Catcher's View · All 266 Pitches · Outcome by Location← Inside Outside →
Home Run
Hit
Out
Whiff
Foul
Take
★ Star = home run. Dot size scales with exit velocity on contact.
Fastball · The Result
98.4 avg EV
When pitchers go fastball and he makes contact, the results are hard. Two home runs at 110.4 and 107.7. Several additional balls in play above 100 mph. The fastball is where he's producing the most damage when he gets to it.
Glove-Side Breaking · The Result
62% / 75%
Pitchers seem to have settled on the slider and cutter as their primary put-away pitches. He wasn't swinging at either in the debut series. He is now, and the whiff rates when he does swing, 62% on sliders and 75% on cutters, suggest that sequence is working so far.
Sinker · A Second Plan
3 GIDP
Some pitchers are going a different direction: heavy sinker down in the zone. Three grounded-into-double-plays in 60 PA. Not every staff is committing to the breaking ball sequence. The sink below the belt has been effective at generating ground contact.
The Overall Picture
21 K · 6 BB
Pitchers have two working plans against him: breaking balls away to generate misses, or sinkers down to generate ground contact. The fastball is where those plans break down. Six walks show the count management is still driving plate appearances even with the high strikeout total.
What the map shows so far: Whiffs tend to cluster away and outside the zone on breaking and off-speed pitches. Contact damage tends to cluster middle-to-inner half on fastballs. Pitchers seem to be working the edges and tunneling from the fastball to the breaking ball rather than challenging him in the zone. How that plays out over a full season is still very much an open question.
72%
First Pitch Take Rate
The Approach Is Opening Up.
17
First Pitch Swings
Was Zero Through 3 Games.
Catcher's View · 0-0 Count · All 60 First Pitches← Inside Outside →
Debut series: 14 first pitches, 14 takes. Through April 12: 43 of 60 first pitches taken. He's starting to swing at first pitches, particularly fastballs, when the read is there.
First Pitches That Were Balls
47%
28 of 60 first pitches missed the zone. Taking those gets him to 1-0 without lifting the bat. Nearly half of first pitches from opposing pitchers have not been strikes.
When He Swings First Pitch
17 swings
7 whiffs, 7 fouls, 3 balls in play. Early results on those swings are mixed. He's engaging, but the contact on first-pitch swings is still developing.
Walks
6 BB · 10%
The count management in deeper at-bats hasn't changed as he opens up on first pitches. Six walks across 60 PA shows he's still working counts even as the first-pitch take rate drops.
Context: Vladdy Jr. takes 74% of first pitches after years of MLB experience. Okamoto is at 72% through 14 games, already in that range. The debut's 100% take rate looked like information gathering. What's happening now looks like the application, attacking first pitches when he recognizes the fastball. The 47% ball rate on first pitches and the 10% walk rate suggest the patience is still driving at-bats rather than eroding.
What we're seeing so far: Righties seem to establish the fastball early, which he's been hitting hard, then go to the slider and cutter on the outer third. Both pitch types are generating misses when he swings, 85.7% on sliders and 83.3% on cutters from RHP. Against lefties the sample is still small (63 pitches), so those numbers should be treated loosely for now.
Two patterns worth watching: His hardest contact has been going pull-side on fastballs. Both home runs came on 4-seamers at 107+ EV. Sinkers low in the zone seem to be producing a lot of ground contact, including three GIDPs, suggesting some pitchers are going that route rather than the breaking ball. The 56.2 EV popup on the changeup came on a pitch well off the outer edge.
9
Pitch Types Thrown · 14 Games
Full Arsenal: How Pitchers Are Attacking Him
Pitch
Thrown
Velo
Swing%
Whiff%
Avg EV
Result
4-Seam Fastball
72
95.7
54%
33%
98.4
Contact Damage
Sinker
46
95.0
52%
12%
80.5
Ground Contact
Sweeper
41
83.2
34%
29%
84.1
Mixed
Slider
37
86.5
35%
62%
--
Generating Misses
Cutter
29
90.0
28%
75%
--
Generating Misses
Changeup
12
85.1
42%
40%
56.2
Weak Contact
Split-Finger
11
88.2
36%
50%
--
Generating Misses
Curveball
10
77.6
60%
50%
78.2
Drawing Chases
Knuckle Curve
7
81.5
43%
33%
--
Small Sample
Whiff% = whiffs / swings. EV on balls in play only. "--" = no BIP or too few to report.
Slider & Cutter · The Shift
0 → 35% · 0 → 28%
Zero swings on either pitch type through the debut series. Pitchers kept throwing them. He's swinging at both now, slider at 35% and cutter at 28%. When he does swing, the whiff rates, 62% on sliders and 75% on cutters, are what pitchers seem to be working with.
Two-Strike Pitch Mix
FF · Sweeper · Slider as put-away pitches
In two-strike counts: 34 fastballs (29% whiff), 15 sweepers (0% whiff, he seems to be tracking it), 14 sliders (7% whiff in two-strike counts), 9 cutters (44% whiff). The sweeper is the one breaking ball he appears to be making contact on late in at-bats.
266 pitches into a rookie season. The fastball contact looks elite when he gets to it. The breaking ball picture is still forming. Pitchers seem to have found that the slider and cutter, generally to the outer third, are generating misses when he swings. The sweeper in two-strike counts looks different, he appears to be tracking that one. Where sliders and cutters end up as the season goes on is the thing worth watching.
