What's Led to Luis Frias' Recent Improvement
There was a time when Arizona Diamondbacks fans knew the team wasn't playing well that day when Luis Frias entered the game. He typically pitched when the team was well behind as a mop-up duty. It also was due to the fact that Luis Frias just didn't pitch well when he was up with the MLB team. You could see the enticing ability that he had with an upper 90s fastball and a sweeping slider. But, he just couldn't locate it. That's changed.
From 2021 to 2022, Frias pitched in 18 games and threw 20.1 innings. He allowed a ton of contact from hanging pitches in the zone with 25 hits, 21 runs, and a home run. However, the more depressing issue was that he had walked 22 batters. That's 9.7 walks per 9 innings. He only managed 17 strikeouts. As such, it was no shock he had a 9.30 ERA, a 45 ERA+, and a 5.48 FIP.
That continued this year over his first five appearances. Over those five games, he threw 6.2 innings but gave up 10 hits, 8 runs, an eyesore of 7 walks, and did strikeout 8 batters. His ERA was 10.80, but his FIP was even worse at 5.97.
However, since he came back up on July 21st, he's thrown seven innings, over seven games allowing just six hits, two walks, and four strikeouts. He has a 0.00 ERA and a sparkling 2.98 FIP. He faced 28 batters and they've hit just .231 off him. So, what's changed?
Well, the most obvious is that he's been much more in command of his pitches. From 2021-22, he threw a strike roughly 57.5% of the time. In his earlier stretch of 2023, he threw a strike just 55% of the time. Yet, since he's been back up? He's thrown a strike 62% of the time.
Plus, he's allowing career-lows in hard hit%, and walks, and has increased his ground ball percentage to a career-high of 46.5%. He's significantly increased his strikeout-looking percentage from 7.1 in 2022 to 16.7. Clearly, he's observing a lot more command of his pitches and has improved his ability to fire strikes all over the plate.
It also has helped that the Diamondbacks have used Frias more in non-save situations without much pressure. In those games this year, he has played in 11 of them, and pitched to a 3.46 ERA with 12 strikeouts in 13 innings, although the seven walks are still quite an issue. They aren't as bad as his stats in other situations.
And, to perhaps no surprise, when he can get ahead in the count, he's a tough pitcher to hit. In counts when Frias is even or ahead, he has 10 strikeouts with a batting average of just .243 this season. When he falls behind in the count, Frias is allowing a batting average of .389. It turns out that Frias has always had the ability to be a good relief pitcher, but his extreme lack of command has caused him to be a batting practice pitcher.
So, how did he improve his command to raise his stats so well?
Well, in 2021, Frias demonstrated some good command and had a strong three-game cameo despite the walks. He threw a four-seam fastball, a cutter, a change-up, and a slider. Then, in 2022, Frias dropped the cutter in favor of just the four-seam, changeup, and slider. He pumped his velocity up to the mid-upper 90s. Yet, he failed to command hardly anything. He threw for more walks and allowed harder contact. It was an abject failure.
Now, in 2023, He's moved to a cutter, slider, and changeup, with some four-seam action. The results have been far better. On his fastball, the expected batting average is .353. Last year, it was .349. On his cutter in 2021, it was .166. On his cutter this year, it's .247.
His slider has always been his best pitch. He has an expected batting average of .145 on it this year. That's similar to his last two seasons with it. He rarely throws his changeup and thus it doesn't have many advanced stats on it.
Thanks to his cutter, he's throwing his fastball much slower than in recent years. While he still throws the four-seam fastball around 96.4 mph, only .5 off from last year's 96.9 mph average. But, he's throwing his cutter much slower which is most likely helping him command better. He's learning how to pitch and not just throw by using his cutter.
In the minors, you can just pump your velocity by most hitters with no issues. That isn't the case in the MLB. Plus, he's throwing his slider 1.5 mph slower. His slider looks the best yet in his Major League career. It would seem that his throwing slower and actually commanding his pitches is what is leading to his recent success in the past few months.
The metrics back up that he's throwing with more command as he's mainly relied upon his cutter and fastball, but is getting far more success. Only three balls have been hit harder than 100 mph exit velo since coming back up. That's a lot better than in the past when he had over 11 balls hit that hard.
The fact he is throwing his cutter 47.5% of the time is a huge success. This has led him to get 30.0% whiffs and 26.5% K-rate on it. While he still throws his four-seam often, 40.9% of the time, he's not using it so much to where it's being seen easily by hitters like last year when he threw it over 62% of the time. He isn't nearly as successful in getting whiffs or strikeouts using his fastball as his cutter or slider. Thus, he might achieve even more success were he to cut out or severely decrease his four-seam fastball usage.
Still, what he is now doing with the cutter/slider combo is off-setting his fastball usage and allowing him to achieve career numbers. If he can keep these results up, he might just become the lethal bullpen weapon that Mike Hazen, Torey Lovullo, and Brent Strom have always thought he could be. There's a philosophical lesson in this too about going slower to get more success if often better than going faster and failing. Perhaps Luis Frias recently read The Hare and The Tortoise.
