With the start of the D1 College Baseball Season just days away, I thought it would be fitting to take a look at some of the talent taking the field right here in the Bronx. After winning the conference and making an appearance in the 2019 National Tournament, the Rams finished the extremely abbreviated 2020 season with a record of 10-6. One of the keys to Fordham’s progression to the top has been their dominant pitching staff, which will be led this season by senior ace Matt Mikulski. In four starts last season, Mikulski pitched to the tune of a 1.29 ERA, ending the shortened season on a 16-inning scoreless streak. With Mikulski ready to lead the Rams onto the field in just a few days, what should we expect from the 6’2'' hard throwing lefty?
In his most recent conference preview, Patrick Ebert of D1 Baseball had high praise for Mikulski, naming him the preseason A10 pitcher of the year and the top draft prospect in the conference. Citing his low-90’s fastball, strong power slider, and increased command, it’s safe to say Ebert expects big things from #37 in 2021. But what if I told you Mikulski may very well be better than advertised?
2020 Season Statistics
Fall 2020 Scrimmage Statistics
By all means, 2020 was a great snippet of a season for Matt, but as we head into the new season, something feels different. Throughout this year’s fall scrimmages, Mikulski was averaging two strikeouts an inning and seemed to have extra life on his fastball. His command was elite, throwing 69% strikes and walking only 4 batters over 13 innings. Watching with awe, players and coaches alike could tell Mikulski had found a new level of dominance when it came to his fastball. But what was it?
Before the start of this season, Mikulski’s fastball was ironically his worst pitch. During his first three seasons at Fordham, batters slashed .276/.401/.398 against his heater and .212/.267/.275 against all other pitches. As Director of Analytics for the Fordham baseball team, I spent the spring and summer identifying ways for our players to improve their craft. When it came to Matt, the improvement was clear: he needed a better fastball. After analyzing Rapsodo data and watching film, I was able to identify Matt’s biggest weakness: a high gyro spin and low spin efficiency. For those unfamiliar with gyro spin (formally known as gyroscopic spin) I refer you to the following video that offers a great summary. Spin efficiency measures the amount of active spin on a pitch. In other words, it measures the percent of total spin that directly affects movement on the ball during flight, which is crucial when looking at fastballs.
Pre 2020 Season Rapsodo Data
With a gyro spin of nearly 34 degrees, Mikulski was significantly turning his wrist inwards at the point of release. This resulted in a fastball that had a spin efficiency of barely 80 percent. In other words, only 1950 of his total 2361 RPMs were active in creating movement on the pitch. To get the most “life” out of a fastball, pitchers generally look for a spin efficiency at or close to 100%. For a fastball, high gyro and low spin efficiency are never a good thing. In today’s game of baseball, pitchers are relying on the fastball up (in the zone) with a great deal of vertical break to produce strikeouts and weak contact. In order for one’s heater to “play” up in the zone, it must possess almost entirely backspin, and therefore very little gyro spin. For these reasons, it was clear that Matt needed to focus on eliminating gyro spin and replacing it with backspin.
Pre 2021 Season Rapsodo Data
With this knowledge in mind, Mikulski spent the summer and fall tweaking his delivery and using tools like Clean Fuego to eliminate gyro spin on his fastball. After working tirelessly for months, using Rapsodo and video to track his progress, Mikulski had transformed his fastball. As seen in the graphic above, Mikulski was able to cut his gyro spin by nearly ten degrees, increase his spin efficiency by eight percent, and in the meantime, add over 2 miles an hour of velocity. Combined with his already electric off-speed weapons, Mikulski dominated the fall scrimmages, striking out 27 of the 46 batters he faced, with 17 of them coming on the fastball.
With these few improvements, Mikulski may be even better than most experts expect. For the first time in his Fordham career, he has a truly overpowering fastball to complement his filthy offspeed stuff. Expect lots of high heat, swing and misses, and strikeouts from Matt Mikulski as he leads the Rams in their quest for another A10 Conference championship and an automatic bid into the D1 College Baseball Tournament.