On February 12, the Dodgers and Marlins made a deal that sent Dylan Floro to the Marlins, while the Dodgers received Alex Vesia and 2020 Marlins draft pick Kyle Hurt. Dylan Floro has been a solid piece in the Dodgers bullpen since 2018 and owns a career 3.33 ERA with great peripheral numbers, including a 3.77 SIERA(Skill interactive ERA, stat that measures only factors that the pitcher can control, so it is a good indicators of the pitchers true skill), per Fangraphs. He will make a good addition to a Marlins bullpen that was less than stellar last year.
The Dodgers return is the main piece of the deal that no one is talking about. Vesia, 24, made his major league debut last year and it was rough he had an ERA hovering around 18 and his FIP was much better at around 14. But these numbers from a 5 game sample size which is basically nothing in the grand scheme of things. But looking at his minor league numbers he owns a career 1.62 ERA in two seasons with excellent strikeout and walk rates. But good minor league numbers aren’t enough to justify someone being the steal of the offseason, there is something more to Vesia’s game which can be easy to overlook. Vesia throws an impressive 92 mph fastball, impressive not because it is 92 miles per hour(that is rather unimpressive) but Vesia gets a lot of vertical movement on his fast ball, 12.1 inches to be exact which is a little more than 4 inches over the average and he has a 99% spin efficiency. What this means is that Vesia’s fastball gets so much backspin that it resists the force of gravity. To explain the effect of this I will use a pitch with no back spin like a curveball. When thrown a curveball goes with gravity and falls down as it gets closer to home plate. A fastball, on the contrary, has backspin, resists gravity and drops less to basically stay straight. With enough back spin the pitch can seem like it has a rising effect, making it very difficult to hit and Vesia’s fastball is one of the best! For comparison, Trevor Bauer, foreign substance use aside, has a 11.6 inches of vertical movement (3.9 vs the average) on his fastball and he just won Cy Young.
Now I am not saying that Vesia is going to be a Cy Young winner, there are plenty of guys with a lot of vertical movement on their fastball who are average pitchers. But Vesia is going to the Dodgers, who arguably have one of the best player development departments in the MLB. If any team could figure out the most effective way to use Vesia it would be the Dodgers, and they’ve done it before. Every year there is a pitcher who comes out of nowhere and has an amazing season for the Dodgers. Last year it was Jake Mcgee, this year who knows who it could be, but I would not be surprised if it’s Alex Vesia.
All stats are from Fangraphs and Baseball Savant
Wow great article Eeshaan