Blue Jays reliever Trevor Richards is having one of the best seasons of his career, and his nasty changeup is a big reason why.
In 29 appearances this season, Richards has a career-best 3.14 ERA and has posted a 1.116 WHIP, second only to the 0.964 he record in 2021. And he’s doing thanks in large part to a changeup that’s been nearly unhittable, with batters posting a paltry .120 batting average against the pitch. What makes the change so tough to hit? Its dizzying spin rate. Richards’s changeup has an average spin rate of 2585, the second highest in the majors this season (behind only Brewers closer Devin Williams’s 2643).
If the numbers don’t properly illustrate how tough it is to hit Richards’s change, maybe this video will.
Trevor Richards, Changeup release (Slow)
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 7, 2023
2831 RPMs pic.twitter.com/1lPrwaXMHT
It’s amazing to see how Richards pronates his wrist to generate the spin and how the ball drops so rapidly before it reaches the plate. White Sox shortstop Elvis Andrus never stood a chance as he waved futilely at the pitch.
It won’t be much consolation to Andrus, but he’s far from the only hitter to be left in fits by Richards’s changeup this season. So far, batters have whiffed on it nearly half of the times they’ve swung at it (47.3%).
