The Most Interesting Pitcher in the MLB:
The more options you have, the harder it is to decide.
There is a pitcher who throws 11+ pitches. There is a pitcher who throws a curveball at ~3200 rpm. There is a pitcher who had his breakout season as a Starting Pitcher (SP) at the age of 33. What if I told you all these unique pitchers are the same person? And what if I told you that he will only get better over time?
Enter Seth Lugo. Drafted in a round that does not exist anymore (the 34th in 2011, pick #1032), Lugo amazed everyone and defied all odds to not only make the MLB but become one of the most valuable pitchers over the last 3 years. I will not go too much into his story, but here are some quick hits: he has pitched well at every level he’s been at, he was a piece of the Mets’ exceptional group of Starters (Syndergaard, deGrom, Wheeler, etc.), and he was put in the bullpen from 2018 to 2023. Outside of a couple of injuries and minor details, Lugo was always good enough to start, but never had a clear shot at a constant, consistent, talent-packed Mets’ rotation.
Lugo fully transitioned back into starting in 2023 with the Padres. Astute is an understatement in describing the level of savviness displayed by the Padres in that signing. They got ~150 IPs of ~3.5 ERA ball from a guy who had not thrown more than 100 IPs in his previous 5 years. This change of scenery was also important for Lugo’s arsenal, and the Padres leveraged his unique spin capacity (we’ll get to it in a moment) to develop a Slurve, Sweeper, Seam-Shifted Change-up, and depthier gyro Slider. Besides the value to the Padres in terms of innings pitched and experimentation with pitch design, this move also revived Lugo’s career, as he proved to teams that he is not only a healthy SP but also one with upside. His arrival in Kansas City (props to their belief in a 34-year-old SP with a seemingly shaky track record) only accelerated Lugo’s reaching of his potential.
So what makes Lugo special? What differentiates him from the other Aces around the league? What makes him stand out amongst his pitching staff? Similar to his comrades Michael Wacha, Noah Cameron, and Michael Lorenzen, Seth Lugo is not a fireballer. Rather, he uses his large mix and roulette of pitch usage to thrive against hitters.
So, how does he create so many pitch shapes? Seth Lugo has a unique ability to manipulate the baseball. Some call this trait supination or radial deviation or middle finger strength, but what is clear is that Lugo has “wrist talent” and extreme breaking ball ability. This “wrist talent” allows him to orient his wrist in a multitude of ways to shape breaking pitches. Pairing certain orientations (grips) with his wrist angle, Lugo can achieve seam effects. He gets into this supinated position stronger and likely at a higher wrist speed than other pitchers, which then allows him to manipulate the baseball. This trait also allows him to spin his breaking balls so well (which does matter to some degree for batter perception of a pitch, hence ‘Buzzsaw Curveball’). PitchingNinja interviewed Lugo on his Curve, and he said, “It’s all in my wrist.”
In a 2025 interview with MLB, Lugo provided more insight on his specific seam orientations and wrist position on his pitches:
Seth Lugo shows off his different pitch grips, more | 03/10/2025
Seth Lugo talks about his successful 2024 season, what new pitches he is working on for 2025 and more on MLB Tonightwww.mlb.com
How many pitches does Lugo have? With Kansas City, he has featured a Curveball, Four-seam Fastball, Sinker, Cutter, Change-up, Slurve, Slider, Death Ball (depthier gyro Slider), Sweepier, Split, and Slow-Curveball (which has been VERY good this year). Okay, that’s a lot of pitches! Although he’s got a unique talent to throw many pitches, does it matter?
Before we get into the fun part of the article, the practical application, we need to understand one more idea. Marek Ramilo over at Driveline is not only one of the best public-facing analytics minds, but also has developed a fleshed-out understanding of ‘tunneling’, but more importantly, pitch decay. Adding a bridge pitch is useful for a number of reasons (command or more favorable contact quality), but its ability to prevent pitch decay is equally important. A good example is a pitcher that is an East-West arsenal and has a Sinker and Sweeper. Batters will sit on one pitch or the other because the movement profiles are so extreme (Max Resnick’s article on Jordan Hicks comes to mind), and adding a cutter to the arsenal would prevent the two main pitches from decaying. It is not just the movement of the bridge pitch that matters, but the threat of the pitch.
Seth Lugo has an incredibly diverse mix, and it shows. David Morgan produces great statistical insight and ranked the Top 10 Pitchers by Arsenal Size. Lugo has the most pitch types of any pitcher with a 2-pitch lead over Chris Bassitt, Yu Darvish, etc. He also has the most ‘even’ arsenal, in which he does not lean on one pitch more than others. Why does this matter?
Lugo’s even distribution is quite troubling as a hitter. He throws almost every pitch evenly outside of his bread-and-butter: Four-Seam and Curve. Although Lugo is going to lean on certain pitch types over others due to use case or contact suppression, the threat of having 10 pitches to face every at-bat drives hitters insane. Imagine that you are facing Lugo as a hitter. The scouting report says heaters early. He starts you with a first-pitch slow curve. Next pitch Sweeper. He then bullies you with breaking balls the rest of the at-bat. What do you do? Batters do break up the zone and pitch types into buckets like fast, slow, sweep, run, etc., but Lugo’s ability to make his arsenal blend together creates beneficial results. It is not just the ability to throw any pitch in any at-bat, but the threat that he could throw any pitch at any time. It’s almost like hitting against a mystery box. His command and ability to shape also influence game-planning against opposing line-ups. If a hitter has a flatter swing plane, he uses his steeper pitches to create swing-and-miss. If a hitter has a steeper plane, he’ll use heaters or off-speed.
This FanGraphs article does a great job of showcasing his ‘evenness’ and how he attacked a 2024 Yankees’ line-up:
Seth Lugo's Kitchen Sink Approach Has Worked Brilliantly
A stellar night in the Bronx offers a window into the 34-year-old righty's ascent into stardom.blogs.fangraphs.com
The last important piece of the Lugo-insanity is his delivery. He hides the ball at the start of his delivery, then raises his arms above his head while doing multiple foot taps. As he starts to come down the mound, he has a high leg-lift and a short arm-action while hiding the ball behind his head the whole time. He does not get a ton of extension (which might allow his Curve to break more over time), but he has enough deception.
https://x.com/RBunikiewicz/status/1943911783657615581
Just wait until Lugo starts throwing a knuckleball. Then it’s really over for the league.
Further Food for Thought:
Mikey O’Connor had a great question. Mikey: “Do you think having like Lugo, Martinez, Bassitt, Megill in the same rotation would cause decay towards each other, cause every guy throws 7+ pitches, or would it still be hard to prepare for?”
I think that having multiple pitch mix masters would actually be more difficult to play against, as 1. You now have to game-plan against more and more pitch-mixing 2. The decision fatigue builds, and the momentum slips away from hitters, the more tools a pitcher has.
How sustainable and replicable are Lugo’s pitch shaping and usage strategies?
Does throwing more than 2 Curveball shapes matter in terms of hitter awareness? If they see slow, even if the shape is different, does it matter?