Collette Calls: The Thing Has Returned

I am rather excited to write this week's installment because it is about one of my favorite pitchers as he continues his comeback from a series of unfortunate events. After watching two outings from Alex Cobb this season, I am rather giddy about what he could accomplish coming off an awful run in Baltimore the last three seasons. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present:

Cobb has been in the majors since 2011, and has had a number of things happen to him throughout his career. His rookie season ended with a blood clot in his chest that necessitated the removal of one of his ribs. He came back to baseball in 2012 to replace the injured (shocker) Jeff Niemann  and pitched in the front of the rotation in 2013 before taking an Eric Hosmer liner off the head and missing two months. I was at the game covering it for local radio, and to this day can remember the crack of the bat and the sickening thud of the ball striking Cobb on the mound as myself and maybe 8,000 people in the stands that night looked on. He resumed with a fine 2014 before Tommy John surgery was needed in spring 2015. He came back to pitch one more season in Tampa Bay before signing with Baltimore. Money is money, but the ballpark and division were a terrible fit for him and his numbers while with the club show it.

The Orioles traded Cobb to the Angels in the offseason for Jahmai Jones and not much thought was given to the deal where the Angels took on salary for yet another quantity arm as they compiled a handful of pitchers this season known more for quantity of innings than their quality of work. Through two outings, Cobb is looking good while doing things he has never done in his career. 

He opened the season with starts against the White Sox and Royals, allowing 14 baserunners in 11.2 innings while striking out 17. The 57 percent groundball rate is what we expect from Cobb but a 35 percent strikeout rate and a 31 percent K-BB% are well above his career highs. Peak Cobb struck out 23 percent of the hitters he faced with a 15 percent K-BB% in 2013, but around the hits (.393 BABIP!), he is generating strikeouts and not giving up free passes. Cobb is getting the work done by throwing the hell out of his changeup, long ago named, "The Thing." It is the pitch he taught Jake Odorizzi in their time together in Tampa Bay and the two pitches became known as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

I wonder whether Cobb is particularly enjoying the 2021 baseball and the seams other pitchers have talked about given he is throwing the pitch at a higher frequency than in any previous season. Cobb lost the pitch in his return from Tommy John surgery, and even his first full season back the pitch never looked like it did pre-surgery. This year, The Thing is back with a vengeance as both the White Sox and the Royals frequently swung and missed at the pitch:

He has thrown 88 splitters in 2021 — 39 to righties and 49 to lefties — and opponents have come up empty 47 percent of the time. It is worth noting that the improvements on the pitch began last season and that the splitter has slowing been returning to the form by which Cobb made his reputation earlier in the decade. The video clip below shows some highlights from his 2020 work where you can see the early works of his splitter coming back to its previous form:

He has made some mechanical adjustments in recent years to get more extension in his delivery with the pitch giving hitters just a bit less time to decide where the pitch is going to end up and whether they should offer at it:

The mechanical adjustment in the pitch began the journey of Cobb getting his former results from his moneymaker. The splitter is mostly used as a pitch that gives the appearance of a strike to the hitter before it falls out of the zone and below the swing plane, but note how hitters are even struggling this year with splitters he leaves in the strikezone in the table below:

Cobb only throws three pitches — splitter, sinker, curve — so he has his non-breaking balls working quite well in 2021. Many three-pitch guys tend to rely on two pitches to each type of hitter as many are reticent to throw offspeed pitches to same-handed hitters. Cobb, however, will throw all three of his pitches to righties and lefties with the sinker to both sides of the plate, the curve mostly away to righties and in to lefties, and the splitter the opposite pattern:

Cobb may or may not have another start before FAAB this weekend. If he does, he gets the Twins at home Sunday. If he doesn't, he has a true Texas two-step next week against the strikeout-prone Rangers and an Astros team that has this week been shut down by Casey Mize and Matthew Boyd after a red-hot start to the season beating up on the Athletics pitchers. Either way, I expect Cobb's price in FAAB to be higher if he comes off a good start against the Twins or gets the two-start week next week in leagues where streaming is the name of the game. The potential of a two-start this week was why he was my backup bid to Huascar Ynoa in TGFBI, and if not for Steve Cishek giving up a two-run single to Jorge Soler upon Cobb's performance, the win would have looked a bit better.

Cobb is owned in 54 percent of NFBC leagues and was started in 46 percent this week. I expect those numbers to rise next week, with good reason. The league-wide strikeout rate this season is already at 25 percent, so harvesting pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff can help cultivate that crop.