He’s always been a pitcher instead of a thrower, but Minnesota Twins starter Bailey Ober contends he’s an even better one this season.
From implementing two new pitches over the past two offseasons to refining his changeup into an elite offering, Ober thinks he has a better overall approach than he did when he arrived in the big leagues in 2021.
The right-hander’s ascent comes at a crucial time for the Twins, who needed Ober and Joe Ryan to take steps forward this season to help fill the void left by Sonny Gray’s departure in free agency. A first outing disaster aside, Ober is providing the Twins with exactly what they need by striking out more batters than ever and pitching deep into games.
One of the Twins’ starters scheduled to pitch in Friday’s big doubleheader against the Cleveland Guardians, Ober is 11-5 with a 3.69 ERA and 128 strikeouts in 122 1/3 innings this season.
“He’s learning,” catcher Christian Vázquez said. “He’s getting very mature pitching. We can throw whatever pitch, no matter what the count is. He can throw it for strikes. He’s learning a lot. We’re very excited to see that.”
Teammates congratulate Bailey Ober after he threw a complete game against the A’s. (D. Ross Cameron / USA Today)
Ober, 29, is ecstatic about rediscovering his changeup, which was his go-to pitch before he lost command of it in the minor leagues when the Twins asked him to change arm slots. He found it again ahead of the 2023 season while working with former Chicago Cubs first-rounder turned pitching instructor Luke Hagerty at his X2 Baseball facility in Concord, N.C.
The two connected via mutual friends after both moved to the Charlotte area; Ober returned after spending several years in Denver, while Hagerty moved his training facility to North Carolina after instructing in the Phoenix area following the end of his playing career in 2008.
When Ober and the Twins sat down after the 2022 season to assess his performance, the prevailing thought was the righty needed to recapture the changeup. Ober thought working with Hagerty would help him achieve the goal.
“I needed a pitch I could lean on,” Ober said. “Really … a lot of it was just getting the feel and finding the right grip, because I used to throw changeups all the time.”
When Ober arrived at his facility motivated to improve, Hagerty, a first-round pick in 2002 who suffered a devastating tear of his ulnar collateral ligament a year later, knew the pitcher wouldn’t need to be sold on anything.
To gather as much information on Ober as he could, Hagerty put the pitcher in front of a stop-motion camera and asked him to throw changeup after changeup after changeup. Hagerty soon discovered an inconsistency in the placement of Ober’s middle finger that impacted how much the changeup could drop.
“His middle finger would flex forward,” said Hagerty, who attempted a comeback with the Cubs as a 37-year-old in 2019. “It would still be an OK changeup. But if he’d sweep off of it and keep that hyperextended in a way and let it roll off his finger, that’s when we’d get the zero-vert, a lot more depth. Those were the ones that already felt really good. We were able to identify that and hammer it home throughout the rest of the offseason.”
The work led to significant changes in the pitch’s effectiveness. In 2022, the average drop on Ober’s changeup was 30.7 inches. After refining the pitch, Ober’s average vertical drop increased to 33.7 inches in 2023 and it sits at 33.5 inches this season. Whereas Ober’s pitch ranked tied for 311th out of 561 changeups across the majors with a minus-1 Run Value in 2022, it improved to tied for 14th out of 551 with a plus-8 Run Value last year. This season, Ober’s changeup is 11th in Run Value at plus-6.
Twins pitching coach Pete Maki said the pitch has become even better this season because Ober has improved at locating it just below the bottom of the zone, which has led to hitters chasing it for strikes more often. Ober has a 39 percent whiff percentage on the changeup, up from 29.8 percent a year ago.
“Changeup locations have been a lot better this year, especially with two strikes,” Maki said. “He’s working at the bottom a lot more than last year, especially with two strikes. That was one of the goals we had for him going into spring training was to get below the strike zone with that pitch and he’s hitting on that right now.”
Bailey Ober’s 9th, 10th and 11th Ks. pic.twitter.com/HqxViTi1po
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 28, 2024
Beyond the changeup, the Twins’ assessment suggested Ober would benefit from a sweeper. Ober and Hagerty added the pitch ahead of the 2023 season with mixed results, which led to the development of a cut-fastball ahead of this season. About 6 mph harder than the sweeper, Ober’s cutter is easily thrown for strikes. His ability to throw those strikes means hitters are guessing more often when he throws his sweeper, which has led to it becoming a plus-pitch. This season, the sweeper has a plus-3 Run Value.
A north-south pitcher when the Twins selected him with the 346th overall pick of the 2017 MLB Draft, Ober now can attack all four quadrants. In the 20 starts since his eight-run disaster in Kansas City on March 31, Ober has a 3.13 ERA and a .191 batting average against.
“The lost art of pitching is learning how to sequence and set up pitches and mix speeds, go in and out, up and down,” Ober said. “I feel like I’ve been able to do that. My arsenal is more complete than in prior years and once you find these new pitches, the more you throw them, the more comfortable you’re going to be, the more you’re able to locate. When you’re able to locate, that’s when you’re able to start playing with sequencing and setting up stuff.”
Ober clearly is becoming more comfortable pitching with a full arsenal. He has completed at least six innings in each of his last eight starts, delivering a 1.95 ERA with 63 strikeouts in 55 1/3 innings.
“He’s always been good,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s always had good fastball command. He’s always been able to use the pitch in different parts of the zone effectively. But it all works. The strike-throwing and the delivery itself are probably the two biggest general things that he always has going in his favor.”
While adapting how he pitches, Ober has maintained his reputation as a strike-thrower. He likes to work ahead in counts and ranks eighth overall in strike percentage and sixth in first-pitch strike percentage, according to FanGraphs. Hagerty thinks part of it simply comes from Ober’s 7-foot-3 wingspan, which gives hitters an unusual look. To hitters, a fastball that registers 91-93 mph on the radar gun actually appears more like 95-96 mph.
“It’s really unexpected when you’re seeing such a tall guy come out of a low slot and the ball rides through you — it’s kind of confusing for a hitter,” Hagerty said of the 6-foot-9 Ober. “He’s already really in tune with how everything goes together and how one pitch plays off the other.”
Ober knows he’ll never blow anyone away with outstanding velocity. But by pitching to all quadrants and offering various looks, he can stymie even baseball’s best offenses, as he did in a July 22 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. After surrendering a two-run homer to Bryce Harper in the first inning, Ober retired 19 of the next 22 batters he faced.
“The hitters just have a lot more to cover,” Ober said. “They have to look for stuff moving into them, stuff moving away and stuff jumping at them. It’s just a little bit harder for them to really sit on something.”
(Top photo: Nick Wosika / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
