Phillies’ José Alvarado will bring opposing hitters a third pitch this season: a ‘nasty’ curveball

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Last Monday, switch-hitting Pittsburgh slugger Carlos Santana stepped up to the plate against left-hander José Alvarado in the fourth inning of the Pirates-Phillies Grapefruit League game in Bradenton. The first six pitches of the at-bat went about how you’d expect. Alvarado threw Santana a 98 mph sinker, a 93 mph cutter, two 94 mph cutters, and two more 99 mph sinkers. But then, on the seventh pitch, Alvarado delivered something entirely unexpected: an 88 mph curveball.

Santana took a loopy, lopsided swing at it, missed, and stumbled back to the dugout. As he was walking, he looked back to Alvarado with an air of incredulity. The reliever had thrown 11 curveballs in 2022. He threw 35 in 2021. He threw 23 in 2020. And now, all of a sudden, he was mixing them into spring training games?

The short answer is yes — and hitters are about to see more of it. Alvarado used to throw the curveball with more regularity earlier in his career, and it was an effective pitch. But pitching coach Caleb Cotham quickly realized that when Alvarado did throw it, he would use a different delivery, arching his arm up to try to get on top.

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That change in delivery corrupted the delivery on his other, primary pitches — his sinker and his cutter — so when Alvarado was sent to triple-A Lehigh Valley last May, Cotham encouraged him to focus on throwing those two pitches more.

Alvarado did, and that — coupled with some work with a mental skills coach — led to a stretch that could only be described as dominant. After posting a 4.39 ERA for the first few months of the season, Alvarado posted a 1.85 ERA in the second half. More importantly, Cotham saw that his delivery was consistent.

So, when Alvarado approached him this offseason about bringing his curveball back, the pitching coach responded an emphatic “yes” — with one catch. Instead of altering his delivery, Alvarado would use a traditional curveball grip. When he threw the pitch, he would think about how his delivery was supposed to be the same as his sinker delivery and his cutter delivery. Everything would come out of the same slot.

The early results have been promising. Alvarado has had three outings this spring, and he has yet to allow a hit or a run. After the Santana at-bat last week, he threw a similar sequence to Andrew McCutchen — 99 mph sinker, 100 mph sinker, 86 mph curve, and a 93 mph cutter for a strikeout. McCutchen looked as confused as Santana did.

“When we got him, in late 2020, it was one of the better pitches in baseball,” Cotham said. “And now he’s in a spot where his delivery is in such a good place, he’s throwing strikes, he can take advantage of another good pitch. His delivery is the same and he’s using it in times that make sense to use it.

“It has more depth, it has a little more glove-side movement, and it’s also slower. It’s a tough deal for a hitter. The speed gap that they have to account for is tough, especially for guys that are really aggressive. You can pick one of his pitches and try to sit on it. Some guys can do it. But it might be a little harder to sit on it now that something might show up 86 mph or 88 mph.”

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For now, Alvarado is just trying to throw the pitch for strikes. His curveball will never take precedence over his cutter or his sinker, but he is optimistic that he’ll be able to use the pitch to fool more hitters in 2023.

“I needed something different,” Alvarado said. “I can throw my curveball for a strike, I can use it to strike them out. And then they go, ‘Oh [bleep], this guy has got a nasty curveball too.’ Before, the hitter was just thinking sinker or cutter, and now he has to think about curveball, sinker, cutter.”