PBN Around the Horn

PBN Around the Horn: Why is Dillon Peters So Dominant Early On?

Published

2 years ago

May 5, 2022

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an extremely rare two off days in one week, so we have to get a little more creative for Around the Horn. In today’s edition of ATH, let’s look at Dillon Peters and try to figure out what he’s doing differently and why he’s so successful this early into the ’22 season.

In the ’21 season, Peters relied heavily upon his four-seam and changeup. Peters threw the four-seam 35% of the time, and his changeup was around 32% of the time. While Peters still distributes his changeup (29.4%) and the four-seam (28.2%) pretty evenly in ’22, the location heat map has changed a significant amount.

In ’21, Peters hung a lot of changeups in the middle portion of the zone while his four-seam stayed out the outer thirds against righties. Fast forward to ’22, Peters’ changeup has stayed out of the middle third and has stayed either below the zone or on the outside or inside, depending on the handedness of the batter.

Peters’ four-seam has attacked the upper third of the strike zone, most likely due to a 1.6 mph uptick in velocity (90.8 mph to 92.7 mph). Maybe moving to the bullpen was what the doctor ordered for Peters. In a role that has become crucial throughout professional baseball, Peters has separated himself as one of the best early into the ’22 season.