SPECULATOR: Snap judgments, 2022 pitchers

Some might say it's too early, but pitchers can change fast and this is the time to pounce.

By looking at per-pitch metrics like fastball velocity and swinging-strike rate (both available on Playerlink pages as Vel and SwK, respectively), we can pick up on early signs of a breakout… or of looming disaster.

Last year's exercise proved to be rather fruitful—we picked up on eventual breakouts from Sandy Alcantara, Max Fried, and Trevor Rogers, while also detecting early red flags for Kyle Hendricks. So we'll go back to that well with similar filters for 2022, asking ourselves the following question:

If this early performance is real, what might it look like over a full season?

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Higher velocity, more whiffs
Pitchers with three starts and...

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