PanniniClaus
Registered User
- Oct 12, 2006
- 10,330
- 4,461
You framed it much better than I did... You can see the confidence teams have against him.Yup. Burnes entire breakout was predicated on him dumping a traditional four seam fastball for a cutter. The cutter is his bread and butter pitch because for a time, it legitimately had an argument as best single pitch in the game.
His whiff rate has cratered on that pitch. I don't have the stats from tonight but I do know in his last start he threw 42 cutters for a total of 1 whiff. And then a hilarious 0 whiffs on 40 thrown in the start prior to that.
Compare it to 2021 when he won the Cy Young, his whiff% on the cutter was 32.9% In 2024? The cutter is down to an alarming 16% whiff rate. Batting average and slugging are also up.
If Burnes cutter is that bad now, he's done as an impact starter.