On Drew Storen, early struggles, and velocity dips

Things aren’t going as planned for Drew Storen with the Toronto Blue Jays. That’s fine, perhaps it’s still just early.

Some worrying trends with the right-hander’s velocities, however, make this slow start more of a true outlier from his career. Instead of a “slow” or unlucky unlucky to the season using the same tools he always has, Storen is taking a different path to these numbers, and therein lies the worry.

Through his first 10 outings, Storen has worked eight innings with a 10.13 ERA. Last night against the Rays in Tampa, he surrendered a home run on his second pitch, his third allowed this season. That’s one more than Storen allowed in 56.1 innings in 2014, and one shy of his total from 55.0 innings last year in Washington.

As with any outlier, some statistical oddities are at play here. A .423 opponent’s BABIP will not sustain through the season while his combination of 6.9% SOFT contact forced and 44.8% HARD contact are certain to balance out as well. Still, there is the issue of velocity.

Looking at Storen’s average release velocities since the beginning of 2014 compared to his April, 2016 data (dots on far right of graph), there is evidently a regression on all four of his pitches. For some pitchers, like teammate Brett Cecil, a lower velocity to begin the season is expected as they are traditionally able to raise it 1.5-to-3.0 MPH by midseason. Storen hasn’t shown that tendency, however. At least not consistently enough to bank on.

In 2014, Storen began with April and May average release velocities of 93.21 and 94.55 MPH, an encouraging jump itself, before hovering around that point for the remainder of the season. Last year, Storen opened by averaging 94.66 MPH in April and 95.26 in May before dropping back into the 94s the rest of the way.

So far in 2016, he’s averaging 92.64 MPH, the lowest velocity for any single month in his career according to Brooks Baseball data. It’s across the board, too, with his sinker, changeup, and slider all experiencing noticeable dips from this time last year.

Pitching coach Pete Walker told Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith earlier in the week that the club is not worried about these numbers, and are instead focusing on getting his command pinned down.

Even when Storen is able to accomplish that, however, life without his old velocity will not be easy. Unless it returns over May and June, the 28-year-old will be forced to adapt in-season and create new ways to gain advantages over hitters.