Bailey Ober was a 12th-round draft pick out of the College of Charleston who looked more like a gumby than a front-line starter at six-foot-10 and barely 250 pounds. He peaked as the Twins’ 25th ranked prospect per MLB Pipeline and was never more than an afterthought in the background.
Despite this, he went through every level of the minor leagues, improved in each of his first major league seasons, and simply established himself as a borderline top of the rotation.
Here, I’ll talk about the adjustments he made before breaking out, why they worked, and what to expect from him next season.
I write these articles every week. Find out how Tarik Skubal became the best pitcher in baseballWhy Hunter Greene is on his way to becoming an aceAnd which gives Bryce Miller a very high ceiling here.
change it
Ober’s change was always supposed to be his calling card. Fangraphs rated it 60 and MLB Pipeline a 55 on the 20-80 scouting scale as he reached the majors while his fastball sat in the 90s and reports on his breaking balls were mixed. Still, scouts agreed the change was an advantage.
However, he did not perform well early in his career. The pitch had negative run value in each of his first two stints in the big leagues and performed poorly overall, especially compared to other changeups in baseball.
Ironically, its results remain generally strong. He pitched to a 3.82 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 147 strikeouts in his first 148 1/3 major league innings spanning two seasons without his “best” pitching working GOOD.
The problem that plagued Ober’s change was inconsistency. Sometimes he was right, and sometimes he just wasn’t. Dan Hayes of the Athletic stated that The twins asked Ober to change the location of his arm in the upper minors and it affected the feel he had on the field.
Just before the 2023 season, Ober worked with Luke Hagerty of X2 Baseball — think, another Driveline or Tread-style player development center — to try to rediscover his changeup. Hagerty noticed that Ober’s the middle finger was not always in the same place when he released the ball and it caused the pitch to not always go down as much as he wanted.
Randy Dobnak also helped Ober with the grip change when he was demoted to Triple-A St. Paul to start the 2023 season.
All of these adjustments result in a much more coherent movement for change. There were a lot fewer outlier pitches that didn’t drop as much as he wanted as well. With that, there was an additional three inches of elevation gain on average for the season.
Twin pitching coach Peter Maki said so “was much neater and clearer” has David Laurilla from FanGraphs last September and the data is consistent. Check out these movement plots for the Ober change first between 2021 and 2022, then between 2023 and 2024.
With more reliable moves, Ober took this change to a new level in 2024 by improving his command of the terrain. He focused on throwing low and below the zone with much more consistency. Again, check the new consistency between 2023 at the top then 2024.
Additionally, Ober now trusted him more than ever against right-handed hitters. Shifts of the same nature are sometimes considered taboo, but Ober has increased his usage against righties from 4.8% in 2022 to 22.3% in 2023 with great success. Then, in 2024, it was his second most pitch thrown to right-handers.
The pitch results speak for themselves. Look at how much his performance improves from year to year.
Here’s the eye test too, just in case you don’t believe me.
Just total filth. This new and improved changeup from Ober claims to be one of the best in the entire league.
Slide
At the same time Ober was fine-tuning his changeup, he was introducing a new sweeper into his arsenal. This went largely unnoticed as Ober was demoted to Triple-A to begin the 2023 season.
Nonetheless, it added significant swipe (or horizontal movement) to what was once a fairly generic slider. He tinkered with it again ahead of the 2024 season, adding even more sweep and more drop while reducing the speed a bit.
However, the new pitch did not perform particularly well. His scent rating and Stuff+ dropped in each of those three seasons. To make matters worse, left-handed hitters hit close to .500.
Needing a new weapon that provides some variation between his sweeper, fastball and changeup, Ober added a cutter ahead of the 2024 season.
He felt too predictable against lefties and said to Laurilla he “wanted something a little harder than the sweeper he had thrown, something to use for righties and to throw to lefties to keep them from diving over home plate.”
This is exactly what the cutter has become. Look at the amalgamation of all the pitch locations Ober used against lefties in 2023 and then 2024.
The cutter helped him unlock a whole new quadrant of home plate – on the batter’s hands – which prevented batters from diving over home plate, just as he had planned. Without it, he was also able to get the ball down the zone.
A new pitch transformed Ober’s approach against lefties. Once one-dimensional, he was now able to access every nook and cranny of the strike zone. Improved results followed.
Command is extremely important for a pitcher like Ober who doesn’t have overwhelming stuff and his has always been great. The ability to work inside, outside, up and down while eliminating corners and edges allowed him to rely more on his positive command. These two new slider variations allowed him to access that strength in his game.
Hiding in plain sight?
Taking a step back, Ober didn’t have far to go to become a starter on the front line. Of course, a tweak here and a tweak there dramatically improved his standing in the league and turned him into one of the most valuable pitchers in fantasy baseball last season.
Even so, if you look at the type of pitcher he was going for this season…he may have always been very good. From 2022 to 2023 – when all these changes were happening – Ober had a 3.37 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and 19.5 K-BB% over 200 1/3 innings.
He was one of 14 pitchers to hit all four of those benchmarks during that span along with Spencer Strider, Corbrin Burnes, Justin Verlander and other ace types. Some highly acclaimed players who didn’t make it were Sandy Alcantara, Logan Webb and Luis Castillo.
In this same piece for FanGraphsLaurilla asked Ober if he felt he was a better pitcher now. He replied: “I don’t know. I feel like I’m kind of the same guy. Every year you learn and grow, but I had a few issues that kind of messed up some numbers. But I feel good. I felt good last year too. I think I’m the same guy.
Ober also mentioned his feeling of delivery “cleaner” NOW. As I mentioned, Ober is 6’10” and gets over seven feet of extension in his delivery. That’s a lot more moving parts than most pitchers in the league and limbs that long can make it difficult to throw. obtaining fluid and reproducible mechanics.
“An extremely tall pitcher takes longer to develop” is a classic baseball trope that may ring true here. I’m not saying Ober is about to become early 30’s Randy Johnson, but he could have finally become his mechanic. Then add in those little adjustments that helped him master the strike zone and bam, we have a borderline All-Star.
Results
Although Ober was solid through 2022 and 2023, he hit a new level last season as those adjustments came together.
His 3.98 ERA doesn’t look very good as he had two starts against the Royals where he allowed 14 ER over 6 1/3 IP and then a 9 ER implosion against the Braves in late August. Despite these “slams,” he had a streak of 11 consecutive quality starts that lasted more than two months.
Additionally, Ober’s 1.00 WHIP was fifth lowest, his 20.9 K-BB% ninth lowest and 3.56 SIERA 14th lowest among all qualified starters.
He closed the season as the 22nd starting pitcher in Fantasy, nestled between Bryan Woo and Sonny Gray. It was better than what Max Fried or Aaron Nola finished.
What’s next?
I don’t know what to think of Ober in the future. On the one hand, it’s now been three years and nearly 400 IP where he’s demonstrated an elite ability to keep runners off the bases while maintaining a well-above-average strikeout rate.
On the other hand, what height of ceiling could we leave? Currently he is enlisted as 24th starting pitcher between Nola and Hunter Greene. He’s a top-100 pick and in the same range as those two, Logan Webb, Bryce Miller and hitters like Luis Robert and Marcus Semien.
Of course, there will likely be positive ERA regression to match his WHIP, K-BB%, and SIERA. Let’s assume he maintains the good changeup, finds better feel for the sweeper and cutter, and maybe even brings his curveball back into the fold. Then we could end up with peak seasons from Max Fried with ERAs of fewer walks that could sneak into the top two.
Or, Ober isn’t giving up the same volume as last year and never gets close to the upside in high-end strikeouts, which is probably a pipe dream for him anyway. Breaking balls stay meh and suddenly you just drafted him at a price close to his ceiling.
I like Ober as a pitcher, but I think he could be much more valuable in real life than in fantasy baseball, especially at the price he’s currently drafted at.
