Why Pepiot should benefit from fresh start with Rays

This story was excerpted from Adam Berry's Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. PETERSBURG -- If not for a left oblique strain sustained in his last scheduled Spring Training outing, Ryan Pepiot might have established himself as a key part of the Dodgers' rotation out of the gate this past season.

Now, he’ll get that opportunity with the Rays.

Tampa Bay picked up a pair of intriguing young big leaguers from the Dodgers in the trade that sent Tyler Glasnow and Manuel Margot to Los Angeles. The Rays don’t want to saddle either new acquisition with outsized expectations, but they could be plug-and-play replacements for the players they gave up -- Jonny DeLuca as a versatile right-handed hitter in Tampa Bay’s outfield mix and Pepiot as part of the Rays’ post-Glasnow rotation.

The 26-year-old Pepiot, listed at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, doesn’t have Glasnow’s raw stuff or freakish athleticism. Few pitchers, if any, do. But Pepiot has shown plenty of promise in his limited time with the Dodgers, and he’ll get a chance to take off with the Rays.

“He’s big. He’s strong. He’s athletic. Exceptional changeup. Fastball that plays above the velocities. A developing breaking ball that gives him three pitches that give him a very good chance to be a good Major League starter,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said. “I think he’s very close to that.”

Pepiot debuted for the Dodgers in 2022 and put up some strong surface-level numbers -- including a 3.47 ERA with 42 strikeouts in 36 1/3 innings -- but there were two red flags. The right-hander didn’t have a reliable third pitch, and he walked nearly 17 percent of the batters he faced, which led to him pitching into the sixth inning just once in seven starts that season.

Pepiot acknowledged his command issues last spring, telling MLB.com's Juan Toribio, “I think it was a combination of trying to throw too hard, trying to do a little too much.” He might have quickly put that behind him last season, but he wound up on the shelf until Aug. 19 due to an oblique injury. When he came back, though, he was a different pitcher in two key ways.

The improvement in his command was noticeable. Pepiot attacked hitters, throwing 49.1 percent of his pitches in the strike zone compared to 43.6 percent in 2022. That commitment to the zone presented other problems for hitters, as Pepiot's chase rate also improved from 26.4 percent to 32.1 percent.

Additionally, Pepiot’s breaking ball took on a new shape. He threw it harder, at an average of 88.8 mph compared to 86.7 mph in 2022, with less vertical movement. The revamped slider generated a .239 wOBA and 32.6 percent whiff rate, making it a solid third offering alongside a mid-90s fastball with good carry and an excellent changeup that’s been his calling card to this point.

Put it all together, and Pepiot only walked five of the 159 hitters he faced, while recording a 2.14 ERA and a 0.76 WHIP in eight outings down the stretch in 2023.

“The stuff is in a pretty good place, but I think the strike-throwing -- be it mentality, be it mechanical adjustments, what have you -- is something that we saw take a meaningful step forward,” Neander said. “When you have three pitches, some depth to the menu, with good stuff, and the strike-throwing really starts to come on, that gives you a lot of room for impacting a rotation. … We’ll get him in, but feel like that’s very much right in front of him.”

So is a new opportunity, with a new team.