Unbusted! Is Former Top Prospect Lucas Giolito Finally Putting it All Together, or is His Historic First Half Just a Mirage?

After a few seasons as a top prospect, including time as the number one in baseball, White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito entered 2019 at just about the bottom of the barrel in terms of being a starter. He was having to compete for a spot in a rotation for a team that won a total of 62 games the previous season. He himself was not much more successful, holding a 6.13 ERA and only striking out six and a half per nine innings. HIs whole Major League career had been a struggle, and his lack of recent success in the minors seemed to suggest that he really was not the pitcher that scouts had projected, until all of the sudden he was.
Since the start of 2019, Giolito has somehow become one of the most impressive pitchers in all of baseball, sporting a 2.74 ERA and striking out 10.97 per nine, up over four k’s from the previous years. His advanced numbers even suggest this is more than just fortunate pitching, as he has low contact rates and a well above average FIP(Field Independent Pitching). His 78.7% strand-rate is very high, but not to the point where it is unsustainable. Nothing about Giolito’s numbers seem to point out any luckiness. That just leaves the question: How does a player go from nearly being thrown out of the Big Leagues to a contender to start the All-Star Game?

The first important thing to understand is, although it really looked like his chance at a career was dwindling, Giolito was still only 24 heading into this season. While his start had been poor, that still meant there was plenty of time to turn things around. Even as terribly as he pitched through his first few seasons in The Majors, he probably had at least one or two more years to improve before people gave up on him completely. Plenty of great players had slow starts, and while it is rare for someone to come back from that horrendous of a beginning to a career, it is not unheard of. Not that anyone should have suspected this incredible uprising, but it is still important to note that is resurgence does not completely defy logic.

The more technical reason for his success, though, is his improved ability to use his repertoire to its full potential. This begins with his most important pitch, his fastball. According to brooksbaseball.net, Giolito is using his fastball at a much higher rate than he had previously, and with better results. His velocity is up, and his swing and miss rate has increased as a result. His increased trust in it has also allowed him to get ahead more frequently in counts, resulting in a lower walk rate than he’s ever had before.

He has also altered his curveball, using it a little less frequently and with a more 12-6 action than the previous side-to-side. This helps it to look more like his other pitches while also helping it stay in the strike zone more often. This helps him once again stay ahead in counts, something he was never capable of doing in his previous years.

The biggest improvement, though, is his increased use of his slider and changeup. He relied too heavily on his fastball and curveball early on, which meant hitters always only had two options to worry about. By spreading out his pitch usage with two more effective pitches, hitters are going to be less confident in what they are seeing and therefore less able to sit on certain pitches. Pitching is all about deceiving the hitter, and having a wider repertoire helps greatly in that regard.

While one good half season hardly means Giolito is a full-fledged star, it does at least prove he is capable of pitching in the MLB. Maybe he does regress into a more average pitcher, and this will be his only taste as a Cy Young candidate, but even then his feat should not go unnoticed. His career looked like it may have ended before it began, so seeing his revival still shows how impressive his ability to improve and adapt is. Whether he has just bought himself time or turned himself into a new level of starter remains to be seen, but Giolito’s career will now never be looked at as the bust he once appeared to be. For him and the White Sox, that alone is worth celebrating.