Bailey Ober was a 12th round pick out of the College of Charleston that looked more like gumby than a front line starter at six feet, 10 inches, and barely 250 pounds. He peaked as Twins’ 25th ranked prospect per MLB Pipeline and was never more than back-of-the-rotation afterthought.
In spite of that, he tore through every level of the minor leagues, has gotten better in each of his first few major league seasons, and just cemented himself as a borderline top of the rotation piece.
Here, I’m going to talk about the adjustments he made on his way to breaking out, why they worked, and what to expect from him next season.
I’m writing these break out pieces every week. Check out how Tarik Skubal became the best pitcher in baseball, why Hunter Greene is on the path to becoming an ace, and what gives Bryce Miller a sky-high ceiling here.
Change It Up
Ober’s changeup was always meant to be his calling card. Fangraphs graded it as a 60 and MLB Pipeline a 55 on the 20-80 scouting scale as he reached the majors while his fastball sat in the low-90s and reports on his breaking balls were mixed. Nevertheless, scouts agreed that changeup was a plus pitch.
Yet, it did not perform well early on in his career. The pitch had a negative run value in each of his first two big league stints and performed poorly overall, especially compared to other changeups across baseball.
Ironically, his results were still solid overall. He pitched to a 3.82 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 147 strikeouts over his first 148 1/3 major league innings spanning two seasons without his ‘best’ pitch performing well.
The issue that was nagging Ober’s changeup was inconsistency. Sometimes he was getting it right and sometimes he just wasn’t. Dan Hayes of the Athletic said the Twins asked Ober to change his arm slot in the upper minors and that affected the feel he had for the pitch.
Just before the 2023 season, Ober worked with Luke Hagerty from X2 Baseball – think, another Driveline or Tread type player development facility – to try and rediscover his changeup. Hagerty noticed that Ober’s middle finger wasn’t always in the same spot when he released the ball and that led to the pitch not always dropping as much as he wanted.
Randy Dobnak also helped Ober with the changeup grip when he was demoted to triple-A St. Paul to start the 2023 season.
All these tweaks amounted in a much, much more consistent changeup movement wise. There…