Last season, Kansas City Royals fans got a peek at what Scott Barlow could be: A shutdown reliever capable of tossing a 95-plus mph fastball and wicked breaking balls while also being a little erratic.
The 2022 season has been similar stat-wise, but it's different at the same time. Let's get into the changes from last year to this year and how those changes have helped Barlow.
The most obvious change is his pitch usage this season. For reference, in the 2021 season, Barlow threw his fastball 33.1% of the time. This year, he's used it 23.9% of the time. There may be a couple of reasons for this change in usage. The biggest reason could be the fact that he isn't throwing his fastball as hard as he once did, although he has thrown it harder recently. The offering is down two mph from last year (95.5 to 93.5).
Looking at run values for Barlow's pitches, his fastball is the only pitch to have a positive run value — this is bad — at 2. He's allowing a batting average of .367 and a .633 SLG against the pitch. That isn't great, but hitters could be focused on hitting that fastball because this year because no one is hitting Barlow's slider or curve.
The run values on those pitches are great, and one of them is on a career-best trajectory. Barlow's run value for the curveball is at negative-one, which is a tad worse than last year's negative-five figure. It isn't getting hit, though, as opponents are posting a .125 batting average and .250 SLG against it. That may be good, but Barlow's bread and butter this year is his slider.
Its run value is at a whopping negative-seven, that is already a career-high for Barlow. When looking at RV/100 (run value per 100 pitches), it's a negative-2.6 which, after some math, projects Barlow's slider to be at negative-14 to 15 by the end of the year. To add to this career year for his slider, it isn't getting hit (.196 BA) nor hit hard (.321 SLG). This dominance with the slider has led to some elite saves for Barlow.
In high-leverage spots this season, Barlow has completely shut the door. In 131/3 innings pitched in situations of that variety, he has given up an opposing slash line of .140/.191/.395. That's ridiculous, even with a small "slump" judging by monthly splits. He's a good candidate to recover and get back to being flat-out dominant rather than just great.
To make another comparison to Barlow's 2021 season, a good chunk of stats switch from improving to regressing. The ones that have improved are sweet spot%, hard-hit% and BB%. All have seen good improvements, ranging from drops of 2-4%. With that said, the ones that regressed are barrel%, all of the expected stats, and K%. All of these have been raised from last year and could lead to issues for Barlow down the road this season.
Right now, the Royals are seeing Barlow in his prime. They would be wise to trade one of the more underappreciated relievers in baseball to a contender for some nice prospects. Barlow's time in Kansas City is possibly coming to a close, but he has carved himself into owning a track record as one of the better relievers in Royals history.
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