Austin Adams threw a higher percentage of sliders than any pitcher in baseball last season. In 56 relief outings comprising 41 1/3 innings, the 33-year-old right-hander relied on his signature offering 73.8% of the time. The heavy usage wasn’t an outlier for Adams. Since breaking into the big leagues in 2017, his 77.2% slider percentage is tops among hurlers to throw at least 100 innings.
His overall numbers have been solid. Pitching for five teams, including the Athletics last year, Adams has a 4.10 ERA, a 3.98 FIP, and a 31.6% strikeout rate over 155 2/3 career innings. He’s challenging to square up consistently, and he’s held opposing batters to a .199 batting average. Command has been the fly in the ointment, and not just because of his higher-than-ideal 13.9% walk rate. Adams plunked 13 batters last season, and in 2021 with the Padres, he outlandishly logged 24 HBPs in 52 2/3 frames.
Now in big league camp with the Red Sox after signing a minor league deal in January, Adams sat down to talk about his slider(s) at Boston’s spring training facility in Fort Myers.
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David Laurila: You throw a ton of sliders. Why?
Austin Adams: “The reason I throw so many sliders is because I enjoy having a job in baseball. It’s my best pitch. I try to take each one of my pitches, individually, in a vacuum. For me, it’s not necessarily about setting things up. I’m not saying that’s not a thing. What I’m saying is that it’s harder to quantify. My highest-graded pitch is my slider — metrically it’s a really good pitch — so I’m going to throw it the majority of the time. It’s what gives me the best opportunity to get outs.”
Laurila: What are the metrics on your slider?
Adams: “Oh, man. I think the biggest thing that drives that pitch is the variability of shapes. Yesterday there were times where it was getting almost the shape of a slurve, and there were times where it was more like a true sweeper; I was getting around 13 inches of horizontal.
“If you look at the spin, what’s ended up happening is the seam orientation… like, I’m tilting the axis up. That’s what is getting the ball to go left. And if I want to get more depth on it, I just try to tilt the axis down. But the spin is not necessarily like what you would see on some sweepers, where it’s that one seam. That’s why I don’t capture a ton of the actual spin. I spin it incredibly high, but I don’t capture the spin to get the total movement that I think it could get. It’s more like a seam-shifted slider.”
Laurila: You throw a lot of sliders, but not always the same slider…
Adams: “[It’s] the variability. So, in the past few years it’s been anywhere from 75% to 90% [usage]. The ball-tracking data says, ‘This is a slider,’ but the pitching plot on my slider could be on the line [at] zero, all the way out to 15. It’s also a pitch that can be on the vertical line at -8 to -10. There’s a ton of variability. I’m manipulating it based off of wrist placement and what I’m doing when I’m throwing it.
“What I’m trying to learn now is how to actually leverage seams so that I’m getting a seam effect instead of just manipulating my wrist to get a shape. I think that’s the thing. In 2019 with the Mariners, before I tore my ACL, I got really comfortable with getting a short slider in the zone early, and a really big slider, still the same miles per hour, later in the count. But I kind of lost the feel for that after I tore my ACL. I’m trying to get it back. While I’ve had some success with throwing [a slider] the majority of the time, I feel like my best years are ahead of me. Once I learn how to leverage seams, the consistency of the two different sliders will be better.”
Laurila: How does one go about learning how to leverage seams?
Adams: “You use Edgertronic. You use line balls. I think you just stay on top of it… but you can’t just look at ball-flight data and say, ‘Those are the right numbers I want to get.’ You have to look at the actual shape of the pitch [and] the actual spin you’re getting. It has to be, ‘All right, is this going to be effective for me day to day?’ If I don’t tilt the axis up perfectly, it’s not going to catch the right way. If I get the seams where I need to, it’s going to be a more consistent pitch.”
Laurila: That will make one of your two sliders a better pitch…
Adams: “I actually throw three different sliders. I throw a cutter thing, a really hard sweep, and then my really depth-y one.”
Laurila: Is there one you tend to prefer over the others?
Adams: “I’m probably closer to zero vert to negative vert than I am to the positive verts, The positive verts are the ones I think are my best. Those are the ones I’m able get swings-and-misses on. The negative ones kind of go into what the batters are used to seeing. They’re seeing that spin, so they’re thinking, ‘Hey, this is going to drop; I need to get on plane for this pitch.’ But if I’m able to tilt the axis up and get more induced vertical break than your typical slider, I’m typically missing the barrel. They’re getting underneath it.”
Laurila: Is there anything worth noting about your fastball?
Adams: “I think the biggest thing is that I need to throw it harder. I’m around 93-94 [mph], so I’m below average for a right-handed reliever. The four-seam is never going to be a driving pitch for me; it’s more a pitch that I’m going to need to throw to a location. I’m also learning a two-seam right now, which is going to help as well.”
Laurila: Any final thoughts?
Adams: “Honestly, like I said earlier, I feel like my best years are ahead of me… I mean, I don’t know many guys who are able to go out there with just one pitch 90% of the time and have some sort of success at the big league level. I’m still learning. Even with me being in the big leagues for close to six years now, I’m still learning.”
