Casey Mize says 'the old me' is coming. There's also a new Mize in the making. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter are developing a plan for the former first overall pick to make better use of his arsenal after he took his lumps in his first season in the majors.
"It's going to be fun to work with him on his usage and when he throws what pitch. He's got so many weapons," Hinch said Friday. "It's going to be fun to watch him evolve and use his pitches a little bit more efficiently, a little bit more effectively."
Mize alluded to this in the offseason. In initial conversations with Fetter, he said there was an emphasis on throwing more fastballs up in the zone. Mize also stressed the importance of controlling the count, something he'd done throughout his career until last season.
Hinch comes from an organization known for harnessing arm talent through analytics. Justin Verlander took his game to new heights in Houston in part because of resources he never had in Detroit. Hinch doesn't want to re-make Mize. He doesn't need to. He and Fetter just want to maximize what Mize already has.
"It's not just throw more high fastballs, it's throw more high fastballs to the guys that can't handle them," said Hinch. "I just want him to throw to where the hitters are going to get soft contact or swing and miss. It's not a quota of pitches that we're going to ask him to hit. It's don't miss an opportunity to expose a weakness in a hitter, because he has just about anything you need to attack a weakness of a hitter and it's still a strength for him."
The numbers say Mize's fastball was actually his best pitch last season. It held hitters to a .143 batting average. And Mize's best pitch by reputation, his splitter, was one of his worst: .313 batting average against. But it still induced a high rate of whiffs and Mize generally liked the way it came out of his hand. He just needs to throw it in less predictable counts.
That's before mentioning his slider, cutter and curveball, which he used with varying degrees of success. He's a true five-pitch pitcher, and he's 23 years old.
"His pitches are elite across the board," said Hinch. "When he understands the impact of the elevated fastball, when he can use his split -- which is incredibly nasty -- throughout the count and not just late in counts to punch guys out, he'll take a leap forward when he applies his stuff more effectively."
Hinch, who managed a number of highly-touted prospects at the start of his tenure in Houston, also wants to reduce the pressure on Mize to be anything other than himself.
"I want to take some of the burden for Casey off of him, that he doesn't have to be perfect right now. He just has to go compete with his stuff," said Hinch. "We want prospects nowadays to be perfect when they get to the big leagues, but they're not going to be. I don't care where you rank or where the experts say you are in the industry, the learning curve in the majors is tough."
Mize struck out seven batters and walked none in his MLB debut. That was the first overall pick. He struck out 19 and walked 13 in the six starts that followed. That was the rookie. He remains a rookie now, with the tools to become a new version of his old self.
"He's learning, and we have to allow him the platform to learn," said Hinch. "He wants to be perfect, he wants to be an anchor in this rotation and I've told him the opportunity is going to be there for him to earn it."
