Tarik Skubal just won the 2024 American League Cy Young Award in a landslide vote that reflected just how dominant his season was. He was first among qualified starters in the AL in ERA, wins and strikeouts, making the Detroit Tigers’ ace the first AL starter to win a pitching Triple Crown in a full season since Justin Verlander in 2011. Sum it all up and it’s not surprising that he led the American League in every version of Wins Above Replacement.

There was no doubt that he deserved these flowers. AdvertisementThere was some doubt, probably, that he would reach this mountaintop. Once upon a time, he was rehabbing from flexor tendon surgery and looking for answers.

“I just got hurt, I’ll try anything,” the pitcher said of that low point in 2022. But the Tigers’ pitching development was on the case, using the downtime to show the lefty a plan. “They present information very simply, you throw harder when you do this, you throw less hard when you do this, we think this is good for you based on how you move, now whatever you want to do, you do,” Skubal said late this season.

“I was a little more crossfire so now I’m more linear, and they said that the less crossfire I throw, the harder I throw. ”Throwing across your landing foot is considered “crossfire,” and while that can increase deception and movement, it can also decrease velocity. It looks like Skubal retained some of that deception while straightening up his body.

Even if these two pictures are not exactly lined up in terms of timing, you can see that Skubal’s trunk has become more upright and his landing foot points a little more toward home. Use the angle of his posterior to approximate what his pelvis is doing and there’s obviously a difference in the underlying mechanics pre- and post-surgery. That was the big work, and it had immediate results.

He gained almost two ticks of fastball velocity by working on his linearity to the plate and his athleticism overall. “He’s an incredible worker,” Tigers manager A. J.

Hinch said of his ace. “An incredible learner. … The time off wasn’t just time off.

It was time well spent. ”That rehab was a long process that was well-chronicled by The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen, but Skubal didn’t stop there. He revamped his start-to-start schedule, intending to push his limits on heavy work days and leave at least two days a week completely clean for recovery.

Advertisement“I switched up my routine, different days I work out now,” Skubal said of his five-day process. “I’ve always been a day two bullpen guy, but now I lift on the days I pitch, I get off the mound and go lift. That way my next day is full rest and recovery — keep your high days high, low days low.

Lift again after the bullpen, as a mini-start, next day is a full recovery day again. Then day before is a primer day, get my nervous system going, continue prepping for the hitters, which I’ll look at from day one. ”Those bullpens are also where he continues the start-to-start work of keeping his pitches sharp.

Using high-quality video, pitch shape readouts, and tools like balls with black dots painted on them, he can make sure that each offering is optimized. “I’m always tinkering with things, trying to get the best shapes on my pitches,” he said. Each pitch has its own checklist.

“My sinker right now, as long as my horizontal is fine, I’m fine with it,” Skubal pointed out. “I look for more horizontal break than vertical break, I’m looking to run the ball. I’m not really a sinker-baller, it should really be called a two-seamer.

”Check. “Different grip, different thought process on the slider,” continued the pitcher. “Slider, I’m always looking horizontal.

I flipped the horseshoe around, and then a different cue. It’s slutter-y. I want depth and I want horizontal movement.

”Check. The slider this year is more than a tick harder than it’s ever been, with more glove-side movement than he’s had since his rookie season. (Batters “hit” .

169 off the pitch, too. )“Curveball, I just want it to be harder,” Skubal said. “As long as it’s 78-81, that’s exactly where I want it.

”AdvertisementCheck. His curveball is up two ticks and sat at 78. 5 mph this season, the hardest he’s ever thrown it.

Batters hit . 158 off the pitch. “Changeup, I’m looking to kill vert and get as much horizontal as I can,” the lefty said of the shape of his pitch.

“I’m also throwing that pitch harder, so the seam effects have less time to push it down, so it’s running more. ”Check. After using the black-dotted ball to coax the right seam orientation on the pitch, he’s getting the most horizontal movement of his career on the changeup.

Batters hit . 216 off the pitch this year. But bullpens are not only for shape-shifting.

It’s a time to practice playing, to practice the art of pitching. “I take notes after starts, write down notes about what I need to work on, what felt good, what felt bad, so that when I get to the bullpen I know how to envision certain at-bats against certain hitters in terms of where I need to put the ball to get them out,” he said. It’s a specific process.

“I want to get my heaters to my glove side, once I do that everything else crisps up,” he says. “If you go arm side, your direction will start going that way. Inside to righties is the key to everything.

”Check. “I try to make sure my direction is good so I’m not as crossfire,” Skubal says of his mechanics in the bullpen. “Once I start landing right, I’ll do some sinkers and changeups to the glove side because it’s the right finish for me on the pitch, then I’ll move it out.

I’ll do some arm side then. Then it’s back-door spin, back-foot spin. I need to make sure my slider and curve are different.

”But if he messes up, he doesn’t get bogged down. He moves on. “Whether or not the pitch is executed where I want it to, move on to the next pitch.

In the game, you don’t get three chances to work on one pitch,” he said. “If I’m trying to get changeup feel, I can’t do that with changeup after changeup, I can’t throw four changeups in a row in the game. You want to practice like the game.

”AdvertisementThat last bit is an important part of modern player development. Obviously, drills have a place in any practice environment, but research has shown that there’s a ton of value in practice that looks a lot like the game itself. So the lefty stands on the mound with invisible runners on first and second, cycling through his looks and his moves to each base, and imagining that he’s facing a particular batter at the plate.

“Different tidbits of visualization so that when I’m on the mound, I feel like I’ve already done it before,” as the pitcher puts it. Then it’s game time. And it may not surprise you about a pitcher that just averaged 96.

8 mph from the left side — second-hardest among lefty starters this year, and the hardest of his career — but Skubal’s intent is to throw as hard as he can when he’s in there. “Some guys build velocity as the game goes on, but if I got beat in the first or the second, that would piss me off. I want to get beat with my best stuff in every inning,” the lefty said.

“I don’t want to leave anything in the tank when I pitch. From pitch one. ”Pitch number one this season was a 96 mph fastball.

Pitch number 2,868, his final of an amazing Cy Young Award-winning season, was a 97 mph fastball. Fitting dominance from beginning to end, built on hard work that has no beginning or end in sight. (Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.