Smyly’s 'unicorn' curve baffling hitters

This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy is convinced that, if Drew Smyly were drafted in today’s data-driven environment, someone would try to alter his curveball on the lefty’s road to the big leagues. Chicago’s pitching group has embraced the breaking ball’s unique traits.

“It’s such a unicorn pitch,” Hottovy said. “Why wouldn’t we use it the way it plays?”

After Smyly flirted with a perfect game against the Dodgers in Friday’s 13-0 victory, veteran Cubs catcher Yan Gomes said the pitcher’s curveball often acts like a changeup. Hitters have thousands of breaking balls in their memory bank, but Smyly’s pitch can have a last-second fade that defies their internal programming.

For a lefty batter, the curve can break inside. Smyly said that is why he continued to send those “front-door curves” to the likes of Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy. When facing right-handed batters, Smyly tends to focus on keeping the pitch “arm side,” allowing the movement to veer toward the end of the bat, as opposed to running toward the barrel.

“Hitters are so good at envisioning where the ball is going to end up,” Smyly said. “Because it fades, I think a lot of times, when hitters swing and miss, they get pissed off. They feel like they should've hit it.”

After his gem against Los Angeles, Statcast puts Smyly in the 97th percentile for average exit velocity (82.4 mph), 93rd percentile for hard-hit rate (23.3%) and expected batting average (.167) and the 92nd percentile for expected slugging percentage (.246).

Against his curveball, hitters have a .200 average, .179 xBA and a 36.5% whiff rate. Looking at spin rate, Smyly’s curveball checks in at 2,086 RPM on average, ranking seventh-lowest in baseball (min. 50 results). That puts him in just the 10th percentile in that category, which makes Smyly chuckle a little.

“I joke all the time that my pitches are so bad, they're good,” Smyly said. “The talent meter hates me. They're so uniquely bad that it plays up.”

Smyly broke into the Majors in 2012 and remembers the early-career feedback centered around a need to have four pitches and pound the bottom of the strike zone. As baseball has evolved in this era of information and research, he has morphed into mostly a two-pitch starter with a plan revolving around fastballs up and knuckle-curves down. This season, he has thrown the exact number of curves (166) as fastballs (166), with a handful of cutters mixed in.

Over the years, Smyly has learned that he just does not fit that old mold of how a starting pitcher -- especially a lefty -- was supposed to look and operate. He has leaned into his unique strengths, and it has paid off so far in his Cubs tenure.

“Teams are always going to hunt out super talented individuals -- the stuff guys,” Smyly said. “But there's going to be outliers.”