Ryan Pressly - The Best Reliever in Baseball Right Now?

Last July when the Houston Astros acquired relief pitcher, Ryan Pressly, from the Minnesota Twins in exchange of two prospects, it was one of those trades that went under-the-radar. That was due to the magnitude of the other trades happening at the time and some of the speculation surrounding some of the biggest names (Cole Hamels, Zach Britton, Brad Hand, and Eduardo Escobar to name a few) who could wind up, and ultimately did wind up, being traded.

In fact, it wasn't the only significant bullpen addition that the Huston Astros made at the time, either. Just a few days after acquiring Ryan Pressly, the Houston Astros felt as though they needed to upgrade their bullpen even more and went out and got right hander, Roberto Osuna, from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange of righty, Ken Giles, and two other prospects. Even that move went under-the-radar and has paid off big dividends for the Houston Astros, a team that currently sits in first place, with an 8 and 1/2 game lead in the American League West.

Switching things back to Ryan Pressly, Pressly made history last night by becoming the first reliever in MLB history to hold a 0.00 ERA over his last 39 appearances. Brilliant and truly a compliment to the type of reliever that Pressly is and the impact that he has. In case you're wondering, the previous record was held by current free agent, Craig Kimbrel, who held a similar streak over 38 consecutive outings.

As such, so far this season, Pressly has yet to allow a run over 20 innings of work and has put up a strikeouts-per-9 rate of (9.5) over that span. Beyond that, Pressly currently has a (1.02) Fielding Independent Percentage (FIP) and a (.188) Batting Averages on Balls In Play (BABIP). So what's exactly working for Pressly and contributing to this success beyond some otherworldly luck? Let's take a look below at some of the metrics and see if we can put a finger on it.

For one, Ryan Pressly has totally embraced the analytical approach of the Houston Astros, something that seemingly has worked for almost every pitcher that Houston has acquired over the past few seasons. For example, take a look at Justin Verlander, who completely reinvented himself after going from the Detroit Tigers down to Houston and helped lead them a World Series Championship in 2017. Furthermore, look at Gerrit Cole, who has become a completely dominant strike thrower, or someone like the aforementioned, Roberto Osuna, who has completely regained his confidence and turned back into the reliever that he was for the Toronto Blue Jays, just a few short seasons ago.

Beyond that, Pressly has completely reinvented his mechanics to the point where he has become a groundball reliever. That is extremely helpful because the Houston Astros know that, anytime they need an out or two in the late innings of a ballgame, they can call Pressly in and those outs will likely result in groundballs. When you mix the groundball with Houston's superb defense, it's a recipe for success.  For more, take a look at the graph below, courtesy of FanGraphs.

As you can see from the chart, Pressly's groundball rate has climbed exponentially so far this season compared to last year. Last season, Pressly ended the year with a groundball percentage right around (53%), but thus far this season that percentage has climbed a little, more than ten percentage points to right around, (64%). Furthermore, as you can see from the gray line towards the bottom of the graph, that percentage is way around of the MLB average, which currently sits right around, (44%).

In addition, Pressly has reinvented his pitch repertoire and is no longer relying on certain pitches, most notably his sinkerball, as much as he did in previous seasons. For illustration of that, take a look at this next graph, provided by FanGraphs.

From the graph, it can gathered that Pressly has experienced a slight downturn in how often he is throwing his fastball, around a (5%) climb in how often he is throwing his cutter, nearly an identical percentage of time that is relying on his slider, and that he has completely eliminated his sinker from his pitch repertoire. Based on that observation, it can then be assumed that the Houston Astros have identified something that has encouraged Pressly to completely get rid of his sinker and become a three-pitch reliever. It's obvious that type of game plan is working those based on all of the numbers, metrics, and Pressly's current scoreless streak.

As the season progresses forward, it will be interesting to see if Pressly reintroduces the sinker into his pitch repertoire or if he introduces a completely new pitch altogether, outside of these four mentioned above. After all, when Pressly first made his big league debut in 2013, as well as during the 2015 and 2016 seasons, he had all four of these pitches in his repertoire, along with changeup. Now, he didn't necessarily throw it that often (5.5% of the time in 2013, 1.4% in 2015, and 0.4% in 2016), but it would be interesting if he reintroduced that pitch into his mix or found some sort of advantage to use in the latter months of the season with it.

Beyond that, Pressly's overall batted ball metrics have changed somewhat as well, most notably from last season to this year. Again, let's turn to a graph courtesy of FanGraphs, which helps to display that information and will allow you to see the year-to-year trends.

As you can see from this graph, Pressly's centerfield and opposite field batted ball metrics have dropped significantly from last season to this year. In contrast, his overall pull percentage has climbed quite a bit, (40%) last season to well over (50%) so far this year. With this, it can be inferred that Ryan Pressly is throwing his pitches at the right velocity levels and has the right movement on each of those pitches to make the opposing team's hitters, pull the ball, instead of hit it to a centerfield or opposite field gap. 

Again, this is probably an aspect of the overall recipe to success, that the Houston Astros have formulated in their game plan with Ryan Pressly and it's obviously working given his current overall numerical metrics. Furthermore, sometimes depending on the type of shift being used, the Houston Astros lead the charge when it comes to shifts with a (49.3%) value, that could end up playing into this as well. The Astros have a phenomenal left side of the middle infield and outfield, which helps with the overall defense, and where the ball is caught to make an out. Those are all of the decisions that a team, such as the Houston Astros, formulate during their pre-game planning sessions and exactly where the Analytics Department comes into play. 

Regardless of all of the metrics and varying reasons as to why Ryan Pressly is having such a tremendous season so far, it's something that definitely deserves credit and a trade that could easily be argued, was the best one to happen, over the past year. Pressly has been able to refind himself, work on his overall mechanics, and become the reliever that the Minnesota Twins likely thought he would be overtime. It's probably one of those situations where the Twins regret trading him given where they are in the standings and their likelihood of being a contender this year. 

However, the Houston Astros have been more than appreciative of Pressly's efforts so far and it will be fascinating to see how long his current scoreless streak lasts. Some around the game might have predicted that Ryan Pressly would be the one to break the record, but out of all the current relievers in the game, there could have been plenty of other individuals that broke it. However, Pressly did and he did rightfully so, another nod to his overall impact on the upward trajectory of the 2019 Houston Astros baseball team.