The Pitch Mix
Fastball (93 MPH), Slider (87 MPH), Curveball (80 MPH)
In his first go-round in the big league, he primarily used the fastball (41%), slider (35%), and curveball (21%).
With his size at 6-foot-7 and 250 pounds, I expected the fastball to have more life. In the starts with the Braves I watched, he was mostly sitting 92-93 with the fastball — especially late in games as he wasn’t able to hold his velocity.
They register his fastball as a four-seamer, but to me, it looks more like a cutter breaking in on righties.
In fact, on the broadcasts, Paul Byrd kept calling it a cut-fastball. Statcast shows the horizontal break of his four-seam fastball at 6.5 inches, which isn’t a lot by comparison.
But I also think it’s the somewhat side-arm angle he uses that makes it look like it has more cutting action.
The slider is what gives him a chance to be really good. He threw it a ton at the big league level and got great results with it. Batters hit just .138 against the pitch and whiffed 34.6 percent of the time they swung at it.
His curveball has some very good, late drop on it and was highly effective as well with a Whiff% of 48.1. But I thought he left the curveball up in the zone way too much and wasn’t able to command it as consistently.
Muller will also throw a change-up and sinker, but neither are considered primary pitches at this point.