elite pitching coach with Ruben Niebla there to help him, and you’d hope that his second full season under his tutelage would garner some real results. It looks simple - throw fewer strikes, rely on the stuff to play, and go from there. However, put yourself in his shoes. You don’t want to walk someone because you’re used to giving up hits. If they hit two, you give up a run. It’s a vicious circle that might be even more of a mental barrier than a stuff & talent barrier, and it will be extremely interesting to see whether or not he can take that long-expected step forward in 2025.
EXTRA: Fantasy Outlook
At the moment, nothing changes for Vasquez in fantasy. He’s a pitcher that shouldn’t be on your roster as he will kill you in most categories. He’s worth taking a flier on in extremely deep leagues, worth putting on your watchlist in 15-teamers, but is worth all but nothing as of now from a fantasy perspective.
Thank you all for reading
Louis