By Jonah Drew

Hunter Greene has long wowed relatively casual viewers with his eye popping velocity going all the way back to his time at Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, California. This led to him being selected 2nd Overall in the 2017 Draft by Cincinnati. Greene did not pitch in pro baseball in between the 2018 and 2021 season. Greene came back strong in 2021, a 3.30 ERA in 106.0 IP spread across Double A and Triple A. This is somewhat expected against lower quality hitters considering the sheer velocity Greene throws with. However, his splits between Double and Triple A were very telling, against lower level AA hitters he dominated to the tune of a 1.93 ERA, these are hitters who have likely never faced velocity of this caliber. On the other hand, in 14 AAA starts, Greene posted a 4.13 ERA, AAA consists largely of current and future big leaguers, who are able to handle velocity.

There is a common misconception among these casual baseball consumers that velocity is the lone factor in determining the quality of a 4 Seam Fastball. This could not be further from the truth, there are multitude of things that go into grading a fastball. Some of these things entail, spin rate, induced vertical break, and vertical approach angle. Unfortunately, Hunter Greene struggled with these tertiary fastball characteristics. This led to his fastball getting absolutely pillaged since his Major League debut back in 2022, headlined by an absolutely abysmal -12 Run Value on the pitch this past season. Pair this with just one reliable secondary and real control issues and you get a below average starter. That is exactly what Greene has been these past 2 years, posting a 95 and 98 ERA+ in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

This all sounds extremely negative regarding the future outlook for the flamethrowing right hander but Greene has made tangible tweaks to his arsenal that have shown to be successful both in the short and long term.

Greene’s First 2 Starts of 2024:

3.30 vs Washington: 4.2 IP 5 Hits 2 ERs 7 Ks 4 BBs 17 Whiffs

4.5 vs New York: 6 IP 3 Hits 1 ER 6 Ks 1 BB 16 Whiffs

Greene’s 2024 Stat line:

10.2 IP 2.53 ERA 2.77 FIP 2.47 xERA .165 xBAA .253 xwOBAcon

A stark contrast from his below average 2022 and 2023.

It is clear that Hunter Greene went into this past off-season with a motive to make changes to his stuff to help him improve. Let’s start with the Fastball, Greene is still sitting 99 MPH, ranking in the 100th percentile but the change comes in the shape department. Greene’s 4 Seamer had a vertical movement vs avg. of -.3 in 2023, he has raised this mark up to .7. This is a significant boost to his fastball shape which had been a serious question in the past. Making his shape even slightly above average goes a long way, considering the velocity it could take the pitch from batting practice to borderline plus.

Greene has also made significant improvements to both his secondary offerings. Starting with his Slider, a pitch that has been his most successful in his MLB career thus far. The pitch generated a .176 xBAA and 39.2% whiff rate in 2023, both of which are elite marks. Greene has refined the pitch and made it better than it already was, getting it’s stuff+ all the way up 152, second in all of baseball, just behind Aaron Civale of the Rays. Now to his 3rd Pitch, in 2023, Greene threw a changeup just over 5% of the time and it got absolutely rocked, knowing this, Greene scraped the pitch in favor of a split finger. He uses this pitch at a similar rate but has has much more success in the early going. The pitch has a spin rate of just over 1100 RPM and has not allowed a single hit yet, although it is obviously, very very early on.

Hunter Greene is clearly a much improved pitcher with a much improved arsenal. Greene has always been able to rack up Strikeouts thanks to his devastating slider which is only getting better, as are the rest of his pitches. His K rate has been in the 30% range and he looks to be on track to repeat that rate, if not improve upon it. He is also not giving up nearly as much hard contact as he previously was, so far his Hard Hit rate is in the 75th percentile, compared to just the 16th percentile in 2023. Greene looks to be blossoming into the potential ace that everyone thought he could be. This is a lesson to all baseball fans, do not be so quick to give up on pitchers, especially not ones with the raw talent of Hunter Greene, remember, he is still just 24 years old despite being drafted all the way back in 2017.

Sources

Baseball Reference

Baseball Savant

Fangraphs