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Kelly McDaniel
los angeles dodgers‘The pitching rotation has been the dominant strength of this year’s MLB Playoffs, with L.A.’s four aces combining for a microscopic 1.40 ERA and 81 strikeouts over 10 postseason starts.
With seemingly every performance blake snell, yoshinobu yamamoto, tyler glasnow And shohei ohtani A new wave of statistics arrives that shows the rarity of his achievements on social media.
As LA’s four starters prepare to face it toronto blue jays At the World Series, we’re here to prepare you for their Fall Classic presentations with guidance on what each does best and the pitch mix that makes the quartet so impressive.
Blake Snell: Game 1 Boy
What’s he up to this October: 0.86 ERA, 12.0 K/9 in 21 IP
What makes it so good: Snell’s excellence is easy to understand: He has been a front-line starter for nearly a decade, signed a $182 million deal last year and is a lefty who throws in the mid-90s. He already has two Cy Young awards and a 3.15 ERA in his 10-year big league career. But there has been a subtle change in his approach during his first year with the Dodgers that has driven their playoff dominance.
How he uses his pitches: Snell has basically been a power fastball/breaking ball pitcher for his entire career – but this season, his changeup has become his second-most-used pitch and his clear-cut best pitch by run value (ie, good things have happened when he’s thrown it this year, much more so than his other pitches). Run value can be somewhat misleading – what if your dominant fastball gets hitters on their heels, but the changeup gets all the statistical credit for strikeouts and strikeouts? Snell also appears to have confidence in what the numbers are showing.
His changeup usage was 23.6% in the regular season and 32.4% in the playoffs. His regular season miss rate on the pitch was 43.5%, and in the playoffs it is 65.5%. It’s been 60% or higher in all three of his playoff starts. Pitch speed and velocity are almost identical to last year’s edition, but the results, particularly in-zone contact rate and allowed launch angle, have improved quite dramatically.
Snell threw pitches only 2% of the time against left-handed hitters in the regular season, but that has ticked up in the playoffs, increasing to 7% against the Brewers with each start.
Those extra swings are basically coming at the expense of his fastball usage. Throwing fewer fastballs is somewhat common in the high-stakes environment of the playoffs, but Snell has thrived this year by relying more on his changeup than his slider and curveball in those key situations.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Six-Pitch Magician
What’s he up to this October: 1.83 ERA, 8.2 K/9 in 19⅔ IP
What makes it so good: Yamamoto came into the league last year with a lot of hype and largely lived up to it, but suffered an injury in his first major league appearance and missed nearly three months with a shoulder problem.
This year, he took a big step forward and looked to be worth his $325 million deal, throwing 173⅔ innings with a 2.49 ERA and sparkling peripherals, which added up to 5.0 WAR in the regular season. If you consult run values, all six of his pitches were better in 2025 than 2024, plus he threw nearly twice as many innings. What did he change?
The speed and velocity of his pitches are basically the same, and the usage of those pitches was basically the same, other than shifting 5% of his curveball usage to his cutter as he improved the speed on his cutter by a few inches.
How he uses his pitches: Take a look at the subtle changeups with two of his best pitches: his four-seam fastball and splitter. Here are the locations of his fastballs against right-handers in the 2024 regular season (left) and 2025 regular season (right).
It’s subtle, but that singular red dot in the middle has shifted toward the edge of the zone, and there’s a little more action at the top of the strike zone, where most of the misses are happening. His run value per fastball thrown nearly doubled and total runs saved went from plus-5 to plus-17 (a top-10 figure in baseball), while xwOBA (expected production by hitters) went from .360 to .299 and his miss rate increased by 2%.
Although the difference is not so easy to see in places, the performance of Yamamoto’s splitter has also improved. His average launch angle went from plus-1 to minus-8, and the barrel rate dropped from 17% to 9%, helping lead to a 24-point drop in xwOBA and a spike in the miss rate on that pitch. His run value on that pitch is plus-9, third best In baseball.
When Yamamoto is working, it’s because of those two pitches, which are his most commonly used offerings against lefties and righties. And yes, they tunnel well too:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 98 mph fastball and 93 mph splitter, overlay
May you be successful. pic.twitter.com/RDlNGBMTSd
– Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) 7 September 2025
Tyler Glasnow: 6-foot-8 power arm
What’s he up to this October: 0.68 ERA, 12.2 K/9 in 13⅓ IP
What makes it so good: Glasnow’s style of pitching is a function of his immense physical qualities and, throughout his career, he has been gradually figuring out how to solve the geometry problem he has created.
He is 6-8 and is an exceptional athlete who can generate the greatest extension (how far off the rubber he leaves the pitch) in baseball, while also throwing from one of the highest arm slots in the league. Glasnow’s long arms help him generate velocity easily but make his delivery difficult to repeat – so his accuracy within the strike zone can come and go. Because of this he relies more on strength than feeling.
How he uses his pitches: Glasnow has mid-90s velocity, but he can get a flat plane at the plate to miss in the strike zone due to his huge extension, which brings him down on the mound to negate his height and high arm slot.
He has a natural ability to cut the ball, so his fastball has near-cutter break while sitting in the mid-90s, his slider has normal speed but comes in at 3 mph slower than the average slider, and his curveball is even harder than the average bender – with six extra inches of drop.
He relies on that curveball against lefties because he doesn’t throw a changeup, and the slider is the breaker of choice against righties.
Glasnow’s use of these three main pitches puts batsmen into conflict. He forces them to time out decisions by throwing hard, and although he doesn’t get great horizontal movement, he can tunnel pitches so that they look similar when the hitter is trying to make a decision. I could show you a plot of how he executes it, but it’s easier to see it in the video. Here is a typical attack plan against right-handed hitters:
Tyler Glasnow, 97 mph fastball (foul) and 89 mph slider (Sword’s), individual pitch + overlay. pic.twitter.com/usSXo0Hng5
– Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) 31 August 2025
Glasnow’s game is one of extremes, but when he is healthy and executing, he is nearly unstoppable.
Shohei Ohtani: two-sided feeling
What’s he up to this October: 2.25 ERA, 14.3 K/9 in 12 IP
What makes it so good: You mean the most dominant two-way force the game has seen other than the three-time MVP (who is about to win his fourth award) — one of the most incredible performances in postseason history?
Well, the funny thing about Ohtani is that his eye-popping numbers at the plate and two-way praise make it easy to forget how good he is as a pitcher. In a career span of 100 regular season starts, Ohtani has posted a 2.87 ERA and struck out 670 batters in 528⅔ innings.
How he uses his pitches: You might remember Ohtani was a really good pitcher with the Angels in 2023, and now he somehow looks better. How? Well, it’s very simple:
His velocity on most of these pitches in the postseason is a few tenths above what you would expect.
Before the “velocity isn’t everything” crowd blows a gasket, Ohtani’s zone% and strikeout% are better in 2025 than 2023, and the shapes of his pitches haven’t really changed. He gave back an inch or more of movement on some of those off-speed pitches, which is a nice change given the industry’s understanding of pitching development.
When scouts talk about athleticism in any sport, it is usually about a number of things that can influence exceptional athleticism. In Ohtani’s case, it’s pretty clear: He’s one of the best hitters, and at age 31, after multiple elbow surgeries, he could improve his speed and strike-throwing at the same time he was already one of the better pitchers in the game.
