Last week, I created an article on 2025 fantasy baseball sleepers based on Exit Velocity. This is the second installment in the series about pitch tunneling.
These days, almost everything about a pitcher is quantified. From mechanics in Spring Training pitching labs to spin rate in the World Series, it is all measured and – for the most part – made available for public consumption. The wealth of statistics available makes it significantly easier than it would be otherwise for fantasy managers to evaluate players.
Despite all that, there’s a significant gap in the public’s knowledge when it comes to evaluating pitchers. For years, we talked about the results pitchers achieved. How many runs do they allow? How many strikeouts can they rack up?
More recently, analysts and the public have begun to use pitch-level statistics like Stuff+, Run Value, or xBA to evaluate what should happen instead of what did happen. This can help us find fantasy baseball sleepers.
Perhaps the next step is analyzing how the pitches in a pitcher’s arsenal work together. There is very little information available to the public on how well pitchers “tunnel” their pitches – that is, how well each pitch in their arsenal works together.
In this article, we’ll explore pitch tunneling and how we can use it to gain an edge in our evaluations of pitchers for fantasy baseball.
2025 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers
Tunneling two pitches means the two offerings look similar until the last moment when they take different trajectories and arrive at the plate in separate locations. When two pitches look the same, it’s significantly more difficult for the hitter to make solid contact – they are forced to effectively guess which pitch is being thrown and where it will end up.
As Paul Skenes said in this interview with Rob Friedman (a.k.a PitchingNinja), pitch tunneling also eliminates “waste” pitches. If a pitcher gets ahead of the batter 0-2 before throwing a pitch far outside – hoping the hitter might chase it, but far enough that they can’t hit it – that pitch has traditionally been called a “waste” pitch.
Even if the hitter doesn’t swing, pitch tunneling enables pitchers to get value out of the previous pitch by throwing something similar to it before changing directions. That makes it more likely the hitter will take a pitch he typically would have swung at.
Measuring Pitch Tunneling
Pitch tunneling works when two pitches move similarly before ending up in different places. We can quantify how well a pitcher’s pitches play off of each other by identifying pitches that move similarly - either horizontally or vertically - and then measuring the difference in the other direction.
For the purposes of this article, we will measure a pitcher’s ability to tunnel pitches by creating a statistic called PTC (Pitch Tunneling Capacity).
Here’s how it works:
- Only pitches a pitcher uses at least 5% of the time count towards PTC.
- For every offering in a pitcher’s arsenal, identify if it is within two inches of movement – horizontal or vertical – with another pitch the pitcher throws.
- If the pitches are within two inches of movement horizontally, add the difference in inches of vertical movement to the pitcher’s PTC and vice versa.
- Do this for all pitches in the pitcher’s arsenal and total the differences to find the pitcher’s PTC.
For example, let’s take a look at Paul Skenes’ pitch movement profile from 2024, according to Baseball Savant:
Four Seam Fastball: 17.4 inches vertical drop, 14.4 inches horizontal movement
Sinker: 30.3 inches vertical drop, 14.0 inches horizontal movement
Changeup: 32.5 inches vertical drop, 17.5 inches horizontal movement
Slider: 29.7 inches vertical drop, -1.3 inches horizontal movement
Sweeper: 32.6 inches vertical drop, -11.3 inches horizontal movement
Curveball: 43.6 inches vertical drop, -7.1 inches horizontal movement
- Sinker-slider vertical movement (+15.3 to PTC due to horizontal movement)
- Fastball-sinker horizontal movement (+12.9 to PTC due to vertical movement)
- Sweeper-changeup vertical movement (+28.8 to PTC due to horizontal movement)
Skenes has a PTC of 57, which ranked 5th among qualified MLB pitchers in 2024. So, which other MLB pitchers can tunnel their pitches well?
2024 MLB PTC (Pitch Tunneling Capacity), min. 3 pitches per team game:
1. Nick Martinez, CIN (98.2 PTC)
2. Hunter Brown, HOU (76.4)
3. Taijuan Walker, PHI (62.9)
4. Spencer Turnbull, PHI (57.1)
5. Paul Skenes, PIT (57.0)
6. Trevor Williams, WSN (55.8)
7. Simeon Woods Richardson, MIN (54.6)
8. Zebby Matthews, MIN (54.4)
9. Jonathan Cannon, CHW (53.4)
10. Brandon Pfaadt, ARI (52.8)
It should be noted that having the capacity to tunnel pitches well does not mean they do. Which pitchers on the above list have the command to take advantage of their pitch tunneling capacities in 2025?
Nick Martinez
(RHP, Cincinnati Reds)
Martinez has an extremely low ADP (via NFBC) of 331.46 despite throwing 142.1 innings last season and posting a 3.10 ERA. That’s probably because of his hybrid role as a starter and reliever – he started 16 of his 42 games pitched last season – but Reds manager Terry Francona has said this spring that the Reds plan to put him in the rotation.
Martinez could be a steal for fantasy managers who need another starter. With a track record of success – he has a 3.31 ERA in 359 IP over the last 3 seasons – and excellent stuff to pair with above-average command, Martinez could be a late-round steal or outstanding waiver wire addition to fantasy teams.
Hunter Brown
(RHP, Houston Astros)
Brown, while significantly more well-known than Martinez, could have a breakout season in 2025. The Astros’ former top prospect, the right-hander posted a 3.49 ERA last season and struck out over 25% of batters he faced.
His average exit velocity of 86.2 MPH is elite – it puts him in the 95th percentile of qualified MLB pitchers – and his pitch tunneling capacity should only help him improve in 2025. Brown’s fastball-curveball combination contributed the most to his pitch-tunneling prowess in 2024.
Simeon Woods Richardson
(RHP, Minnesota Twins)
Despite an unimpressive resume, Woods Richardson could have a productive season in 2025. He had +12 Run Value combined on his excellent breaking balls last season, which put him in the 97th percentile of qualified MLB pitchers. Woods Richardson, who is still only 24, has a 4.33 ERA in 143.1 innings pitched in the big leagues.
His ineffective changeup hurt him last season – it got rocked for a -16 Run Value, which significantly decreased his overall effectiveness. If Woods Richardson leans more on his good fastball and outstanding breaking balls in 2024, he could be set up for success.
Using pitch tunneling data is a great way to find fantasy baseball sleepers for this season and gain an edge over the competition. Martinez, Brown, and Woods Richardson have all shown signs of a breakout 2025 season. Will they capitalize on their pitch tunneling capacities and outperform expectations? Only time will tell.