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Jose Soriano: The Groundball Maestro

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Jose Soriano of the Los Angeles Angels enjoyed a breakout season in 2024.  After being used primarily in the bullpen, Soriano was stretched out as a starter this year and pitched well finishing with a 3.42 ERA and 1.2o WHIP.  His calling card was his ability to induce ground balls at an elite rate.  His 59.7% ground ball rate ranked third among all starting pitchers (minimum 100 innings).  Furthermore, Soriano is one of the hardest throwing starters in baseball.  While those are some positives, he also possesses poor command that will likely always be an issue to an extent.  Let’s take a look at how Soriano achieved his results.

Jose Soriano: The Groundball Maestro

Dominant Sinker

Jose Soriano’s primary pitch and driver of his high ground ball rate is his sinker.  By Baseball Savant’s Run Value metric, Soriano’s sinker was the fourth most valuable behind some well-respected company.  On average, his sinker produced a launch angle of -8 degrees, meaning hitters are commonly pounding his sinker into the dirt.  He allowed only one home run all season on this pitch and was one of the best at avoiding barrels.  It produced a ridiculous 71.9% ground ball rate while also being the hardest thrown sinker by any starting pitcher.

 

Previously as a reliever in 2023, his slider Stuff+ grade popped at a 119.  It is understood that a pitcher’s stuff will diminish a bit as they are taking on bigger volume.  While Soriano’s results on his sinker stayed steady, his sinker characteristics oscillated a bit month to month. Here are his sinker Stuff+ marks for each month:

Month Sinker Stuff+
March/April 96
May 103
June (only 2 starts) 87
July 95
August 89

 

Importantly, Stuff+ grades on sinkers are generally lower than the standard 100 for other pitches.  Therefore, his end of season mark of 95 rates as an above average sinker based on its physical characteristics.  Given how its performed and his ability to use it against both handedness of hitter, this foundational pitch puts his floor already fairly high as a starter.  He possesses premium velocity and has undergone two Tommy John surgeries, so the risk of injury is always present.  But unlike many other marquee ground ball pitchers, Soriano has a trio of wicked secondary offerings that hint at more swing and miss upside in his profile.

Secondary Pitches

Soriano’s secondary pitches consist of a gyro slider, a 93 MPH splitter, and a two-plane knuckle curveball.  He utilized the knuckle curve the most behind his sinker and it produced an excellent 15% swinging strike rate.  Its combination of drop and glove-side sweep gives it the ability to be a platoon neutral pitch and also be a weak contact producer.  This is an especially useful pitch for Soriano as it is the only pitch he throws for strikes at an above average clip.

Next, he threw his splitter almost exclusively to left handed hitters.  Again, it flashed very encouraging swing and miss potential with a 17.6% swinging strike rate along with a ground ball rate north of 60%.  At minimum, this pitch is valuable to give him optionality in getting left handed hitters out.  Given its high quality (123 Stuff+, tied for 2nd best among starters), Soriano could expand the splitter’s usage against same handed hitters as well.   The pitch’s combination of velocity, drop, and arm-side fade makes it an intriguing offering that could justify an uptick in usage.

Lastly, the secondary pitch with perhaps the most upside is his slider.  His bullet slider is also thrown hard at 91.5 MPH producing an elite 20% swinging strike rate.  However, opposite of his splitter, he exclusively threw this offering to same handed hitters.  This could be understandable as some sweeping sliders get crushed by the opposite hand.  But, gyro sliders profile well against opposite handed hitters.  So, similar to his splitter, this is a pitch that he could potentially throw to each handedness of hitter with success.  This combination of velocity and the bullet shape that drops with minimal horizontal movement gives it a Stuff+ of 117.

Multiple Fastballs

Jose Soriano’s arsenal includes five pitches in total, and the one not mentioned yet is the weak link in his four-seam fastball.  Despite being thrown at an average of nearly 99 MPH, it has poor shape quality and resulted in it getting crushed with a .548 xSLG and .622 actual SLG.  He dialed back the usage as the season progressed and could justify reducing it more with the quality of his secondary offerings.  However, the rise of pitchers having multiple fastball offerings has proven to be necessary and a valuable piece.  Being as unpredictable as possible is what pitchers are striving for which has subsequently led to pitchers having more in their repertoire than ever.  In this great piece by Eno Sarris and Jayson Stark during the season outlining the lows of offense in 2024,  Rangers offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker stated: “Multiple fastballs is a cheat code.”

The four-seam fastball does not profile as a plus pitch. But, it can still be effective in instances where hitters are keying in on a secondary pitch. It will be interesting to see if he will increase the usage on his three elite secondary offerings in 2025.  He could still throw his sinker primarily, but perhaps distribute the secondaries relatively evenly while occasionally mixing in his four-seam fastball.  There are exciting possibilities to think about for Soriano and the leaps he could make from a strikeouts perspective.

Future Outlook

Soriano’s poor command is important to consider when analyzing his range of outcomes.  There are reasons why his scouting reports show a current command grade of 30.  In his first season as a starter, his Location+ was the second worst (minimum 100 innings).  But, there are plenty of starters that succeed without having good command (see Blake Snell, Dylan Cease).  While obviously those are very different pitchers, there are plenty ways to manage without having pinpoint command. The Tampa Bay Rays famously have their pitchers throw down the middle and allow their stuff to play in the zone to build confidence.

Building trust in their pitchers is something the Angels did last season using the Trajekt pitching machine.  This machine replicates the exact arsenal and movement of any pitcher.  The Angels had their pitchers stand in against themselves to help show that they have good stuff and to have trust in themselves.  Specifically, Jose Soriano was enlightened and was given confidence in his elite stuff.  Moving forward, he has the chance to establish himself at the top of the Angels’ rotation.  Now, with his high caliber of stuff and experience starting games and flipping lineups over, Soriano could take the next step in 2025.

Main Photo Credits: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

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