Ryan Pepiot found his changeup

Ryan Pepiot rose through the minor leagues thanks to a sterling changeup, touted not only as the right-hander’s best pitch, but one of the best changeups in all of affiliate baseball. And, through his first stint with the Dodgers, the pitch delivered: In 2022, the opposition compiled a .196 wOBA against Pepiot’s changeup. 

But something novel happened towards the end of the 2023 season. Pepiot’s changeup faltered. In 28 innings to close the year, hitters posted a .510 SLG against the pitch, a dramatic turn of events that carried over into 2024, Pepiot’s first year with the Rays. On the pVAL scale, Pepiot’s changeup grades out as the worst single-season pitch of his young MLB career, at a -7. 

Over the first two months of the season, Pepiot threw his changeup markedly less; while the usage rate spiked in June, it has only since regained its productivity. 

Changeup	April	May	June	July
Pitch %	24%	25.2%	30%	29.2%
wOBA	.314	.343	.548	.081
SLG	.435	.667	.850	N/A

How, and why, did Pepiot rediscover his bread-and-butter? Our answer begins with the opposition. In his two starts leading into the All-Star Break, Pepiot faced the Yankees and Guardians, two teams that just so happen to fare well-below the league average against changeups. Cleveland’s left-handed hitters see more changeups than any other team’s LHB, yet their collective .274 wOBA ranks 21st in MLB. The Yankees are even worse, at 24th (.262 wOBA). 

On paper, at least, it seemed like a pretty good opportunity for Pepiot to reclaim his best pitch. But consider the circumstances: In June, LHB saw 68 changeups from Pepiot; they hit .450 (9-20), doing considerable damage. It was the worst month that Pepiot’s changeup had produced in his young career. 

Yet Pepiot trusted the pitch, and it paid dividends: In July, 50 changeups have baffled LHB to 0-for-15 with five strikeouts. It’s not a coincidence that Pepiot turned in back-to-back stellar starts, perhaps his best two-start stretch as a Ray (11.2 IP, 1 ER, 11 K). 

It’s simple, but Pepiot is just doing a better job of locating the changeup, placing it in spots that are beneficial. Earlier in the season, the changeup wasn’t an effective pitch for a strike, and it got knocked around in the zone, often when it bled into spots he wanted to avoid. So, Pepiot simply stopped throwing it for a strike. Simple enough, right?

In-Zone % to LHB	June	July
Changeup	48.5%	30%

LHB Chase Rate	June	July
Changeup	45.7%	52.9%

Interestingly enough, Pepiot’s LHB Chase Rate first spiked in June, which then paved the way for him to reduce its In-Zone % — and, subsequently, further spike the chase rate. Take a look at the heatmap of Pepiot’s changeup first in June, then in July. He clearly knows where he wants the changeup to LHB. 

But if he’s not throwing it for a strike, and it’s getting better results, there are additional factors at play here, too. Sequencing is one of them — Pepiot’s changeup is vastly better when he is ahead in the count (.201 wOBA vs. .749 wOBA), primarily because it’s best when it’s not in the zone. 

Let’s start with Pepiot’s start against the Yankees. With two men on in the first inning, Pepiot fooled Austin Wells on consecutive changeups, at 1-1 and then 1-2. These aren’t low and away, but they’re low, beneath the zone, and so they function similarly. 

How about this 2-2 pitch to Juan Soto — who, since entering the league, touts one of the lowest chase-rates in baseball. So, Pepiot keeps it low and away, but makes it a strike. And we can go a step further, here, to admire Pepiot’s sequencing. He threw a 1-2 slider diving into Soto’s feet, thereby setting up the pitch low and away. And he executed his spot to perfection. 

Pepiot posted a +2 pVAL against the Yankees, his best mark of the season. We were curious how he’d keep this momentum up against Cleveland and, turns out, the Guardians played into his hand. 

The Guardians did something interesting: They stacked nine left-handed hitters in the lineup against Pepiot. They’re not exceptionally dramatic, but Pepiot does have expected splits, inducing a .668 OPS to LHB compared to a .583 ops to RHB. And left-handed hitters have, to this point, hammered Pepiot’s changeup — they posted a .548 wOBA in June, the second-highest wOBA, by month, against a single pitch of Pepiot's this season. 

But Pepiot carved through Cleveland’s lineup, changeup in tow, with confidence. He threw the pitch 27.2% of the time (his fourth-highest usage this season), and it garnered a pVA of +1, the second-highest mark of the season. 

And, he took his sequencing to another level: Not one of his changeups came when he was behind in the count.

Let’s take a look at how Pepiot attacks Jose Ramirez, one of the game’s best hitters. If Ramirez has a weakness, it’s against changeups from the left-hand side — a .232 wOBA and .333 SLG. Pepiot did his homework. But he also executed, too. 

• At-Bat No. 1: Look at the run on these two pitches! Pepiot hurls a 2-2 changeup that Ramirez somehow gets a piece of, and then follows up with the ensuing pitch, which Ramirez doesn’t. 

• At-Bat No. 2: This changeup dips low and away, and Ramirez, having already seen two changeups in his first at bat, adjusts. He gets to it, but it’s in a spot where contact is conducive to Pepiot. The result is a groundout. 

• At-Bat No. 3: Pepiot keeps this changeup and the next one in the same location, but Ramirez, a seasoned hitter, is able to lift this one — just right into the mitt of Josh Lowe. It’s still a good pitch! Ramirez, three at bats in, countered; luckily for Pepiot, it found a glove. 

With all these changeups to Ramirez, Pepiot dots them all in the location that he wants. This is his evolution — no longer is he just relying on the pure abilities of his changeup. He is looking to maximize the pitch’s capability, throwing a nasty pitch in a spot that makes it even nastier. Subsequently, everything has changed. 

Changeup vs. LHB	June (68 changeups)	July (50 changeups)
GB%	33.3%	80%
LD%	46.7%	10%
Hard-Hit %	46.7%	30%
Swing-and-Miss %	28.6%	33.3%

The sample size may be small, but the disparity between the two months isn’t as vast as you might think; it’s just an 18-pitch difference. 

Moving forward, we’d like to see Pepiot keep this up. The Guardians presented an interesting challenge, one that Pepiot accepted, and that should funnel even more confidence going into the second half of his first full MLB season. Plus, it should take some of the onus off of his fastball, which has been near-perfect at the top of the zone. Should he firmly rediscover the changeup, Pepiot is well on his way to pairing the two pitches and forming the backbone of an ace-like arsenal.