Astros: Jake Odorizzi will have a bounce back season in 2022

Jake Odorizzi gets a full spring training.

We as fans constantly underestimate the difficulty to assimilate to a new team in a new culture. After missing most of 2020 with injury, Odorizzi signed late with the Astros in March 2021, so he never got a spring training.

He ended up making his first start on April 9, literally one month from the time he signed with Houston. That’s a short amount of time to move to Houston, and sync up with the teams workout programs and pitch strategy.

Odorizzi delivered a dud in his first start with five earned runs on seven hits against the Detroit Tigers, which included two home runs. He then left the game early after his third start with injury and missed about a month on the the shelf.

Odorizzi returned and had a very successful June, before abruptly falling off the cliff in July and August where he posted a 5.10 ERA. Some players can walk into a new situation and thrive right away, and others need time to acclimate.

Odorizzi will come into 2022 with a full offseason with the same club, an entire spring training to work out the kinks and has no known nagging injury to slow him down. The last time he had a steady offseason like this was before his 2019 campaign, where he was an All-Star.

The right-hander took the bump Tuesday, working two innings on 27 pitches (17 strikes). Odorizzi allowed two base runners — a double and a walk — to his one strikeout.

Jake Odorizzi’s secondary pitches should return.

Odorizzi’s four-seam fastball was not as effective last year, but it was his secondary pitches that really abandoned him. His split-finger and cutter saw less movement than in his previous seasons and frankly he didn’t fool many hitters.

Batters hit above .275 and slugged over .500 against both the split-finger and cutter. Odorizzi’s cutter was so ineffective that he hardly used in the second half of the season. When a pitcher can’t use all his options and must rely on his average 89 mph fastball to bail him out, that spells problems.

Now let’s compare his poor 2021 season with his 2019 season with Minnesota Twins where he was named an All-Star. That season both his split-finger and cutter generated sub .400 opponent slugging, and both were below .240 opponent batting average — those are really good rates.

When those two pitches worked for him, Odorizzi got guys to routinely chase out of the zone, got ahead of the count more often and could generate those soft contact outs. I suspect Odorizzi will regain a little bit of form on these two key pitches, which will ultimately make him a more effective in getting easy outs.

The 2021 season was just odd for Odorizzi.

Last year, Odorizzi was above-average against right-handed hitters but struggled mightily versus lefties — yielding  a 113 tOPS and a .252 OBA. However, when you look at his overall 1,000 inning career, Odorizzi actually performs much better against lefties — 94 tOPS and .232 OBA.

Odorizzi was straight up abysmal in July and August 2021 with his 5.10 ERA and hitters posting a 117 tOPS. However, throughout his 10-year career, the right-hander has generally been pretty steady in second half with a career 3.89 ERA post All-Star break.

Odorizzi is a career tOPS of 128 when batters are ahead, which is not great, but last year was worse when his tOPS was 170 which is an .859 OPS. He gave out doubles and home runs like candy on Halloween when he trailed in the count.

But, he even struggled in favorable counts relative to his career, as he gave up a tOPS of 90, whereas he’s usually a pretty stout 75 tOPS for his career. Some of this might be linked to his inability to fool batters last year.

Odorizzi was only a 55% first-pitch strike guy, while the league average was 61%. He only generated a 25% chase rate, while league average was 32%, which is a significant drop-off from the 34% mark he generated in 2019.

Simply put, hitters did not bite on his early count stuff and stayed within the zone. Odorizzi was not sharp enough to get guys to miss and thus led to opponents barreling the ball way too much.

No doubt Odorizzi disappointed in 2021. But it wasn’t exactly a fair setup for him. He missed spring training, dealt with injury and never seemed comfortable on the mound. I think fans need to temper expectations of what Odorizzi is.

He’s not gonna be a top-three starter, and he’s not going to electrify the crowd with any elite pitches. He’s the guy that can get you five-to-six innings without giving up too much damage. And there is a reason to believe that he’s prime for a slight bounce back in 2022. And hey if it doesn’t work out, Mike Fiers is still on the free agent market.