How Scott Effross Went From Career Minor Leaguer to the Centerpiece of the Yankees Bullpen

This trade deadline was a pretty wild one.

From all the players that didn’t get moved who were supposed to, like Carlos Rodón, Willson Contreras, and J.D. Martinez, to the ones who did, like Juan Soto, Frankie Montas, and (finally) Eric Hosmer; there were some very surprising trades as well (one involving the Yankees with Jordan Montgomery and Harrison Bader). Another incredibly weird and surprising one was the Josh Hader-Taylor Rogers trade (because of course A.J. Preller had to do something like that).

While all of those were pretty big trades, I am going to talk about another trade that seemingly came out of the blue, and it, again, involved the Yankees and my Cubs. And that was relief pitcher Scott Effross being traded from the Cubs to the Yankees in exchange for RHP Hayden Wesneski (I like him, but that is an entirely different article for a different day. This article is just about Scott, not the trade in general).

Superficial Analysis

Let me just start out with some incredibly superficial analysis on Effross: he is good, and Yankees fans will like him, if not love him…

Effross has kinda flown under the radar with the Cubs, and probably for a variety of reasons. For starters, the Cubs have sucked while he was there. Additionally, he does not throw gas-which is fine, and he is obviously still very good-I just think it helps him fly under the radar. Another note is that he was a 27 year old rookie last year, now 28, at the time of the trade. Why did he come up so late, you may ask?

called up

Prior to the 2021 season, Scott was not a sidearm thrower. He was drafted in 2015 in the 15th round from Indiana University. In college, he threw from a low three quarters arm slot (which, I might add, is very hard to find video of-I’ll include a link here if you want to see it). In mid-2019, the Cubs helped Scott change to a completely sidearm angle. One that, this season, is tied-7th with Darren O’Day for the lowest Vertical Release Point, and the second furthest horizontal release point (this basically means that he is completely sidearm). Effross was placed on the IL and had a rehab assignment in mid-July which is when, while I do not know for sure, I assume he made these changes. Regardless, Effross has shined since the adjustment. Once he made the change, he had astounding numbers in the minors. Across 79.0 Innings pitched, he had 82 Strikeouts, just 16 walks and a sub-3 ERA-along with a 21.4 K-BB%. However, nothing could have prepared us for what Effross would bring to the Major League Club for the next year.

the Effross impact

Effross only issued one walk in his first two-month stint with the Cubs-in an incredible 14.2 innings-with 18 strikeouts. He pitched to a slightly unlucky (but still good) 3.68 ERA, with a 29.3 K-BB%, 47.2 GB% and a 2.38 SIERA. Then, in 2022, he showed that was no fluke. While his Strikeout and Walk numbers have regressed a bit (understandably and predictably so), they are still excellent! A 27.6 K%, 6.1 BB%, and his barrel rate is in the 95th percentile of all major league pitchers! He was even featured by Pitching Ninja several times this season due to his whiffle ball like Sinkers and Sliders. He has a 63 ERA- this season, to go along with a 56 FIP-, 76 xFIP-, and a 2.84 SIERA. He is an elite control guy with great contact managing abilities and great stuff. Just to add a little more, since being called up, he is t-14th in reliever fWAR, and also t-8th in appearances. My point being that while these are superficial, he is a reliable and proven reliever despite having not a ton of major league experience. But, what makes him so good exactly? I mean, why IS he proven, and why are these numbers all going to hold up? After all, that is the most important part right? Well, his pitch data is just absolutely fascinating & fantastic…

Effross Pitch Data

Being the sidearm pitcher (well, more submarine) that he is, Effross, does not throw very hard (and, actually, among all RHP within 0.5 feet of Effross’ v-rel, of which there are 9 who have thrown 150 or more sinkers, Effross has the 3rd highest average Sinker velocity). Additionally, Effross gets more movement than almost any pitcher in baseball on his pitches. (He technically throws four, but his Changeup he uses just 14.2% of the time, and his Four Seam just 10%-so he is essentially a two-pitch pitcher.) What constitutes this movement? He gets -3.3 inches of Induced Vertical Break (IVB) on his Sinker-the fourth lowest mark among all RHP with at least 150 Sinkers. He is also tied with Steve Cishek for Horizontal Movement among that same group at 17.8 inches. The plate is only 17 inches wide! I guess what I am trying to say is that his sinker moves a LOT, and he locates it incredibly well. He very often locates his sinker down and in to a righty-13th furthest inside to a righty among RHP in sinker location, and the 51st lowest plate location (both out of 121 pitchers).

Changeup location

Below is Effross’ Sinker location heat-map, and you can see exactly what I am talking about. You can also see how he plays his changeup right off of that with very similar location- albeit a bit lower, probably due to the fact that it gets nearly a foot extra of drop. Which, I might add, of all pitchers who have thrown minimum 90 changeups this year, nobody’s changeup has less IVB than Effross’ Changeup does. (His -8.6” of IVB on his change is the most drop by an entire 3.1 inches!). While I don’t think his changeup is GREAT, it is certainly good- and Scott’s ability to tunnel and command these two pitches is really a filthy combination, in my opinion. For what it’s worth, the Sinker and Changeup have 60 and 65 grade command on them, respectively, according to Cameron Grove’s Pitching Bot- which is the biggest reason Scott’s Changeup has a 55 grade to it. I would also like to mention how Effross uses his Changeup almost exclusively to lefties. It is actually his second most used pitch to lefties at just under 30%! Having a good pitch you can use to nullify lefties is a really good characteristic, and I think it’s a huge reason for his 20 K-BB% against lefties, and just a .174 wOBA allowed.

Two pitches

As previously mentioned, Effross is pretty much a two-pitch pitcher. He relies on his slider the most of any pitch and, honestly, I can’t blame him; it’s his bread and butter. It’s a great pitch. Both his Sinker and Slider are great pitches, which tells you a lot about Effross!

Effross’s slider is a pretty unique pitch, in my opinion. Among all RHP who have thrown at least 150 sliders, it has the highest Horizontal Approach Angle at -6.3°. It also has 12.7 Inches of break, and is thrown from way out to the side. (He also has the furthest Horizontal Release Point in this group, at 4.4 feet to the side). He pitches from the far side of the rubber; just look at where his release is on this slider, almost behind the guy.

Sweeper

Effross' slider is the definition of a sweeper, and it is filthy. You will also notice the heat-map is almost the exact opposite from his sinker/changeup. Again, his ability to tunnel these is very good. And, while it doesn’t quite get as much drop as most sliders do, it is obviously still very effective. It gets a ton of looking strikes, and while the actual whiff% on it is just under 30%, according to the aforementioned PitchingBot, the expected whiff% is at about 42%.

Four-seamer

Finally, I would like to just slightly touch on his Four-Seam Fastball. It is another good pitch (and, fun fact, his FF had the 6th highest whiff rate among four seamers thrown at least 40 times in 2021- not that it really means anything, to be fair). And again this year, his FF Whiff rate is still 2% above average! Not too shabby. And guess who has the 2nd lowest VAA on their fastball among all RHP with minimum 60 FF? Scott Effross does! At -3.3°, he is tied with Darren O’Day. Add that on to the fact that he gets 17 inches of run? Yeah, I think it is a pretty good pitch! Yet another thing that fascinates me about his Fastball, is it’s spin direction and what makes it so deceitful. When he releases the FF, the spin direction is 3:01 (just imagine a clock). His sinker? 3:02. That is almost exact. What is amazing is that they turn in exact opposite directions! His sinker turns to 3:29, while the fastball turns to 2:41. That’s about 25° of spin separation on those pitches (A.K.A. about 50 minutes).

Essentially, they look the exact same out of the hand despite moving pretty differently- which adds an entirely new layer of deception. And wouldn’t you know it, Effross’s location on his Four Seam is… pretty good! He locates it just over 1.1 feet above his average sinker, at 3.41 feet (the plate is roughly 3.6 feet tall for reference). And, as you can see on the heat-map, he locates it roughly on the same corner. Again, I really like this pitch for Effross, as do I like all of them!

final thoughts

Like I said at the beginning, Effross is really good! I think Yankees fans will absolutely adore him, just like I have--and at the time I’m finishing this, he’s already tossed 2 scoreless innings for them and gotten out of some pretty tough situations. I also haven’t pointed this out yet, but the guy has over five years of team control beyond this year. He’ll be a Yankee for a while, and he’s exciting! I hope that all the pitch data I provided helps you to see what a unique and special pitcher he is.

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