D-backs' Michael Soroka Reveals his New Pitch Additions

The veteran is a different pitcher than the sinker-dependent rookie.

Jun 13, 2018; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Michael Soroka (40) delivers a pitch to a New York Mets batter in the fourth inning at SunTrust Park. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-Imagn Images | Jason Getz-Imagn Images

When Arizona Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen spoke about Mike Soroka earlier this week, one of the key things he highlighted were changes to Soroka's arsenal.

"He's just building out his pitch arsenal right now," Hazen said.

"He did some of that in Chicago, and then into the offseason. And we're confident that the way he's going to present moving forward is going to be [an] addition to, obviously, a couple of really good pitches that he already has. And we think that has a chance to take him to the next level."

On Tuesday afternoon, Soroka spoke with the media, and gave more information about those changes and updates.

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When Soroka broke out in 2019, the sinker was the headliner in most people's minds. But to hear the pitcher tell it, things weren't quite that simple.

"I think people will look and say, okay, the sinker in 2019, that's what it was. And while yes, it was a bit of an outlier pitch because the way I threw, I think if you really dove into the numbers, you'd see that really a lot of the reasons I had success was how the off-speed performed and how the off-speed was commanded.

"I could kind of throw anything at any time and started to take that apart a little bit at the end of last year again."

Fast forward to 2025, and one pitch that is especially noticeable in his profile is the "slurve," which is a hybrid slider and curve. Soroka had toyed with the pitch in the past, but tended to overthrow it, making it more like a traditional slider.

Towards the end of 2024 he began using it more frequently, with good results. Then in 2025 it became a feature pitch, used 35% of the time. Hitters couldn't touch it, batting .118 against the pitch with a 38.3% whiff rate.

Soroka credited tweaks he made to his delivery as opposed to the grip, allowing him to get to the front of the baseball for unlocking the pitch.

"I think the new delivery allowed me to do that. I'm staying looser, moving a little quicker, and really able to turn that wrist over. And that's what led to the added movement.

"It really started to click at the end of 2024 and that's when I got a lot of the swing-and-miss regardless of whether the velocity was 79 or 83," the right-hander said.

Soroka Also Adding a Cutter and Gyro Slider

Aug 4, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Cubs pitcher Michael Soroka (41) throws the ball against the Cincinnati Reds during the first inning at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

Soroka has already spoken with pitching coach Brian Kaplan about a plan to not only introduce a cutter to his repertoire, but use it heavily. It's notable that the coach and pitcher worked together from 2018-2020 in a facility in Florida.

"It's going to be a traditional cutter, like a fastball cut. I'd already at times tended to cut the ball a little bit, just naturally being a little bit supinated through release. And that's something that we played around with actually in this past offseason going into this year, and tabled it because I wasn't sure how it affected the fastball.

"But now having a full year to kind of get the understanding of what it's gonna do to everything, it actually at times, when I was able to throw it, I found my sinker going the other way. So that's gonna be a lot of fun to use that one. I think that one's gonna be probably the most used of the three."

Not content to stop there, Soroka is also working on a gyro slider.

"The last one's a traditional just gyro slider, if you will, which again is basically the curveball grip thrown like a fastball. So that was the key with all three of these is that I really didn't need to do too much. I didn't need to manipulate anything."

Soroka believes a deeper arsenal will be the key to allowing him to get deeper into games, by not allowing hitters to run his pitch counts up in the middle and later innings.

How it all translates into results remains to be seen of course. But there is cause for optimism that the veteran can once again be a reliable starting pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2026.