Here are my thoughts on Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Yamamoto obviously was not quite as advertised during his debut. It all stemmed from a location issue, especially on the splitter. He pretty much shelved the splitter after he couldn’t locate it against Machado and after hitting Tatis with it. Without the splitter, it’s not nearly as good of an arsenal. There’s good tunneling between the cutter and fastball, but they’re pretty similar pitches which won’t lead to many whiffs. The curveball is also super easy to spot, as it would be his only off-speed pitch. But by themselves, the fastball and curveball are extremely good pitches, he has above average vertical and horizontal break on both pitches (including nearly 5.5 feet of vertical break on the curveball). I think no matter what Yamamoto shouldn’t shelve the splitter, it’s good enough to get whiffs no matter where it is and lets the fastballs play up. I think Yamamoto should be fine, but after a Spring without great command and after this start, there are definitely signs that he might have a tougher go in his first year than expected.
Here are my thoughts on Yoshinobu Yamamoto:
Yamamoto obviously was not quite as advertised during his debut. It all stemmed from a location issue, especially on the splitter. He pretty much shelved the splitter after he couldn’t locate it against Machado and after hitting Tatis with it. Without the splitter, it’s not nearly as good of an arsenal. There’s good tunneling between the cutter and fastball, but they’re pretty similar pitches which won’t lead to many whiffs. The curveball is also super easy to spot, as it would be his only off-speed pitch. But by themselves, the fastball and curveball are extremely good pitches, he has above average vertical and horizontal break on both pitches (including nearly 5.5 feet of vertical break on the curveball). I think no matter what Yamamoto shouldn’t shelve the splitter, it’s good enough to get whiffs no matter where it is and lets the fastballs play up. I think Yamamoto should be fine, but after a Spring without great command and after this start, there are definitely signs that he might have a tougher go in his first year than expected.