Categories: Features

Taijuan Walker has a new gameplan. So far, it’s working

Taijuan Walker will start against the Giants on Wednesday. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire)

SAN FRANCISCO — When the Phillies signed Taijuan Walker in December, they had a vision in mind, a strategy to get the most out of the four-year, $72 million deal. It was relatively simple: Throw the splitter. Then throw it some more.

“That was their biggest thing. Like, ‘We want to make sure that you’re throwing the split more,'” Walker told Phillies Nation on Monday. “That was the whole plan and goal.”

Walker has embraced that plan and goal especially in his last couple outings, and it’s been a key part of a promising stretch for the right-hander and the Phillies’ starting rotation.

After throwing the splitter 31.1% of the time across the month of April — and posting a 4.97 ERA and BB/9 in that span — Walker increased his splitter usage against the Dodgers on May 1 in Los Angeles. There, he threw the splitter 37% of the time, his second-highest splitter proportion of the season to that point.

He allowed eight runs and three walks in 3 ⅓ innings. It was his worst start as a Phillie.

So he threw the splitter even more.

And that’s when things started to change. Walker bounced back with his best outing yet in red pinstripes, conceding just one run and three hits while walking none in six innings against a potent Red Sox offense on May 7.

He threw 54% splitters in that start, then threw it 41% of the time in a solid three-run, six-inning, no-walk outing against the Rockies at Coors Field on Friday.

“Live and die,” Walker said of his approach the last two starts, “by my splitter.”

He’s in lockstep with Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham on that strategy.

“It’s just kinda, ‘when in doubt, I’m gonna throw a split. If I’m in between, not quite sure if the hitter’s really telling me one pitch or the other, I’m just gonna throw a split,'” Cotham told Phillies Nation Wednesday of Walker’s gameplan. “Starting with that mindset of ‘I’m going to attack the hitter. I’m going to attack them with my best’ … For any pitcher, Tai specifically right now, it puts them in a frame of mind where you’re truly on the attack.”

Walker and the Phillies knew what they were doing when they emphasized the increased diet of splitters. Historically, the more he’s thrown it, the more effective it’s been.

Two years ago, he threw the pitch just 14.3% of the time; opponents slugged .505 against it. Last year, he upped that usage to 27.6%; opponents slugged .267 against it. His overall ERA dropped by nearly a full run between those two seasons.

“I think we saw it as a true weapon, and one that he was comfortable leaning on more and more,” Phillies general manager Sam Fuld told Phillies Nation on Wednesday about the club’s pursuit of Walker. “And I think it’s becoming more and more of a weapon … That thing’s really tough to pick up. You see the quality of the swings that he gets off of that pitch.”

This year, Walker’s splitter — his most-thrown pitch, by a good margin — has conceded the lowest slugging percentage by 144 points of any of his six offerings, apart from his seldom-thrown cutter. It’s not a huge coincidence that two of his stronger outings this season (and the only two in which he didn’t walk anyone) have come in two of his most splitter-heavy starts of the year.

“He has a lot of skill in it,” Cotham said, adding that the splitter’s effectiveness against both left- and right-handed hitters makes it especially appealing. “He can throw it for a strike. He expands well with it. So when it’s right, it’s just one of the better pitches in baseball.”

Walker doesn’t throw his splitter the most conventional way. He calls it more of a “split change,” with his index and middle fingers higher up on the horseshoe-shaped seam of the baseball, placed just outside those seams, rather than split wide like most split-ballers (and like he threw it earlier in his career).

Taijuan Walker’s splitter grip. (Nathan Ackerman/Phillies Nation)

He doesn’t try to get too precise with it — just throw it over the plate and let its natural movement take over.

“I’m just trying to start it middle and just let it work,” Walker said. “Sometimes it goes straight down, sometimes it has some arm-side run … And I’m getting comfortable where I can throw it for strikes early, and then if they happen to chase it later in the count.”

Perhaps the splitter increase can help Walker reverse a trend he hasn’t quite been able to shake the last two seasons: diminished effectiveness in the second half. Walker’s ERA dropped by 2.25 runs between the first and second halves last season, and 4.47 runs between the two halves the year before.

Particularly after Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler threw deeper into 2022 than they had in any year of their respective careers — and given the organization’s lack of starting pitching depth — Walker producing in the second half would go a long way for the Phillies.

“The goal is to go at least six innings every single time,” Walker said. “I want to get up to 180 innings this year. And to do that, I have to be consistent, not only in the first half, but in the second half too. And that’s gonna be the biggest thing — is making sure I stay on my routine, my body’s good and healthy so I can have that consistency in the second half.

“Me, Wheeler and Nola — we’re veterans. We’ve been doing it for a long time. So we know our goal is to go out there and go six, seven innings every time out. And so, if we can do that, it usually means we’re pitching well.”

And if Walker is pitching well, it probably means he’s throwing the splitter — and then throwing it some more.

Pitch type breakdowns and stats in this article are courtesy of Baseball Savant, and other stats are courtesy of Baseball Reference.