Ober's elite changeup the key to dominant stretch

MINNEAPOLIS -- It was last Tuesday, during Bailey Ober's last start, that Padres outfielder David Peralta simply said out loud what everybody’s been thinking about Ober for the last two months.

“Wow.”

One word captured by the television cameras, followed by a subtle but vigorous nod of respect and approval.

But there was very little of that happening on Monday at Target Field, when just about nothing -- including the changeup -- was working for Ober as he was rocked for a career-high nine runs in two innings before a thunderstorm halted play amid the Twins’ 10-6 loss to the Braves.

Ober said he essentially felt out of rhythm from the first pitch as the Braves halted his streak of 11 consecutive quality starts, the longest in the Majors this season. But when Ober has been on -- as he has been essentially all season -- Peralta’s awe is indicative of how good that changeup has been.

“I feel like it's just certain guys that [react like] that,” Ober said. “They'll give you a little bit of feedback. Like, Miguel Cabrera would do that a few times. Maybe Salvador Perez would do that.”

That changeup has been core to Ober’s profound success as the Twins’ most effective starter essentially all season, save Monday’s outing and his season-opening, eight-run blowup in Kansas City -- after which he’d posted a 3.05 ERA across his next 23 starts, entering Monday.

It’s the fifth-best changeup in all of baseball with its value of plus-10 runs this season, per Statcast’s “Run Value” metric (a measure of outcomes resulting from the pitch).

By its 40.5% whiff rate, it’s the third-best among all pitchers to use a changeup in at least 100 plate appearances this season, behind only Cole Ragans and Tarik Skubal. No such pitcher has a lower expected batting average against the pitch than the .158 mark against Ober’s changeup. We could go on and on.

“When your comfort pitch becomes a pitch other than your fastball, when it’s like the best pitch, the best-producing pitch, maybe even the best strike pitch if you need a strike … I think he’s reached that point with that pitch,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

And for all this, Ober credits Randy Dobnak for the tweak he made a year and a half ago to get to this version of the changeup.

It was back in April 2023, when a roster crunch pushed Ober off the MLB roster, that he was playing catch with Dobnak as part of the Triple-A St. Paul roster, and asked Dobnak what grip he used. Ober’s changeup had felt locked-in all offseason and into the spring, but it just felt off when Ober went to St. Paul.

Turns out, the grip Dobnak used was just the same one Ober had been using -- only rotated 90 degrees with respect to the seams of the baseball. It felt good, and Ober threw a 50-pitch bullpen session of only changeups to lock it in.

“It wasn't like I was trying to do anything,” Ober said. “I'm trying to do the same thing. It didn't feel different -- the ball just acted a little bit better.”

Ober changeup run value by season
2021: minus-1
2022: minus-1
(grip change)
2023: plus-8
2024: plus-10

With that minor grip change, Ober added about three more inches of drop and another inch of armside movement to the pitch, and while it was already a good offering for Ober in ‘23, it has become a great one with an extra year of seasoning.

The key this season has been that the location has grown far more consistent. Ober still felt last season he was leaving the changeup too far up at times, and by shifting his eyes down in his targeting of the pitch a bit, he is far more consistently spotting it just beneath the strike zone, where he has found immense success.

“If I throw one and it's a ball, I'm going to take it and tip my cap and say, ‘Good job taking the pitch,’” Ober said. “All I'm trying to do is just get it right underneath the strike zone.”

With Sonny Gray’s departure, the injury to Joe Ryan and Pablo López’s early struggles, the Twins have needed Ober to step up -- and he has, in a big way.

And while Monday wasn’t indicative of Ober’s relentless career-long consistency, he rebounded from that April blowup with one of the best stretches of his career -- and as the Twins look to him for another rebound, the changeup will be the key.