Cristian Javier's Slider Deserted Him in 2023. Can He Get it Back This Season?
Cristian Javier regressed in 2023, thanks in large part to a slider that broke less and fooled fewer batters. Getting his slider back in 2024 is key for the Astros this year.
When we last saw Cristian Javier in the 2022 season, he was tasked with starting the most pivotal game of the Astros season—Game 4 of the World Series. He responded with a gem, throwing 6 shutout and no-hit innings to tie the series up and propel the Astros to a series win.
When we last saw Cristian Javier in the 2023 season, he was tasked with starting the most pivotal game of the Astros season—Game 7 of the ALCS. Let’s just say he did not throw a gem.
In many ways, the difference for the Astros between the 2022 and 2023 seasons are summed up by the difference in performance from Cristian Javier. In 2022, Javier established himself fully as one the team’s best pitchers—sporting a 2.54 ERA after 148.2 innings on the mound. In 2023, Javier struggle to a 4.56 ERA in 162 innings.
In 2022, Javier was excellent in all three of his playoff appearances. In the 2023 playoffs, he was quite good in two of his three.
Javier’s Projections for 2024 Look Like His 2023 Season
One possibility is that Javier just had a bad season in 2023. This happens and can be a function of bad luck or some slippage that is corrected over the offseason. In that case, the player often bounces back in the next season.
Looking at projections for Javier for the 2024 season, they do not think that Javier will bounce back. Instead, they think he will have another season like he did in 2023, rather than his excellent 2022.
The chart below shows Javier’s numbers in five rate statistics for 2022, 2023, and his ATC projections for 2024.
When a player has a good season and then a bad season, projections usually come out right in the middle. They clearly don’t in Javier’s case.
For example, in 2023, Javier’s strikeout rate declined to 23.1%, which is just above the league average rate of 22.7%. The projections think he will raise that rate only to 25.3% this season, a far cry from the 33.2% strikeout rate we saw from him in 2022.
Javier’s Slider Regressed
What went wrong for Javier in 2023? A big part of the answer is that his slider regressed and became an average pitch. The chart below shows Statcast data on Javier’s slider.
The top part of the table shows that Javier got worse results on his slider in 2023 than in 2022. Opponents batted .121 against Javier’s slider in 2022, but hit 90 points better against it in 2023. Javier gave up a slugging percentage of .223 on his slider in 2022 and a .367 slugging percentage in 2023.
The slider is used as a put away pitch by Javier and many other pitchers.. It is often darts out of the strike zone, inducing swings and misses. Javier induced fewer swings and misses in 2023. Batters whiffed on only 28.7% of the sliders Javier threw, down from an excellent 39..4% rate in 2022. Batters were able to square up Javier’s slider much more often; his hard hit rate increased from 22.6% in 2022 to 33.7% in 2023.
Less Break on the Slider in 2023
Why was Javier’s slider less effective in 2023? It moved less. The pitch’s vertical movement changed little, but the pitch got much less horizontal break. In 2022, the pitch moved 5.5 inches more than the average major league slider. In 2023, it moved only 2.5 inches more than average.
Breaking pitches such as a slider are effective in large part due to movement. When Javier has more movement in 2022, batters had a harder time making contact with his slider and when they did make contact, they rarely got good wood on the ball. In 2023, the pitch moved less, batters got their bat to it more often and hit it harder when they did.
These heat maps help show the difference in Javier’s slider between 2022 (left) and 2023 (right). In 2022, there is a lot more of the red out of the strike zone to Javier’s glove side. Throwing pitches outside of the strike that induce swings is a good way to get whiffs and weak contact.
In 2023, the heat map is larger, which shows that Javier’s slider was less precise. In short, he had less command of the pitch. He was less likely to throw it out of the strike zone and more likely to throw it in the center of the plate—see the deep spot of red there.
Overall, the heat maps shows that Javier threw his slider more in 2023 to spots where batters like it and less to spots where he liked it.
Can Javier Improve His Slider in 2024?
The run value metric shows that Javier’s slider was worth 8 runs above average in 2022. That made it the 20th best slider in the MLB, according to Statcast data. In 2023, the slider was worth 2 runs less than average. Or to put it another way, Javier’s slider was ranked 308th in run value among the 454 MLB pitchers who threw a slider in 2023.
Cristian Javier’s slider regressed to the mean in 2023 and with it, so did his strikeout rate and ERA. The pitch had less movement in 2023 and thus went from one of the best in the majors to an average pitch. As you can see from the projections cited above, the expectation in those number is that Javier’s slider does not return to form in 2024.
Javier is of course a key member of the Astros starting rotation in 2024 and beyond, so an improvement in his slider is vital to the Astros fortunes. One of the big things when Spring Training starts is to see what, if any adjustments, Javier, the pitching coaches and the player development staff make to his slider. He’ll need to improve it.