What's Wrong With Jose Urquidy?
Opposing hitters are making more contact against Urquidy than in previous seasons, and a large share of that contact has been hard.
It happened quickly. Last night, Jose Urquidy seemed to be pitching well. He had gotten out of a jam in the top of the 3rd inning allowing only 1 run, and then the Astros regained the lead in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the 4th, Urquidy allowed an infield single and a fly out to left field.
And then…Mariner catcher Cal Raleigh hit the ball 102 MPH into the Astros bullpen. A batter later, Ty France hit it 106 MPH into the Crawford Boxes. The lead was gone, and Urquidy again watched his ERA go up in another disappointing loss for the Astros.
The key word in that sentence above is again. Urquidy now sports a 5.04 ERA, in a season marked so far by up-and-down performances from the 4th year hurler.
Urquidy is a unique pitcher, especially in modern baseball. He relies heavily on command and mixing a wide variety of pitches to be an effective pitcher. But Urquidy lacks high quality stuff that can force batters to swing and miss. Usually good stuff starts in the strike zone and then bends out of it, forcing batters to chase pitches that they make weak contact on, if they can make contact at all. Because Urquidy lacks those type of pitches, he usually stays in the strike zone. This means Urquidy walks very few batters, but it also means that opponents are more likely to make contact with his pitches and put the ball in play.
As a result, Urquidy has less margin for error than other starters. He needs to put the ball in the right places in the strike zone and successfully mix his 5 pitches to keep batters off balance. Small differences in how Urquidy throws the ball can lead to large differences on the scoreboard.
And those small differences have worked against him this season. I have reviewed Urquidy’s stats and metrics and have found two major issues for Urquidy this season: 1) he is missing fewer bats than he has in previous seasons, and 2) when opponents make contact with Urquidy’s pitches, they are hitting it harder than ever.
I analyze both of these elements of Urquidy’s game this season below.
More Contact
In 2021, Urquidy induced a miss on 24.9% of the swings that opposing batters took. That was not a career high—he had a 28.3% whiff rate in his debut season of 2019—but it was an upgrade from this poor (and COVID-riddled) 2020 season. This year, Urquidy’s whiff rate has declined to 21.6%. You can see the shift in Urquidy’s whiff rate in the figure below.
You can also see the other result from the reduced levels of swing and miss in Urquidy’s pitching this year—more contact. Batters are making more contact when Urquidy pitches inside the strike zone (Zone Contact %), and more contact when Urquidy makes opponents chase a pitch outside of the strike zone (Chase Contact %).
And opposing batters have decided that is they are less likely to miss an Urquidy pitch when they swing, that they should swing more often. Opponents have increased their swing percentage against Urquidy pitches in 2022. In fact, opposing hitters have increased their swing percentage against Urquidy every season of his career.
As noted above, Urquidy stays in the strike zone and lacks a “putaway” pitch. Opponents have adjusted to this by swinging more. They are unlikely to miss when they swing. And this year, when they swing and make contact, it is usually good contact.
Hard Contact
We saw that good contact from opposing hitters last night. Raleigh and France both made hard contact when they hit their homers. J.P. Crawford, usually considered a defense-first shortstop, hit a hanging curveball from Urquidy 99 MPH for a double in the 5th. He later came around to score the 5th run for the Mariners. But those three weren’t alone. Last night, the Mariners hit 7 balls off of Urquidy at 95 MPH or more (95 MPH is the Baseball Savant standard for a “Hard Hit” ball).
But those seven hard hit balls were not isolated events. Nor can they be chalked up to just a bad night for Urquidy. Entering last night’s game, Urquidy had given up a Hard Hit % of 46.4%. If that seems high, that’s because it is. That’s the 10th worst rate in the major leagues.
Statcast measures another stat they call “barrels.” It adds launch angle to exit velocity and identifies balls that that an ideal mix of both. Barrels are good for hitters, because they often home runs, and the remainder are usually extra base hits. And they are bad for pitchers.
Urquidy had allowed 21 barrels before last night’s game, which was tied for 6th highest in the majors. And he was 7th highest in MLB on barrels allowed per plate appearance.
And if you want to use more traditional stats, it is not much better. Urquidy has allowed 11 home runs this season, tied for 8th most in MLB.
You can get a sense of the decline in the contact that Urquidy has allowed this season compared to previous seasons based on the figures below. These look at the percentile rank of Urquidy among major league pitchers in contact allowed.
The figure on the left shows Urquidy’s rank in barrels allows and barrel percentage. These numbers have decline every year, and Urquidy currently sits at the 11th percentile in barrel rate and the 1st percentile in barrels allowed.
The figure on the right shows Urquidy’s ranking in exit velocity and hard hit rate. You can see a clear improvement in Urquidy’s numbers on these metrics from 2020 to 2021. But these numbers have declined below his 2020 rates in the 2022 season, Urquidy currently sits at the 12th percentile in hard hit percentage and the 7th percentile in exit velocity.
In particular, Urquidy has been hurt on his four-seam fastball. In 2021, Urquidy allowed a batting average of .237, a slugging percentage of .423, and a hard hit rate of 40.8% on his fastball. This season, the numbers have been much worse; Urquidy has allowed a batting average of .313, a slugging percentage of .563, and a hard hit rate of 54.6% on his fastball. And since the fastball is the pitch that Urquidy throws most often (53% this season), it has had a disproportionate impact on Urquidy’s numbers this season.
The Astros Believe Urquidy Can Turn It Around
Opposing batters are more likely to swing at and make contact with pitches from Jose Urquidy in 2022, and are also more likely to hit the ball hard when they do make contact. This is not a good combination.
Urquidy has allowed a high BABIP (.351), and one might be tempted to blame Urquidy’s bad numbers on bad luck. Other Astro hurlers have benefitted from the team’s excellent defense to sport low BABIP numbers. But the hard hit and exit velocity data show the limits of that argument. Opponents are hitting for a high batting average against Urquidy because they are able to hit the ball hard. The bad ERA for Urquidy is not a fluke.
Yet, the Astros are convinced that Urquidy can return to the form he showed before as a productive major league starter. After last night's game, pitching coach Josh Miller said that Urquidy’s “stuff has largely been good. He just needs to execute better.”
Manager Dusty Baker said “Things go in cycles. They go good and then they go bad. He’s much better than he’s pitching,” and then talked about how there is still two-thirds of the season for Urquidy to improve.
Urquidy himself said that he has to “improve my offspeed for sure, with good intent and conviction…I think I’m going to keep working and get better.”
These postgame quotes from last night show a coaching staff that is not panicking about Urquidy’s rough start to the 2022 season, and a public belief that with some adjustments, Urquidy will pitch better.
The case for optimism about Urquidy is that he has pitched better than this throughout his career and, as a result, he is likely to return to the form that we have seen from him previously. You can hear Miller and Baker implicitly making that case for their starting pitcher.
There is good reason to believe this argument. Urquidy is established by now and has a track record that is better than what we have seen so far this season.
But that track record runs counter to the hard hit balls we have seen again and again by batters facing Urquidy. He does need to make those adjustment to regain his form. And the sooner, the better.