Relief pitcher Jeremy Jeffress was one of the few bright spots for last season’s Brewers. The 27-year-old established himself in a setup role for Milwaukee and completed his first full season as a major leaguer. In 68 innings, Jeffress struck out 67 batters, walked only 22, and recorded a 2.65 ERA. For Jeffress, who had previously topped out at 32 innings in a season, it proves he has what it takes to stay in the major leagues.
The key for Jeffress, the pitch he didn’t have as he stumbled with Kansas City after he was traded as part of the package for Zack Greinke in 2011, has been his sinker. The new pitch descriptions from Brooks Baseball succinctly sums up the performance of his sinker in 2015: “His sinker generates a high number of swings & misses compared to other pitchers’ sinkers, generates a very high amount of groundballs compared to other pitchers’ sinkers and is blazing fast.”
Specifically, Jeffress threw his vicious sinker at an average velocity of 96.0 mph (which ranked 11th of 77 relievers to throw 200 sinkers). He drew a whiff on just over one in six swings, 18.4 percent (13th). And his sinker drew six times as many ground balls as fly balls (23rd). Jeffress’s sinker ranked in the top third of all reliever sinkers in the statistics that define the goals of the pitch, and few relievers leaned on their sinkers like Jeffress did. He threw 563 of them in 2015, and only 10 relievers threw more.
Jeffress has been excellent ever since coming back to Milwaukee in 2014, when he threw 28.2 innings with a 1.88 ERA and a sharp 3.6 K/BB. The question with relievers like Jeffress, with big stuff but a history of control issues, is always if they can keep such a breakout together over a full season. That Jeffress maintained his control and walked fewer than three batters per nine innings again in 2015 proves a lot. Jeffress walked 38 batters in 52.1 innings (6.5 BB/9) in his first three Major League seasons, from his original callup with Milwaukee in 2010 through his stints with Kansas City and Toronto in the American League. His stuff was great, but could never overcome the constant free passes.
The right-hander has thrown both his sinker and his four-seam fastball, which has been similarly above-average at drawing whiffs and grounders, for a strike about 65 percent of the time each since his return to Milwaukee. From 2010 through his early 2014 stint with Toronto, Jeffress threw his four-seamer for a strike just 62 percent of the time. While that three percent may not sound like much, the fastball is both the pitch most often thrown to begin at-bats and the most common pitch in a hitter’s count. Jeffress opened 70 percent of counts with fastballs and used it 80 percent of the time when the batter was favored. Even a three percent difference — one in 30 pitches — will snowball, because this is the pitch specifically used to get a strike when one is needed.
Jeffress’s agent, Josh Kusnick, told USA TODAY earlier this year that the Brewers’ help during Jeffress’s suspension with marijuana use while in the minor leagues was critical to his choice to sign with the Brewers in 2014. “No amount of money could have compensated for what he has in Milwaukee,” Kusnick told Bob Nightengale. “It would have been a very difficult recovery for him if the Brewers weren’t as supportive as they were. It could have easily gone south. But they stuck by him during both suspensions.”
This is why it is not only the right thing to stick with players as they deal with personal issue as Jeffress did in the Brewers minor league system. People don’t forget when somebody helps them out. Jeffress was always a brilliant talent, only a few adjustments away from making his skillset work at the Major League level. It was a matter of finding one right pitch, or flipping a tiny percentage of called balls into strikes. It has been great to watch Jeffress blossom into a productive major leaguer over the past two seasons, and it has been great to watch him do it in Milwaukee because of the way both sides worked together to make it happen.