Erick Fedde was not a good MLB pitcher his first go around from 2017-2022. He pitched in 102 games, starting 88 of them and finishing 5 of them. He was 21-33 (and 0 for 1 in save situations) with the Washington Nationals in those age 24-29 seasons with an ERA of 5.41, a FIP of 5.17, a WHIP of 1.523, and a 1.84 K:BB with a putrid K-BB% of just 8.0%. To put that in perspective, even Andre Pallante as a starter this year has an 11.0% K-BB% and even Miles Mikolas has a 13.3% K-BB% as a Cardinals pitcher since returning from overseas.
Like Mikolas before him, Erick Fedde saw he needed a change and went to Korea to get his game back on track. Boy, has he. The Cardinals traded the rehabbing Tommy Edman for him at the deadline in 2024 (along with getting Tommy Pham back while giving up a Dominican League player). Before the trade, since returning from Korea, Erick Fedde put up 21 starts for the Chicago White Sox with an ERA of 3.11, a FIP of 3.77, a WHIP of 1.142, and a 3.18 K:BB with a 14.7% K-BB%. Let’s talk about what that means.
That means that Erick Fedde’s has, from his first stint in the majors:
Cut his ERA by 43%
Cut his FIP by 27%
Cut his WHIP by 25%
Increased his K:BB by 73%
Increased his K-BB% by 84%
In short, he is an enormously better pitcher than when he left, by his results. So what has he changed? Well, we have a statistic now that measures how a player pitches with their Stuff+, their Location+, and their Pitching+. Stuff+ measures a pitcher’s arsenal - how his pitches move and how fast they come in. For the first time in his career, his Stuff+ is over 90 (less than 10% worse than league average) - and his sweeper is 27% above league average - his only pitch to ever register a season (or partial) over 7% above league average. His Location+ (where the pitches are located, go figure) had always been 1-2% above league average but instead it has jumped to 5% above league average this season. Not only that, but the Location+ is at least league average or better for all of his pitches this year - for the first time in his career. The uptick in his stuff with the uptick in his location has led to him having a Pitching+ (a proprietary combination of the two) that is league average - 100. He’d never reached that mark in the majors in his career.
Obviously, the bad news there is that he is still only at league average in that measure. The good news is that his FIP, xFIP, and xERA - the predictive future ERA statistics agree that this year is not necessarily a huge outlier as to how he has pitched so far this year. They all believe him to be a sub 4.00 ERA pitcher the rest of the year - which could be much worse than his current 3.11 ERA but they agree that he should not regress to what he once was prior to the trip to Korea for a year to sort himself out. He shouldn’t be a 5+ ERA and 4.5 to 5+ expected ERA guy either. He truly has seemingly learned to locate the stuff that he does have - whether or not it is league average - to the point where it plays up and he can pitch his way out of jams and get more swings and misses than before.
Prior to 2024, you can see that Fedde tinkered with seven different pitches over several years but mainly stuck with three to four of them for the most part - with four pitches thrown over 8% of the time and three pitches thrown over 20% of the time.. You can also see that really only his slider, which he only threw 1.9% of the time, was a successful pitch. His curveball missed a lot of bats (30.7% whiff rate) but even that allowed a 32.7% hard hit rate. His slider was the only pitch that had a hard hit rate under 30% or an expected batting average against of under .244 (at .187) and only one with an expected OBP below .300. It was quite literally his only good pitch and he threw it minimally. His curveball was clearly his second best pitch and it even had an expected OPS of over .725 on it. Yes, his second best pitch gave up an expected league average or better line against it.
You can browse that and a lot more in the table below. (I'm sorry, I know that it is a bit cumbersome.)
In Fedde’s return to the majors, he (surprisingly) dropped his curveball completely. He also dropped his slider completely and has thrown all of two 4-seam fastballs this year (quite possibly just mis-pitches on his part). In fact, statistically they look like they might just be overcooked sinkers. Here are examples of those three pitch types (curve, slider, four-seam) that he dropped in his return.
That's his 4-seamer on the far left, his curve in the middle, and his slider on the far right - all getting mashed for extra basesprior to this season. He has dropped all 3 of those pitches for this year at the moment.
Now let’s talk a little more about his pitch mix and what you are likely to see out of him as a St. Louis Cardinal - unless they find something in his pitch mix they want to change, like when they had Jordan Montgomery throw 13% less sinkers and 6% less change ups in lieu of 23% more four-seam fastballs.
The first thing that stands out to me is that he now at least has a 4 pitch mix that he throws 19-31% of the time apiece. It’s much more varied. The second thing that stands out to me is that his K rate and BB rate on these pitches is much better as a whole than the prior numbers. The third thing that stands out to me is that he’s getting swings and misses on everything but his change up but that’s okay because he’s now allowing the changeup to be hit hard enough to matter - his second lowest wOBA allowed.
In fact, to compare it more easily, let’s take a look here instead. This is the difference between the 2024 statistics of Erick Fedde compared to the pre-2024 MLB stats of Erick Fedde.
The more purple/pink the chart is, the worse (or lesser, depending on the context) that the boxes turn. The more teal/blue the chart is, the better (or greater, depending on the context) that the boxes turn.
You can see that his cutter has been thrown more often and when compared to pre-2024 standards, it has given up a slightly higher xBA, xOBP, xSLG, and xwOBA. This is despite his velocity and spin on his pitch both increasing and his exit velocity and hard hit rate decreasing. One of the things that is hurting this, I believe, is that his K-BB% is worse for his cutter upon his return to the states.
You can see his cutter on the left in 2024 with a bit more vertical and horizontal break despite it being thrown a mile an hour harder allowing it to get in on the hitter and miss the bat (which he's done more often this season on the pitch.
However, that is the only pitch that has a worse xBA, xOBP, xSLG, or xwOBA. The sweeper has changed the most with a velocity gain of 3.6 mph on it and a 20% change in how often it is thrown. That’s why there are astronomical differences in the K%, K-BB%, and whiff rate - all of which decreased greatly but are still fairly good.
Again on the left we have a much harder pitch that breaks more allowing the sweeper to play up and be his best pitch now. Fun story, he learned this pitch working with former Cardinal Shelby Miller prior to going to Korea - thanks John Denton of MLB.com for that nugget.
By throwing his sinker less it seems to have become a much more effective pitch than it was prior to his time in Korea. It also seems that with his changeup being thrown more often it has become an effective out pitch.
On the left is a high sinker thrown by his opponent in 2024 whereas the one on the right wasmuch more expected because it was thrown a lot more often by Erick Fedde.
Erick Fedde throwing a changeup getting absolutely hammered back in the pre-Korea days on the right with a beautiful pitch on the left.
In 2024, Erick Fedde has thrown his sinkers and sweepers around 38% of the time each against righties. He’s also thrown his cutter 19% of the time vR, leaving his changeup to be thrown under 5% of the time. His usage of those pitches has been nearly perfect as his sweeper has a sub .200 xwOBA and his sinker has a sub .300 xwOBA against righties. Compare that to how he attacks lefties. He throws his cutter nearly 42% of the time despite batters having a .338 xwOBA and .338 wOBA against that pitch when lefties face him this year. He does add a change up 32% of the time against lefties, which is great due to his .244 wOBA allowed and .273 xwOBA allowed. His sinker seems to have overperformed a bit against lefties, and his sweeper has been miserable against them. I would continue to attack lefties up and in with cutter as much as possible while spotting the changeup as best as possible against them as well. That, or I would reintroduce the curveball that had been fantastic prior to him leaving for Korea.
In fact, a reintroduction of the curveball against lefties is the only thing I might think to (off the top of my head at least) suggest as a way to improve himself. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could drop in something like this?
However, adding a pitch in the middle of the season - even a pitch that was previously used 20+% of the time in previous seasons - might be too hard of an ask, especially in a pennant race.
I realize that I did not get this out as early as I wanted to so you may have already seen Fedde pitch today for your St. Louis Cardinals. However, here's what you might expect from him for the next year and 10 games or so if you've already seen this one today against the rival Cubs (pardon my language).
Also, I would be remiss to not thank Nick Childress for all the help on all these slo mo gifs and the awesome cover art. Thanks, Nick!
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