Rick Porcello
Porcello won a Cy Young Award in 2016 despite striking out fewer batters per nine innings than any winner since the dead-ball era. His 22-4 record that season masked a pitcher who succeeded through precision rather than overpowering stuff, posting just 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings while leading the league in wins.
The right-hander's career tells the story of changing baseball priorities. He threw 2,096 innings across 12 seasons with a 4.40 ERA, numbers that would have been perfectly respectable in earlier decades but felt pedestrian in the strikeout-heavy 2010s. His 94 career ERA+ confirms he was essentially a league-average pitcher who happened to peak at exactly the right moment.
That 2016 season remains fascinating precisely because it bucked every modern trend. While his peers chased velocity and whiffs, Porcello succeeded with a 93-mph fastball and exceptional command, proving there was still room for old-school pitching in the analytics age.
Career · Pitching
12 seasons| Year | Team | G | IP | W | L | ERA | ERA+ | SO | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | DET | 31 | 170.7 | 14 | 9 | 3.96 | 109 | 89 | 1.336 |
| 2010 | DET | 27 | 162.7 | 10 | 12 | 4.92 | 83 | 84 | 1.389 |
| 2011 | DET | 31 | 182.0 | 14 | 9 | 4.75 | 83 | 104 | 1.407 |
| 2012 | DET | 31 | 176.3 | 10 | 12 | 4.59 | 87 | 107 | 1.531 |
| 2013 | DET | 32 | 177.0 | 13 | 8 | 4.32 | 89 | 142 | 1.282 |
| 2014 | DET | 32 | 204.7 | 15 | 13 | 3.43 | 109 | 129 | 1.231 |
| 2015 | BOS | 28 | 172.0 | 9 | 15 | 4.92 | 80 | 149 | 1.360 |
| 2016 | BOS | 33 | 223.0 | 22 | 4 | 3.15 | 133 | 189 | 1.009 |
| 2017 | BOS | 33 | 203.3 | 11 | 17 | 4.65 | 94 | 181 | 1.397 |
| 2018 | BOS | 33 | 191.3 | 17 | 7 | 4.28 | 97 | 190 | 1.176 |
| 2019 | BOS | 32 | 174.3 | 14 | 12 | 5.52 | 81 | 143 | 1.394 |
| 2020 | NYM | 12 | 59.0 | 1 | 7 | 5.64 | 79 | 54 | 1.508 |
| Career | 355 | 2096.3 | 150 | 125 | — | — | 1561 | — | |
Each pitch type this pitcher throws regularly, placed by how the ball moves — sideways break across, rise or drop down the side. Each dotted ring holds about the middle 85% of the league’s pitches of that type, so a cluster sitting outside its ring is movement most pitchers don’t have.
The dots — a sample of this pitcher’s regular-season pitches, placed by movement: left–right is horizontal break, up–down is induced vertical break (what the pitch does beyond gravity). The view is handedness-neutral — positive break is toward the pitcher’s arm side for lefties and righties alike, so every sinker runs right and every sweeper breaks left, whoever throws it.
The dotted rings — about the middle 85% of where each pitch type lands league-wide (a 2-standard-deviation spread), measured from 7.5 million regular-season pitches since 2015. A cluster sitting well outside its ring is movement most of the league doesn’t get. Spring training and the postseason are excluded.
Matchups, projections, comps — grounded in Lahman, Retrosheet, and Statcast.