Kikuchi 'smooth' in strong Cactus debut 

PEORIA, Ariz. -- If 2021 is the year that Yusei Kikuchi puts it all together, his Cactus League debut on Tuesday afternoon offered a promising first start.

Kikuchi was economical, diverse and overpowering. He needed just 29 pitches to get through two innings, flashed his entire arsenal -- including two secondary pitches for strikeouts -- and dialed his four-seam fastball up to 96 mph while sitting around 95 for most of the outing in the Mariners' 6-1 loss to Cleveland at Peoria Sports Complex. He also reinstalled the hesitation to his planting (right) leg that he ditched last year and said he saw immediate results. He gave up one run, one hit and one walk while punching out three.

• Notes: Paxton pushed back; Trammell's hustle

It was just a Spring Training game against Cleveland’s "B" lineup, but the outing put some backing to what Kikuchi and the Mariners have been enthused about dating to last season.

“I’m just really glad that my hard work that I put in the offseason showed up today. … Things are a lot easier for me this year, a lot more smooth. It is my third year, so everything's a lot more smooth compared to my first two years,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter.

As Kikuchi enters Year 3 in the Majors, the Mariners believe he’s laid the foundation for a “breakout,” general manager Jerry Dipoto said, and the underlying metrics suggest as much. Statcast data helps paint a clearer -- but far from definitive -- picture, using batted balls with similar exit velocities and launch angle to yield hit probabilities, which in turn yield “expected” metrics. Kikuchi’s expected metrics in 2020 gave some validation to Dipoto’s assertion that the lefty was Seattle’s most “unlucky” pitcher.

Kikuchi’s actual vs. expected metrics, 2020
BA: .236 |. 232
SLG: .366 | .324
wOBA: .295 | .279
ERA: 5.17 | 3.51

Kikuchi’s gap to his xERA was the third largest among 108 qualified pitchers. An explanation behind that would be that the quality of contact he surrendered wasn’t nearly as hard-hit as the year prior. He gave up just three homers in 2020’s shortened season compared to 36 in ’19, third-most in MLB.

“Everything that he was doing suggested that he should be experiencing more success,” Dipoto said. “I don’t know that we had a single pitcher that was probably more unlucky than Yusei last year. Some of it was due to a bullpen that didn’t do him a ton of favors with the runners he left on, and some was just luck. I know it’s been an inconsistent couple of years, albeit one truncated season. But we love his stuff.”

That stuff is the other big factor here, and he showed no lag on Tuesday from the strong developments within his repertoire that he had in 2020, when he had a significant jump in fastball velocity (from an average of 92.5 to 95 mph), generated far more swings and misses from his slider (25.9% to 38.7%) and leaned on his cutter more than ever (40% of his total usage).

Highest average four-seam fastball velocity, LHP SPs 2020
1. Jesús Luzardo, OAK: 95.4 mph
2-T. Yusei Kikuchi, SEA: 95.0 mph
2-T. Blake Snell, TB: 95.0 mph
4. Tarik Skubal, DET: 94.4 mph
5. Julio Urías, LAD: 94.2 mph

MLB.com’s Mike Petriello recently profiled Kikuchi’s fastball and likened it to Snell’s based on Statcast data. Beyond the benefits of missing more bats, Kikuchi’s velocity uptick should lead to a more effective fastball, which in turn should help better set up those secondary pitches.

Overall, Kikuchi saw a jump in his strikeout rate (16.1% to 24.2%) and ground-ball rate (44% to 52%). As Petriello noted, there were only eight pitchers (minimum 40 innings) with a grounder rate over 50% and a strikeout rate that high, including high-profile names Clayton Kershaw, Hyun Jin Ryu, Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray.

These numbers all paint a glossy picture, but Kikuchi’s next step will be exhibiting more stability. In 41 starts, Kikuchi has only gone more than six innings five times, including none in 2020, when he had at least one 25-pitch inning in each of his nine outings.

“It's the consistency of getting it in the strike zone and staying ahead in the count, controlling the counts,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.

Kikuchi is a big part of Seattle’s plans for 2021, and in many ways it’s a big year for his long-term outlook. He carries a $13 million player option for ’22, but the far more lucrative path would be to the club options for ’22-25, valued at $66 million, which the Mariners must execute all at once or not at all after this year’s World Series. In that vein, there is quite a bit to play for beyond helping Seattle build upon a third-place finish in the American League West.