What Changes will the Guardians make to Slade Cecconi?
A deep dive into the changes I believe the Guardians will make to Slade Cecconi.
Opening
The D-Backs have acquired Josh Naylor! In return the Guardians receive a former first-round pick, Slade Cecconi, and a competitive balance Round B draft pick. I'm going to be taking a deep dive into what the Guardians got in return in Cecconi and the possible changes they are going to make to him.
Cecconi has had a relatively rough start to his Major League career, posting a 4.33 ERA in 2023 and a 6.66 ERA in 2024, but he has some bright spots, like his exceptional command producing a 5.0 BB% in 2024. I believe the Guardians see potential in Cecconi and will make changes like a more consistent release point, location and usage changes to his 4-seam fastball, splitting his slider in two, and a complete usage change.
Delivery Characteristics
First off, let's dive into Slade Cecconi's delivery characteristics. Cecconi is a righty stock-slot pronator, due to his high spin efficiency on his 4-seam FB (99.2%) and ability to turn over his changeup. Cecconi is a wide ISA because of his wider frame and relatively flat helical angle, which causes him to have trouble moving limbs down the mound, producing a closed landing at delivery. Due to this he has a more internal rotational bias, allowing him to be powerful throughout his delivery. Cecconi has a below-average release height of 5.5’ due to his 6.6’ of extension and 37-degree arm angle.
One change I can see the Guardians making almost immediately is making his release more consistent. As you can see below, there is a huge variance between his curveball release and his 4-seam release. This inconsistency is a major factor in what is holding Cecconi back, because hitters don't have to sit on his curveball due to Cecconi showing his hand at release. Despite this, his curveball was relatively effective, producing a .200 AVG, .312 wOBA, .319 xwOBA, 28.9 Whiff%, and 28.4 O-Sw%. Although these results are ideal, I believe that teams will pick up on this inefficiency and begin to do damage to his curveball.
Changes to 4 Seam FB
The first pitch I want to analyze is Cecconi's 4 Seam. He threw this pitch over 55% of the time with a shape of 14.7 iVB and 14.0 iHB while throwing it at an average clip of 94.4 MPH. Despite its high usage, this pitch was extremely ineffective, posting a .329 AVG, .405 wOBA, .380 xwOBA, 16.4 Whiff%, and a 24.0 O-Sw%. To me, though, I see a possibility where this pitch can be effective if he throws this pitch predominantly arm side and decreases the usage to lefties.
The reason I believe Cecconi should predominantly throw this pitch armside is his ability to generate over 6” of unexpected run relative to his arm angle. This unexpected movement allows for his 4-seam to act as a running sinker, but Cecconi isn't playing into this. As you can see below, Cecconi located his 4 seam practically everywhere in the zone, despite this unexpected movement. Leading me to believe that if he makes a subtle adjustment to change his primary location to the arm side, with his exceptional command, this pitch can produce effective results.
My next adjustment is to decrease his 4-seam usage to lefties to about 20% due to the sinker-like movement that his fastball creates. Due to Cecconis 4 Seam falling into the bat path of the hitters, it's not a surprise that this pitch produced horrible results to opposite-handedness with a .321 AVG, .571 SLG, .400 wOBA, and 14.7 Whiff%. To counteract this, he should lean into his changeup, slider, and curve, which were all relatively productive pitches vs. lefties.
Splitting Slider Into Two Shapes
The next adjustment actually comes from Lance Brozdowski (Link to tweet) where he hints at possibly breaking the slider into two separate shapes. I like this idea a lot. Cecconi currently throws his slider with a shape of a .04 iVB and -3.2 iHB while throwing it at 85.1 MPH. The two possible shapes within this would consist of a gyro slider, which could be effective vs. both handedness, and the other one with slightly more sweep than his current slider, which would be primarily used to righties.
One main problem I could see with this idea is that these two pitches may begin to blend together if they don't sacrifice a sufficient amount of velocity to get the desired shape. What I mean by this is that due to Cecconi being a pronator, generating velocity on offspeed pitches doesn't come naturally. Consequently, the more horizontal break he has to produce for the bigger slider shape would come at a cost of his velocity. Typically this doesn't bode well. As we know, the less velocity you can generate on an offspeed pitch, the less effective it generally is, so decreasing velocity to achieve a desired shape may not be the best move. Despite this, I still want to see two separate slider shapes to allow for Cecconi's arsenal to expand and increase his unpredictability.
Usage Changes
The final adjustment I could see Cleveland making to Cecconi is to alter his usages to both handedness. Let's start off with righties. In 2024, Cecconi's usage was 54% fastball, 1% changeup, 41% slider, and 4% curveball. I think to optimize his ability, the Guardians should bring down his fastball usage to 40%, split his slider usage into 2 with the bigger shape being thrown 30% of the time and the more gyro-shaped one being thrown 15%, curveball at 10%, and changeup at 5%.
Against lefties in 2024, Cecconi usage was slightly different. He still threw his fastball 55% of the time, but his changeup 25% of the time, slider 5%, and curveball 15% of the time. Like I highlighted earlier in the breakdown, his fastball usage needs to come down drastically if he wants repeatable success vs lefties. An adjusted usage I could see Cleveland implementing is around 20% fastball, 30% changeup, 5% big slider, 20% gyro, and 25% curveball. I believe that these slight changes can allow for Cecconi to throw his most impactful pitches more often, which will lead to a better chance at success.
Conclusion
All in all, I believe Cleveland can make Cecconi into a very impactful player. We've seen many pitchers come to Cleveland and magically produce better numbers, and Cecconi is shaping up to join this list. To add onto this, at last year's trade deadline, the Tampa Bay Rays were attempting to trade for Cecconi but couldn't get a deal done. It's never a bad sign when two of the best developmental organizations in the league want a player, and now Cecconi has a shot to develop in Cleveland and hopefully bring out his potential. Of course, to reach this potential, he'll have to make adjustments, and a few I could see the Guardians making are a more consistent release point, location and usage changes on his 4-seam fastball, splitting his slider into two separate shapes, and a complete rework of his usages. Of course giving up Naylor may sting, but I wouldn't sleep on what the Guardians think they can get out of Cecconi.