How Brayan Bello Found A Way To Make His Arsenal Work Again

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In his first 12 outings of the season between March and June, Brayan Bello reached a point where he did not seem to have enough confidence in any choice from his arsenal. The sinker, his primary pitch, was allowing a 53% hard-hit rate. When he chose the cutter, hitters feasted, producing five home runs in just 39 plate appearances. His changeup, the pitch that made him a revelation in 2022, was allowing a .386 slugging percentage. His continued struggles also compromised his sweeper, which, despite standing out as the pitch that was working best, was generating swings and misses on just 23.4% of attempts.

Bello finished that stretch with a 2-6 record, a 6.34 ERA and a 5.01 FIP, while 31% of the hits (78) he allowed went for extra bases, including 10 home runs. After his first start in June against Baltimore, Bello was sent to Triple-A Worcester having just allowed eight earned runs in five innings.

Time and Bello’s adjustments have shown that the Red Sox made the right decision. Two months later, Bello’s return has been a completely different version: He has stopped throwing his curveball, he is using fewer sinkers, the cutter has not allowed another home run and the changeup is generating much weaker contact. His most consistent pitch all year, the sweeper, has started generating swings and misses again, with a high 40% rate.

In 11 outings since his return, Bello is pitching to a 2.59 ERA, a 3.04 FIP and his SO/BB ratio has improved to 4.8. He has allowed just one home run against 172 batters over this stretch, and the Red Sox have gone 7-4 in those games.

Bello has made a difference with all of his pitches. But of all of them, these are the three changes that stand out most to me.

Brayan Bello's Sinker Is Usable Again

This is still the pitch opponents are hitting best, but Bello’s adjustment has allowed him to get better results, especially in his decisions within the at-bat. Although he is using it 11.1% less frequently, his strikeout rate has increased by 4.6% and his walks have dropped 7.7%. Hitters are still producing almost the exact same batting average, .317 compared to .316 in the first stretch of the season, but Bello has avoided a large number of hard-hit balls.

I have a theory that I would like to continue investigating because, despite keeping its velocity intact at 95.3 mph, Bello’s sinker has degraded by losing 0.7 inches of arm-side run. It has also gained 0.5 inches of induced vertical break (IVB), which was preventing the movement toward hitters’ hands and producing more ground balls.

If you look at Bello’s splits, you will see that left-handed hitters are batting .807 OPS this season and right-handed hitters .698. However, right-handed hitters are the ones who have punished his sinker the most, particularly on the inner part of the zone.

This report belongs to this second stretch for Bello since he returned to the big-league club in July. Right-handed hitters are still hitting the pitch hard in the middle and in the areas in on them, where the sinker should continue working on the vertical movement it lost during the first stretch. When the location of those pitches moves away from the middle, the results change and, even in the worst-case scenario of this sample, Bello has allowed just one home run. Now, the question is whether the sinker will continue to progress, since it remains one of his most reliable pitches in decisive counts.

Brayan Bello's Sweeper Is Fooling Hitters Again

The jump from a 23.4% to a 40.0% whiff rate is huge, and now that Bello’s sweeper is less overloaded, he can rely more on his other stuff and come back to finish hitters with its movement. In just seven fewer plate appearances compared to the stretch before he was sent to the minors, the sweeper went from allowing a .207 to a .100 batting average and from a .241 to a .100 slugging percentage. Part of what I love about this point is that Bello has reduced contact, and he has done it by getting right-handed hitters to chase.

Notice that hitters have been missing at just one point inside the strike zone, with a 50% whiff rate on sweepers that have stayed up. In every other part of the zone, they are making contact. The spots where Bello is dominating the most are the edges of the outside corner, but the sweeper is also doing damage inside. His strikeouts have improved by 8.1%, and the movement he is getting has been crucial to keeping the sweeper on the minds of hitters.

Brayan Bello's Secondaries Are Alive Again

This is probably the most striking change in terms of offensive production: from five home runs allowed to none, with a .412 drop in slugging percentage and an 8.9-point drop in hard-hit rate. Bello’s strikeouts using the cutter have increased by 12.9%, and hitters have a 50.0% whiff rate.

Sometimes, a major adjustment is not just about location or velocity. For Bello, it has been about the way his mix is getting a better effect in every sense. Now, it feels more like hitters are less prepared for the cutter. He is throwing it 3.5% less frequently, but its effectiveness with two strikes has been much more revealing.

And the changeup? Good question.

The changeup has remained one of his best weapons for strikeouts and, above all, reducing hard contact from his opponents. When hitters were destroying almost all of Bello’s offerings between March and June, the changeup still had life. The league was hitting .273/.271/.386 against it with a high 35.9 hard-hit rate, but it was still a weapon for generating swings and misses.

So, Bello did not have to do much, other than rearrange his repertoire. He has used at roughly the same rate, mostly when he has been ahead in the count. The result? Less hard contact, reducing his hard-hit rate by 15.9%, and much more dominance, with a 106-point drop in batting average allowed and .148 less in slugging.

Overall, as we have analyzed here, Bello has regained confidence in his sinker, while the sweeper and changeup have once again become two of his main weapons. The cutter has also undergone important adjustments, and hitters, who batted .563 against his fastball between March and June, have fallen to .278 since July.

Having him back in command gives the Red Sox a much-needed right-handed weapon on a pitching staff whose depth is defined by consistent left-handed arms. Now, we just have to keep watching the evolution of his outings as the league adjusts to this new version of Brayan Bello.