Clemson baseball: Spencer Strider’s Slider

Former Tiger Spencer Strider is in the World Champion Atlanta Braves starting rotation.

Former Clemson baseball player Spencer Strider burst onto the scene last fall with his 100 MPH fastball and quickly became a favorite of fans and the Pitching Ninja.

Strider made the defending World Champions out of spring training this season and again was an internet sensation for his domination of batters out of the bullpen.

It’s easy to understand why, as Strider regularly hits the triple digit mark and averages 98.2 MPH on his four seam fastball that whizzes by batters and leads to 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

Strider throw the four seamer almost 70% of the time and batters are hitting only .210 off the pitch that Strider has made his name on.

But what if I told you, it wasn’t his best pitch, at least not statistically? That would be his slider, which Strider throws 85 MPH on average, and batters are hitting at a .125 clip with 0 extra base hits in 40 at bats.

The slider accounts for slightly more than a quarter of the pitchers Strider throws, but it has a higher PutAway% (27.5% to 25.5%) and Whiff% (51.1% to to 29.1%) than his four seamer.

Spencer Strider likely needs to develop a third pitch to remain in the Braves rotation long term

Also of note is Strider is mostly a two pitch pitcher – the four seamer and slider – and that makes it difficult to make it through a Major League lineup three times.  It’s likely if he’s going to move forward as a starter long term, Strider needs a third pitch that he can use more than the 4.9% he uses the changeup.

Strider is currently 3-2 with a 3.40 ERA and 72 strikeouts in 47.2 innings with the Braves.  The bad news is he also has 22 hits in those 47.2 innings, which makes his WHIP 1.112.

Strider pitched at Clemson from 2018-2020 and finished with a 5-2 record and 4.71 ERA in 26 games (10 starts) over 63 innings pitched.

He was a fourth round pick (number 126 overall) of the Braves in 2020 and signed for $449,300.