Adding a cutter saved Paul Maholm
The addition of the cutter has transformed Paul Maholm into a legitimate big league starter, and one of the game's most underrated pitchers.
By
Chris Cwik
•
2 min read
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| The addition of a cut-fastball turned Paul Maholm's career around. (USATSI) |
Paul Maholm was well on his way to becoming a specialist reliever. Six seasons into his major-league career, Maholm was showing major platoon splits. He was always capable of limiting damage to lefties, but right-handers destroyed him. Realizing that he would be sent to the bullpen if those trends continued, Maholm worked to develop at cut-fastball. Since adding the pitch, Maholm’s ERA has dropped by nearly a full run -- from 4.48 to 3.66. With his new arsenal, Maholm has come back from the brink and emerged as one of the game’s most underrated pitchers.
Maholm first started utilizing the cutter at the beginning of the 2011 season, and steadily increased his usage as the season progressed. Per BrooksBaseball.net:
| Cutter Usage | Against righties |
|---|---|
| April | 6% |
| May | 8% |
| June | 14% |
| July | 20% |
| August | 12% |
By June, the pitch had become a regular part of his arsenal, and an immediate weapon against right-handers. Maholm’s cutter isn’t a dominant pitch on it’s own, but works well with Maholm’s approach. The pitch doesn’t get batters to whiff much, but it’s rarely utilized by Maholm in two-strike counts. The real value behind his cutter is that is gets a lot of foul balls. The pitch doesn’t get hit as hard as his four-seam fastball, and the high rate of fouls allows Maholm to get ahead of hitters early in the count.
The addition of the pitch has also allowed him to fool batters with his fastball and slider more often. Most cutters come in about 1-2 mph slower than a pitcher’s four-seam fastball, but Maholm’s cutter is about 4-5 mph slower than his fastball and sinker. While it has similar movement to his slider, the cutter doesn’t break as much and comes in a little bit faster. Since all three pitches can have similar movement, it’s tougher for the batter to guess what pitch is coming.
The results could be seen in his numbers immediately.
| Splits | wOBA vs R | wOBA vs L | ERA | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 0.376 | 0.303 | 4.76 | 4.81 |
| 2007 | 0.358 | 0.280 | 5.02 | 4.60 |
| 2008 | 0.337 | 0.231 | 3.71 | 4.15 |
| 2009 | 0.365 | 0.234 | 4.44 | 3.83 |
| 2010 | 0.370 | 0.286 | 5.10 | 4.18 |
| 2011 | 0.311 | 0.309 | 3.66 | 3.78 |
| 2012 | 0.311 | 0.310 | 3.67 | 4.00 |
From 2006 to 2010, righties had roughly a .355 wOBA against Maholm. Basically, he turned every right-hander into the 2012 version of Jay Bruce. Starting in 2011, which is when he added the cutter, his wOBA against right-handers dropped precipitously. The last two years, he has a .311 wOBA versus right-handers. To keep with the above example, righties have now been reduced to hitting like 2012 Omar Infante against Maholm. That’s caused Maholm to post the two lowest ERAs of his career, and the first and third best FIPs.
Maholm has gotten off to a strong start to open the 2013 season, not giving up a run in his first two starts. That’s a tiny sample, and considering one of the teams he faced was the Marlins, those numbers can easily be called into question. But Maholm has shown a drastic improvement over the past two seasons. A few years ago, the thought of Maholm becoming anything more than a fifth or sixth starter seemed unlikely. With the addition of the cutter, Maholm has transformed himself into a reliable mid-rotation starter on a contending team. That’s extremely impressive, considering where his career was headed pre-2011.
