How Tanner Scott Fixed His Slider and Became Dominant Again for the Dodgers

After a miserable 2025 season, Tanner Scott of the Dodgers is back to being dominant.

He has the highest chase rate in Major League Baseball, and the key is a better, tighter slider.

Here's the slider last year.

Note the vertical movement.

And the slider this year, much tighter.

Let's overlay those two sliders to see how much more difficult the slider is to read this year for a hitter.

Hitters can read a breaking pitch early if it pops up out of the pitcher's hand.

That's exactly what Scott's 2025 slider did sometimes.

Whereas this season, The slider looks like a fastball out of his hand traveling in the same tunnel.

Scott has traded less vertical movement for more deception and more horizontal movement.

Now let's look at Scott's revamped slider in tandem with his fastball.

These are consecutive 0-2 pitches to Manny Machado.

The first is going to be a fastball.

Machado fouls off, followed up by that revamped slider.

You will see how difficult it is for a hitter to read between those two pitches.

The first thing a hitter is going to look for is a difference in release point.

You'll see here Tanner Scott's release point on both pitches, exactly the same.

The true deception comes in the tunneling.

By the time Machado's foot is about to land, the fastball and slider, highlighted in orange, are traveling in almost the exact same tunnel.

The hitter reads another fastball, and that's when you get the swing and miss on the slider.