A Veteran in Transition
Apr 14, 2025 - Written by Noah Pohle
Photo Credit : @Angels - X
Last offseason, the Angels signed two drastically different starting pitchers to fill roles on their Big League staff. First, there was Kyle Hendricks, the former Cubs lifer, last remnant of their 2016 championship and a man with an esteemed reputation as a person. He was guaranteed $2.5 million to pitch every fifth day and asked to let some of our young pitchers pick his brain in the meantime. Three weeks later, we signed Yusei Kikuchi to a $63 million-dollar contract, with expectations for him to lead our rotation during the three-year duration of that deal. The latter was coming off of a breakout year due to some tweaks made after a midseason trade from Toronto to Houston that elevated his status from back-end starter to power playoff pitcher.
Through their first three starts, Hendricks has met his expectations. He is fighting time to maintain his sterling control, and while not striking out very many hitters, he has been staying off enough barrels to put the ball in his teammates’ glove. Additionally, his prior experience in the bullpen may have lent something to the Angels’ decision to put Reid Detmers in the ‘pen himself to begin this year.
Kikuchi, however, has not looked like a front-of-the rotation starter by any stretch of the imagination. Though he has a strikeout rate of 8 per 9 innings, comparable batted ball metrics to last year, and is allowing just a .239 average on balls in play, his ERA is sitting at an even 5.00 through his first 18 Angel innings. So, even though we are limited to a small sample size, it is worth exploring Kikuchi’s 2025 season under the hood to better understand what has been going awry.
Two big abnormalities show up in the statcast data when you compare this season to Kikuchi’s entire body of work, and each have combined to affect the version of Kikuchi we have seen so far. One, Barry Enright and the Angels’ pitching development team seem to have tweaked his arm slot. Kikuchi’s arm slot had not changed since dropping from 48 degrees to 42 degrees in 2022. This year, however, the lefty has become more lateral in his action than ever, with a 33 degree arm angle at release. And, two, more directly, Kikuchi’s velocity is down a full tick (95.5 in 2024, 94.4 in 2025), which have combined to affect the way his stuff plays.
Obviously, this velocity drop is not something Kikuchi or Enright are going to take sitting down, as the change in arm slot is just one of many adjustments the two have made together. As for the changes in stuff, the velocity drop has negatively impacted the efficacy of both his slider and curveball, his two glove-side offspeed offerings. However, this new arm slot has allowed his changeup to generate nearly seven inches of additional drop, and some more arm-side fade. His four-seam, once known for generating rise and staying above the plane of the bat, is generating almost four more inches of run than it did last year. Additionally, we have seen Kikuchi tinkering with a sweeper and a true sinker this season, potentially giving him another average-ish breaking ball with more horizontal movement and a fastball to change the pace at the bottom of the zone.
The changes in how his arsenal looks have carried over into Kikuchi’s pitch usage so far this season. He has leaned into his slider and changeup, and away from his lower-velocity fastball. When ahead in the count, he is throwing the changeup more than ever, at the expense of his curveball entirely. Against lefties he still ditches the changeup, and nearly three-quarters of his pitches are fastballs or sliders. These are the spots he has been flashing the sweeper and sinker. This all tells the story of a pitcher who understands he can no longer rely on missing bats with velocity, and is perhaps still figuring out how to best utilize his pitches with their new movement profiles.
While a return to normal velocity as the season progresses would not be unheard of, it is also possible that this is the new normal going forward, and Kikuchi will have to continue to adjust either way. The transition from Houston to Anaheim is still a work in progress, but so far his profile has showcased an ability to adapt, and a return to form from our $63 million-dollar man would do a lot to maintain some of the early steam we have picked up here in 2025.
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