When the Yankees acquired Mark Leiter Jr. at last year’s deadline, the hope was that he would add some much-needed swing-and-miss to a depleted bullpen. The lack of velocity on his fastball made him an easy target to hunt early in counts and ambush for home runs last season, which caused him to be left off the roster in the postseason until Ian Hamilton got hurt.
This season, he’s seen a massive boost in velocity, and it’s taken a bad sinker and made it an effective pitch. He’s a swing-and-miss machine right now, and while he isn’t the best reliever on the team, he’s an important cog in the middle innings who can stabilize the middle of this bullpen.
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The Yankees are getting a lot of production from their bullpen outside of Devin Williams right now, and Mark Leiter Jr. is one of the names doing a job right now. He’s got a 2.92 ERA and 2.40 FIP through 14 appearances as he’s struck out 37.5% of batters faced and has reduced the HR/9 rate from 1.24 to 0.73 from last season. His sinker has seen a massive uptick in Stuff+ from 88 to 103 as he’s seen a 2.2 MPH increase in fastball velocity with some more vertical ride and run than last season.
It’s a dead-zone fastball, but the reason it works is because Mark Leiter Jr. has a high arm angle, which makes the horizontal movement he gets a bit more unique. Furthermore, the fastball works well with his splitter because there’s a good amount of vertical separation with roughly 8 MPH of velocity separation. He’s able to throw sinkers up in the zone and splitters down, and his slow curveball is a strong third pitch that can steal strikes as well.
All three of those pitches have a wOBA below .300, and while his splitter and curveball were both excellent pitches last year, his sinker has gotten significantly better from last season.
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The increase in fastball velocity makes this pitch far more usable in the zone, and I’d argue the command of that pitch is pretty good as well. He is throwing it up in the zone to try and get some soft contact and swings and misses, but since hitters are geared up for the splitter, his sinker ends up being deceptive. His slow curveball also has a massive velocity difference versus his fastball and splitter which plays into Mark Leiter Jr.’s ability to change speeds and eye levels in a count.
Hitters went from an 88.8 MPH exit velocity to an 83.2 MPH this season, and the underlying data suggests this is one of the best relievers in the game right now. His 29.2% K-BB% is 15th among qualified relievers, while his 1.97 SIERA ranks 17th, and if he can continue to get strikeouts at the rate he has, the Yankees could have a truly elite bullpen. Fernando Cruz has been a strikeout machine, Tim Hill has been even better than last season, Luke Weaver is still elite, and Devin Williams hasn’t even figured it out yet.
Reinforcements such as Jonathan Loaisiga and Jake Cousins could be on the way in the next month or so, and when they’re back the Yankees might have the best bullpen in the game.