‘Tis the start of another MLB season! Considering there was a time when we were not even sure there would be games played in April, I think it safe to say that the game of baseball is in a MUCH better place than we could have anticipated just a month ago!
One of the best parts of a new season is the clean slate it provides. For instance, players who were injured the year before, outside of a few cases, get to come back healthy and are ready to re-establish themselves in 2022. We’ve already seen the likes of Mike Trout, Alex Bregman, Clayton Kershaw, and Christian Yelich come out of the gate strong, which is encouraging after they had disappointing seasons, at least from a health standpoint. Sure, we want these players to perform from a fantasy standpoint, but the game of baseball is also just in a better place when its stars are on the field.
Outside of Trout, I’m not sure there was an injured player from 2021 that the baseball community was more excited to see than Guardians ace Shane Bieber. After winning the 2020 AL Cy Young award, the University of Santa Barbara product was a consensus first-round pick in 2021 fantasy drafts and appeared to have established himself as one of the true aces in all of baseball.
Even after injuries plagued him in 2021, Bieber was still drafted as a top-10 pitcher this season. While his results so far look strong, there are some reasons to be concerned, causing us to wonder: when will the ace Shane Bieber return? That is precisely what we are going to try to answer today.
The Evolution of Shane Bieber
To better understand how we got to where we are now, we need to start off in 2016. At this point, Bieber was a prospect in the MLB draft coming out of the University of Santa Barbara. Naturally, a future Cy Young award winner would be a bonafide early first-round pick, right? Nope!
Not only did Bieber fall to the fourth round, but he was actually selected higher (122) than where MLB Pipeline (150) had him ranked. Think about that: 149 players were seen as better prospects than a future Cy Young award winner! At the time, though, it was clear why front offices and scouts were skeptical of him. Despite playing in a smaller conference, he struck out only 20.34% of the batters he faced and had a pitching arsenal described as middling at best. This is perfectly demonstrated in MLB Pipeline‘s write-up of him:
“Bieber is the epitome of the advanced, yet not exciting, college arm. A Sunday starter a year ago, the right-hander served as UC Santa Barbara’s Friday night starter in 2016, after his strong showing in the Cape Cod League last summer. The right-hander lacks a true out pitch but effectively employs three average offerings. He generally pitches around 90-91 mph with his heater, but there could be some more velocity to unlock at the next level. He mixes in a solid slider and changeup and demonstrates exemplary control of all three pitches.
A lack of a true out pitch limits Bieber’s ceiling, but his polish, durability and track record suggests that he could move quickly”
Meanwhile, although Bieber missed more bats in the minors (24.1%), it still wasn’t at a level that screamed “ace.” Rather, it was his ability to limit walks (1.8%) that paved his success; he was still seen as a command artist who’d likely end up as an efficient back-end starter. For context, when he debuted in 2018, he wasn’t seen as a top-100 prospect by either MLB Pipeline or Fangraphs- the expectations were not extremely high for him.
Quickly, though, it became apparent that Bieber had the potential to drastically exceed those expectations. In 114.2 innings during his rookie season in 2018, he posted a 24.3% strikeout rate, but it was in 2019 that he took the major step forward; in 214.2 innings pitched, he posted a completely unexpected 30.2% strikeout rate, and 25.5% K-BB ratio, while his 5.5 Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) put him as the eight-most valuable starting pitcher in all of baseball. Quite the result for a former fourth-round pick and non top-100 prospect!
This is not where Bieber’s story ends, however. After all, as I have alluded to, he did win the Cy Young the following year, after all! How did he do so? Well, by virtue of a 41.1% strikeout rate, 8.4 162-game fWAR pace, and a league-leading 2.52 skill interactive (SIERA). That will definitely work!
Although Bieber took a step back in 2021, which was more than expected coming off of the shortened season, he was still striking out 33.9% of the batters he faced with a 3.18 SIERA. It looked like he’d be competing for the AL Cy Young again, but that was before things took a turn for the worse.
Bieber’s 2021 Injury + Decreased Velocity
See, Bieber suffered a shoulder strain in the middle of June, keeping him out essentially for the rest of the season, sans two three-inning stints at the end of the year.
To be more specific, Bieber had a subscapularis strain. This typically occurs with pitchers that have decreased external rotation, and, as a result, the subscapularis has to provide more of the force behind each pitch. After all, the subscapularis muscle stabilizes the joint and is activated in the early acceleration phase. In layman’s terms, as his arm starts to come forward, the subscapularis contracts, helping provide the velocity of every pitch. However, the strain is caused by the subscapularis having to do too much of the work, which is not ideal, to say the least.
With that, let’s take our medical hat off, and put our baseball one back on! At the end of the day, this injury didn’t affect him in his return. Sure, his velocity was down when he came back from the injury, but he also hadn’t pitched in a big-league game in three months. Heck, Bieber himself said he was fully healthy for the 2022 season:
Been 100% for a while now!! Been working in silence that’s just how I like to do it. Always appreciate the concern tho and can’t wait to get things going 🙏🤿 https://t.co/hghE3swljr
— Shane Bieber (@ShaneBieber19) March 3, 2022
Unfortunately, though, it does not appear that Shane Bieber is 100%. Well, if he is, that actually would be more concerning. See, it is safe to say that Bieber’s velocity is not where he would want it to be:
Yikes. At his best, Bieber has been sitting 93-94 MPH, which is quite the jump from where he was as a college prospect. Now, though, he is back to where he was when his arsenal was “middling”. This is not ideal, to say the least.
Yes, Bieber has pitched back-to-back games in Kansas City and Cincinnati, where the cold weather could hurt his velocity. Yet, last season, he was already sitting over 93 MPH by his second start, and he’s now throwing over 2 MPH slower. For what it’s worth, when Bieber came back from his injury last season, he was sitting 91 MPH. Could he still not be healthy? It is completely possible.
On the bright side, Bieber’s delivery has remained consistent through this process. In fact, he has seemed to find a consistent release point again:
As you can see, his release height fell in 2021, either by intention or due to the injury, but he has managed to get it back to 2019/2020 levels. This is a positive development when it comes to his ability to consistently command the baseball and repeat his release point.
With that being said, the eye test would indicate a few minor flaws with his current release point. Here is him in 2020:
At least to me, it does appear that his arm path is slightly longer this season than it was in 2020. This would be backed up by the numbers:
Now, this is a very minor change, but it does align with the fact his arm may be lagging slightly, while he isn’t getting as much external rotation as previously. That all aligns with the effect of a subscapularis strain, which, to me, would indicate that he isn’t fully recovered from the injury.
Why Does This Matter?
It’s fine and dandy to talk about the potential causes and symptoms of Bieber’s lingering shoulder problems. At the end of the day, though, the main question we are trying to solve is what to take away from this.
Although it is still early in the season, strikeout rate starts to stabilize after 17.1 innings pitched, according to Max Freeze of freezestats.com. We’re now through two starts for Bieber, and the underlying results have not been pretty. His strikeout rate is at a below-average 24.3% rate, and that is backed up by a notable decrease in his swinging-strike rate (10.6%).
In the early going, Bieber has allowed much more contact in the zone (88.6%), while his fastball (18.2% whiff) has not been as effective. Of course, it’s been two games, so these stats don’t mean much, but they do correlate with the decrease in velocity. When all variables are consistent, it can be quite easy to paint a picture of what is going on.
If the injury/velocity loss was all Bieber was dealing with, this would be a much simpler story. Yet, when is life ever this simple? See, the right-hander’s injury took place BEFORE the crackdown on illegal foreign substance abuse. This crackdown caused a notable decrease in pitchers’ spin rates, but we never got a real chance to see what Bieber’s spin rates would look like in the aftermath. Well, now we do:
Spin rates do go down as velocity decreases, but that doesn’t explain the 400 RPM dip Bieber is experiencing with his curveball. Naturally, with a lower spin rate, the effectiveness of the pitch may go down, making what is happening with Bieber right now a multi-layered effect. To top it off, he is also getting less ride (1.3 more inches of vertical movement compared to average) versus where it was last year (2.5 inches), which all stems back to the diminished arsenal.
Now, I’m not saying that Bieber is going to maintain a 24% strikeout rate for a whole season, essentially being the pitcher he was in the minors. What I can say, however, is that there is certainly reason to be skeptical of him being a top-10 pitcher this season; what he accomplished between 2019 and 2021 may be difficult to replicate.
Unless he is going to maintain a .160 batting average allowed on balls in play (BABIP) or a 0% home run/fly ball rate, the diminished arsenal is going to eventually negative y impact Bieber. This could all go away in a second if he’s sitting 93 MPH again, but, even then, some negative regression will likely come from the spin-rate decrease. There are simply a lot of moving parts that need to be settled right now.
Overview
There are few things in baseball that I would like more than peak Shane Bieber to return.
Unfortunately, there are notable barriers that the Guardians’ ace will have to overcome to get back there. The spin-rate decrease is notable, though we’ve seen pitchers be able to adapt to this. What will be really telling is if his arsenal can get back on track in terms of velocity.
As things stand right now, there are reasons to believe that Bieber may not be fully healthy. He isn’t getting as much external rotation as he normally does, and, most importantly, his velocity is down to a level that can not simply be explained by him “building back up” and the weather.
Right now, you could definitely look to shop Bieber while his ERA is down, but there is a lot of noise surrounding the velocity drop; there’s always the upside he gets back on track, and it is up to you to make that prognostication. Hey, isn’t that the fun of this all!
With the White Sox and Yankees up next, Bieber will face quite the test. While many will point to the command he has, his low walk rate thus far isn’t backed up by a low proportion of his pitches in the zone (41.7%). Plus, as someone who generally gives up a notable amount of hard contact, the fewer missed bats will impact him negatively. That will hurt his ERA, but, most important, hurts his fantasy value in terms of strikeouts. This was something that was a concern coming into the season, and, so far, those concerns have not been quelled.
Hopefully, in a month, we’ll be looking back on this and laughing it off. I imagine a beautiful world where Bieber is sitting 93 MPH, has the ride back on his fastball, and is back to peak ace level. Unfortunately, that isn’t where we are currently, and we are left wondering what lies ahead for him. Well, as Justin would say, “never say never”! Make sure to keep a close eye on Bieber’s velocity as he looks to get back on track!