When Chris Tillman came over to the Orioles in the Erik Bedard trade*, he was a 20 year old in Double-A. Tall, big fastball, huge curve. You could dream on him becoming the O’s number one starter one day. He was called up to the Majors in 2009 and showed some promise. But also a 5.40 ERA. Then a 5.87 ERA. Then a 5.52 ERA. Fastball turning into a “fast” ball. Home runs left(-field) and right. More than one fan assumed Tillman would never make it.
* Bedard for Tillman straight-up would be looking pretty good right now. The O’s also got Adam Jones and his 24+ fWAR as an Oriole (16 in his first six seasons in Baltimore, if you want to count it that way).
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In 2012 the velocity came back, and since July of that year Chris Tillman has been a mainstay in the O’s rotation, putting up back-to-back 200+ IP seasons in ’13 and ’14 with ERAs in the mid-3s (and an xFIP around 4, but let’s not worry about that). Maybe the O’s group of starters coming into this year wasn’t amazing, but Tillman was still the guy who got handed the ball on Opening Day. By mid-June, his poor performance may have caused some of the old doubts to creep back in. The 5-7 record could certainly have been worse given Tillman’s 6.22 ERA, and the walks and home runs had returned. It was hard times. Thank goodness the O’s had Ubaldo Jimenez to hold things together, am I right?
Fast-forward to last night, when Chris Tillman was one out away from a complete game shutout against the Braves. Since June 28th he’s allowed 5 runs (total) in his 6 starts. That is quite a welcome turnaround.
| Starts | K% | BB% | HR/9 | ERA | FIP | xFIP |
| First 14 | 15.6 | 11.2 | 1.2 | 6.22 | 5.07 | 5.05 |
| Last 6 | 19.4 | 3.9 | 0.0 | 1.09 | 2.13 | 3.39 |
I hear throwing strikes is pretty good, and Tillman has started pounding the zone more frequently lately. Early in the year, fewer than half his pitches were in the strike-zone (according to FanGraphs), and now it’s up to 54%. The 4.4% walk rate in July is the best month of his career (with more than one start), and the increase in strikes might be making his off-speed stuff more effective; whiff rate (from BrooksBaseball’s PitchFX tool) on the change-up has gone from 13% to 22% and on the curve it’s jumped from 12% to 35%(!). Not huge sample sizes, but it makes some sense that getting ahead in the count would allow Tillman to better utilize those pitches.
It’s possible that his improved control has come from a mechanical change or his placement on the rubber, as Tillman’s release point is both a bit more consistent as well as a few inches more to his left than it was earlier in the season. (The movement is in the opposite direction from last year, where his release point drifted to his right. Plus, in 2015 the vertical component of his release point has stayed about the same, unlike last season).
The PitchFX also actually breaks out Tillman’s fastball between a four-seamer and a sinker. And the usage of the latter – slightly slower than the four-seamer, and with a touch more drop and especially more tailing action – has ramped up recently. While fastballs still make up about 65% of Tillman’s pitches, the split between the four-seamer and sinker has gone from around 60-5 early in the season to 50-15 in the last month. This might help explain that nice improvement in home run rate, as his groundball rate has jumped from 39% to 53%(!). Wanna guess how many months in his career Chris Tillman has had a groundball rate even close to 50% before July of 2015?
Twelve. Twelve months*.
* Just kidding, it’s zero. But there have been so many times in the past where I thought I’d found a cool little factoid and it ended up like that.
This all seems neat enough – maybe he’s figured things out. But it’s only six starts, so it could certainly just be a temporary reprieve. Still, of the 1.6 fWAR Chris Tillman has this year, 1.2 of it came in July* (and his June 28th start was pretty nice too). Which means that if he can keep this going, Tillman could turn what looked like a disaster of a season into a 4 WAR one. I imagine the O’s would appreciate that sort of performance down the stretch.
* 6th in the Majors among starters, just ahead of Zack Greinke. And right behind Jake Arrieta.
