Atlanta Braves new lefty Tommy Milone: a deeper look at the new arm in town
By Fred Owens
Tommy Milone’s arsenal is typical of a soft-tossing lefty, offspeed and breaking pitches designed to ruin timing.
Milone’s repertoire consists of…
- an 86 mph fastball he throws 45% of the time that, on StatCast, seems to get a lot of the plate;
- a 79 MPH change he throws down-and-in to LHH/down-and-away to RHH 39% of the time;
- a slider at 80 mph he throws down-and-in to RHH/down-and-away to LHH.
The key to his success this year, aside from the general inability of batters to hit for average early, seems to lay in his ability to keep hitters off-balance, by using a mix of his change, slider, and fastball.
If that sounds familiar, it should; it’s a similar strategy to the one Josh Tomlin’s uses except Tomlin uses more FB and Milone more offspeed. The table comes for player pages on Fangraphs using Pitch Info numbers.
| Season | Team | FB | Breaking % | CH% | |
| Tomlin | 2020 | Braves | 69.7% | 27.7% | 2.6% |
| Milone | 2020 | Orioles | 45.5% | 15.7% | 38.6% |
I combined Tomlin’s cut fastball with his four-seam fastball because they are both fastballs. Similarly, I combined Milone’s slider and curve because they are both breaking pitches.
Righties hit Milone a 100 points higher than lefties and slug 200 points higher, but he does strikeout RHH more often.
| Season | TBF | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | |
| 2020 | LHH | 34 | 1 | 2 | 8 | .194 | .242 | .323 | .247 |
| 2020 | RHH | 95 | 4 | 2 | 23 | .300 | .326 | .522 | .357 |
Milone’s best pitch this season is his change; it carries a 36% WHIFF rate; batters hit .258/.233/.500 against it, and he’s successfully used it as his out pitch 25.3% of the time.
He isn’t using the change more often, and all movement numbers look the same, so its increased effectiveness is hard to explain.
His four-seam fastball as his second-highest Whiff rate at 21.8%, and he used it to put batters away 20.5% of the time. Once again, there’s no significant change in his movement or velocity, and like his change, there’s no easy explanation, other than the hitters haven’t yet adjusted to it.
The Atlanta Braves first discussed Milone when Mike Soroka tore his achilles tendon. Milone told Alex Anthopoulos that his improved numbers come from better mechanics. Perhaps he’s hiding the ball more effectively and making it harder for hitters to pick up the pitch out of his hand.