An O's pitcher who could have a breakout 2022 season

His 2021 stats are modest, but it says here his talent is large. He was taken No. 4 overall in the 2015 draft and he has a right arm worthy of such a high pick. But so far at the major league level, Orioles reliever Dillon Tate has not put it all together. Just when it looks like he is getting on a roll and we see a bunch of nasty pitches, something often seems to go wrong.

Will next season be his year?

I say it will and there are stats from 2021 that might provide a clue. First of all, his overall numbers for last season show an 0-6 record, 4.39 ERA and 1.241 WHIP. Over 62 games, pitched 67 2/3 innings (most among relievers) and allowed 61 hits, including seven homers with a 3.1 walk rate and 6.5 strikeout rate. Modest stats, indeed.

But I can't help wondering how Tate doesn't pitch better and keep expecting it to happen soon. Or at least when there are next some games to play.

Among the 16 O's pitchers throwing 30 or more innings in '21, his 59.7 groundball rate was No. 1 by a big margin over Tanner Scott, who was next at 51.1. That helped him produce an 0.9 per nine innings homer rate, which was third-best on the club. When it comes to hard-hit rate found on FanGraphs.com, Tate rated second-best on the club at 26.0. In line drive rate, he allowed 15.0 percent which was also second-best. So we have a pitcher with three at times nasty pitches that gets a ton of groundballs and doesn't allow hard contact, compared to his teammates' stats.

Tate ranks in the top 19 percent of the sport in fastball velocity at 95.5 mph, up from 94.4 the year before and 93.7 the year before that. The velocity is good, but his spin rate ranks in the bottom three percent in the majors. That could be good and not good in my opinion, being very much a spin rate novice. But perhaps that heater lacks some movement, which makes it more hittable even with plus velocity due to spin rate. At the same time, I'm told pitchers with lower spin rates on two-seam fastballs like Tate throws can get more sink on the ball. In other words, some of those ground balls could be tied to lack of fastball spin rate.

Where Tate definitely comes up short is getting swings and misses. Among those 16 O's pitchers throwing 30 or more innings last year, he was 14th in strikeouts/nine and 13th in K percentage at 17.1, a strikeout percentage that ranked in the bottom 10 percent in baseball.

With that stuff? Yep. The strikeouts were not coming.

Last year, Tate got very few swings and misses on his fastball, which he threw 61 percent of the time, but a lot more on his slider, which he used 24 percent, and his changeup at 15 percent. His whiff rate was 33.9 on his slider and 39.0 on his changeup.

There are a lot of numbers being thrown at you here, but in the final analysis, I wonder if fewer fastballs and more secondaries would benefit Tate. For instance, he throws his changeup less than in one of every five pitches. Yet the pitch gets a 39.0 whiff rate and expected slugging percentage of .293. John Means, who we know has an excellent changeup, gets a 30.0 whiff rate and .391 expected slugging.

So maybe throw more changeups!

At 27, Tate could be coming into his prime years in the game. Now, with 105 major league innings under his belt, he's gained some experience along the way. The numbers tell us (and so does the eye test) that the quality of his pitches is good. He could use a bit more swing and miss and maybe improved numbers there lead to overall improved numbers. Maybe he just needs the confidence to match his stuff. Who knows for sure?

But when I think about pitchers on the current O's roster who show signs they could dramatically improve or have a breakout 2022 season, I think first of Tate.