Changeup Development Report

[Bob_Meteors]

A few months ago, I decided to make a list of every player in the WBA universe who had an undeveloped changeup. The criteria were: the current changeup rating had to be 1, the potential changeup rating had to be at least 6, and the player's age had to be 23 or below. There were 111 total players who met this criteria, listed below (just kidding).

This list was made around January 2125, and since then, at least one or two changeups have developed in almost every sim. The most was during spring training, but we've had several developments per sim during the season as well. Since this will naturally change over time, I'll post semi-regular updates to this report, but here are the first round of results:

Of the 111 players on this list, 23 of them have had some development in their changeup, or 20.7%. This is not a large number, but it's certainly higher than what I had expected, which would have been somewhere around 5%. The best performer has been Black Forest prospect Rodney Litchfield, whose changeup increased to 4/10. 4 other players saw their changeups increase to 3: Luo-shan Wu, Pedro Gonzáles, Kolomon Ziblat, and Andy White, while 18 others increased to 2. There seems to be no correlation between likelihood of development and skill, as some good prospects (as well as several terrible prospects) were among those that developed. I can send the full list via Slack to anyone interested.

[Coop]

Very useful information, looking forward to occasional updates.

[Echo127]

Good stuff.

[Bob_Meteors]

Update #1
As the 2125 Draft Class has been published, it's time to update the development report! Let's start with the new class:
There are 150 players in this class who are 23 years old or younger and have a changeup currently rated 1. Of those, 28 have a potential changeup of 6 or higher. Obviously none of those have developed yet, but they're now on the list.

Now, on to the players we've been looking at:
4 players have been removed from the list because their changeup potential dropped below 6 (in some cases, to 3). 4 others aged out of the list. One (Alberto Vásquez) saw development in his changeup, leaving 87 players currently 23 or younger with a 1/6+ changeup.

In total, 31 of the initial 109 (somehow I lost two) players have seen at least some development, bringing the rate up to 28.4%. More significantly, though, this update will see the first time a pitcher's changeup has become a usable pitch. I'm defining "usable" as 5 or higher, and two pitchers saw their changeup get from 1 to 5 - Rodney Litchfield and Luo-shan Wu, both prospects for Black Forest. Somebody ask Coop what he's doing, because it's working.

Just so Jake will leave me alone, here's some interesting results by age: Of the 31 whose changeup developed, there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between age and success. Some are 24 now, others are 18 or 19. Litchfield is 21, Wu is 19, one of the 4s is 23. But that changes when we look at the percentages. Note that all of these numbers are using the list before adding the new draft class, since that would skew it (those players haven't had a chance to develop yet). Here are the results (numbers shown are percentages):
Age                   24        23   22           21           20           19           18
Developed    6.45        16.13   22.58   12.90   19.35   19.35   3.23
Undeveloped   10.26     21.79   17.95   16.67   15.38   16.67   1.28
The differences are subtle but definitely there. Older players tended to develop slightly less frequently, while younger players tend to do a little better.

That's it for today! Some good news for anyone thinking of taking one of these pitchers with a 1 changeup early in the draft.

[Bob_Meteors]

Update #2: (one sim before) Opening Day 2126

Since our last update, 9 more pitchers with a potential changeup of at least 6 have begun developing. 8 of them improved to 2, one improved to 3. Interestingly, only 3 of them were from the 2125 draft, with the others coming from 2123 and 2124. The only truly notable one is Mexico City's 2125 first rounder Ademar Breia, who has 3 other pitches anyway. I'm keeping a close eye on Scurrah, though.

Of the 135 players who have ever been on my list, 39 of them have had some development, for a rate of 28.9%. Of the 111 who made up my initial list, 36 had some development, a rate of 32.4%. I'd expect that rate to start plateauing at some point, but not for a few more years. We also have 2 more players reach a 5-rated changeup - Rio's Pedro Gonzáles and Tokyo's Pierre Thirion.

Below is a table of the developed and undeveloped players by age. Interestingly, there seems to be a correlation, but not the one we'd expect - older and younger players are less likely to develop, while those in the middle are more. Evidently, once you make it to a certain age, you probably won't be doing much developing.

Age               25     24     23        22   21       20   19     18      17
Developed     2.56  10.26     20.51   7.69   17.95    28.21   10.26  2.56  0.00
Undeveloped 3.13   12.50    22.92   17.71   10.42    11.46   13.54  7.29  1.04

Finally, I'd like to point out a really interesting thing I noticed. Whenever I refer to my lists of players, I'm always talking about players who started with a current changeup of 1 and a potential changeup above 6. I have a shortlist of all pitchers with a current changeup of 1, but I never really check it, I just use it for storage so it's easier to add players to the right lists. Some players on there have developed to 2, 3, or 4, and I really didn't bother checking the percentages because nobody cares about a changeup if its potential isn't at least 6. (I'll do the calculations if people want to see them, I just don't think anyone will!) But two pitchers in particular from that list had something really interesting happen to them. Northwest's Carl Taylor had his changeup, and changeup potential, increase from 1 to 7 - in one day - and then from 7 to 8. Ljubljana's Abhramu Gurudutt had the exact same thing - an increase of both current and potential from 1 to 7 overnight, and eventually to 8. I have no idea what caused this. The developments happened within a week of each other - December 3rd and December 10th, 2125 - during the offseason. Neither pitcher will amount to anything - Gurudutt's potential is 8/5/5, Taylor's is 6/2/3, so we won't be seeing much of them in the majors even with this massive changeup improvement. I really have no ideas, so if you have any, please tell me! Maybe they're just good friends with Honorio Paquete.

I'll do another one of these eventually. Maybe during the season, certainly when the 2126 draft class gets published.

[Kevin]

Good stuff. Thanks Bob

[Bob_Meteors]

Update #3: 2126 Draft

The 2126 draft pool has been published, and you know what that means - time for another update! It's been a while since the last one, and a lot has happened. 27 (!) more pitchers with a potential changeup of 6+ have begun developing, including 7 getting to a current rating of 3. This is the 2125 draft's first big update, understandably, with the 2nd and 3rd overall picks - Tokyo's William Scurrah and Phoenix's Beau Fletcher - each seeing some development. This brings the total number of players who've developed to 66. We also saw our first 8-rated changeup - Rio's Pedro Gonzáles - as well as a few 7s. 66 total players have now seen some development.

Of the 111 players who made up my original list, 52 of them have seen some development, a rate of 46.8% (much higher than I originally thought). 6 have developed to a current rating of 6 or higher (5.4%) and 3 have fully reached their potential (2.7%), but of course, that rate could increase by a lot as the players fully develop.

Now, on to the 2126 draft class! 162 players in this class have a current changeup of 1, but only 30 of them have a potential of 6 or higher. One is potential top pick José López, who's one of the biggest risks in WBA draft history, with a 1/11 changeup. There's also 6 3-star potential SP and 3 2.5-star potential SP. (This list includes players of all positions, but for whatever reason, all of the highest potential players on the list tend to be starters. This is true even of the initial development class, which has 8 players of 3.5-star or higher potential, all of whom were drafted as starters.)

Another note: Last update I mentioned that two players had developed out of the blue, with massive increases in their potential changeup as well as their current changeup. That was at the beginning of the 2126 season, which is now coming to an end, yet nobody else has done that. My current working theory is that it's an offseason thing - both of those guys had their insane development boost in December, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that over the next few months.

Finally, as per Rome's request, here's some data about age at the time of being drafted. Of the 66 players whose changeup has begun developing, 65 of them were drafted. (shoutout to undrafted pitcher António Marquis, who has 2 movement and 3 control, but a nicely-developing changeup). 37 of those 65 were in high school - 17 or 18 years old - for a rate of 56.9%. (That took me FOREVER to figure out, by the way, spreadsheet magic!) I don't know how valuable that is on its own, though, without knowing how many of those who didn't develop were high-school age. So I've decided to keep track of the 2126 draft class separately (they'll still be included in overall data, but this will be an additional analysis) and track their age on draft day compared with how well their changeup develops. We'll start to see data from that with my next update. As a side note, if you want specific data tracked, ask in Slack and I'll do my best.

Currently planning to do two updates per season, one around opening day and one when the draft class is published. Possibly also others if I get bored.

[Bob_Meteors]

Update #4: 2127 Draft

Well, I lied. Said I was gonna do two of these per season, and lo and behold, a whole season goes by. Well, nevertheless, the 2127 draft class is out, so let's look at how changeup development is going!

First, I want to look back at the 2126 draft class one year later. There were 30 players in that class whose changeup was currently 1 and potential at or above 6. Of those, 17 (!!!) have seen some development, for a rate of 56.7% just one year later! Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll all develop fully - 10 of the 17 only developed to 2 - but it's definitely a promising sign for those who drafted changeup pitchers this year. The best performer was Tokyo's José López. Last update, I wrote:

Potential top pick José López [is] one of the biggest risks in WBA draft history, with a 1/11 changeup.

The risk paid off for Tokyo, who drafted him 2nd overall, and his changeup has already increased to 5/11 within a year. Of the 16 teenage draftees in the 2126 draft (who are 19 and 20 years old now), 8 of them developed their changeup (50%), while of the 14 20+ year olds, 9 of them developed their changeup somewhat (64.3%). Of course, this is a very small sample size, so not many conclusions can be drawn - but let's just say the assumption of "teenagers with risky changeups are more likely to develop than older draftees with risky changeups" is so far not being borne out by the evidence.

The 2127 draft class had 110 players with a current changeup of 1, 32 of whom with potential 6 or higher. These include 5th overall pick Maroof Virk of Havana, who will probably reach the majors only as a center fielder, but isn't a bad pitcher either, and 27th overall pick Attilio Badaloni of São Paulo, a 3.5 star pitcher who probably fell to the 2nd round solely because of his changeup. The list also includes one three-star SP, five 2.5-star SPs, one 2.5 star RP, and one 2.5 star CF (Rio's Ysmael Quenery, who isn't a very good pitcher, but he is a 2.5 star prospect so I felt like mentioning him), plus many more 2-star or lower players. Normally, I'd post this before the draft, so none of these prospects would have teams yet, but I was late so here we are. I'm also putting the 2127 draft class in a separate list, so we can continue to analyze them as a group and gain more age data.

Of the 111 players on my initial list, 58 of them have seen some development, for a rate of 52.3%, only slightly higher than a full year ago. The number that have developed to 6 or higher has risen to 8, a rate of 7.2%, and 5 have hit their full potential (4.5%). Honestly, that's much lower than I expected given where it was a year ago. I assumed that once they start developing, they'd keep going uninterrupted, but so far that doesn't seem to be happening. It could change, though, the majority of players on this original list are still younger than 24, and quite a few are 20 or 21.

In total, 87 players with 6+ potential changeups have seen development of some kind, including 10 reaching 6+ current rating. The best performer is Rome's Ji-an Loong, whose changeup reached 9/9 recently.

Finally, during my last update, I said this:

Last update I mentioned that two players had developed out of the blue, with massive increases in their potential changeup as well as their current changeup. That was at the beginning of the 2126 season, which is now coming to an end, yet nobody else has done that. My current working theory is that it's an offseason thing - both of those guys had their insane development boost in December, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that over the next few months.

While I hadn't posted any updates in a while, I did keep an eye on that, and by opening day of 2127, that remained true - so imagine my surprise when 3 new pitchers joined the ranks of random changeup elixir development. I've previously mentioned Abhramu Gurudutt and Carl Taylor. Taylor, by the way, has disappeared from OOTP and S+, which I assume means he retired and was deleted since he had no major league experience. Since then, Havana's Aaron Hoolahan has had his actual and potential changeup increase from 1 to 9, while Melbourne's William Ford had his increase from 1 to 10. Interestingly, Ford's development mirrored Gurudutt's - it jumped hugely overnight (Gurudutt's from 1 to 7, Ford's from 1 to 9), while Hoolahan's was much more gradual, jumping from 1 to 3 and then in increments of 1 over a period of about a year. But so far, everyone who's taken this elixir has been a pretty underwhelming talent - Gurudutt and Hoolahan will never see the major leagues, and Ford is unlikely to. But I've saved the best for last. Allow me to introduce you to Tokyo's Kamesh Naini, drafted in the 10th round of the first 2124 draft as an 8/6/5 reliever. Since then, his movement potential has increased to 8 and his control potential to 7, a very good development bump on its own. But his changeup has increased from 1/1 to 10/10, bringing him from an 8-stuff reliever to a 9-stuff starter with three elite pitches. Naini's changeup increased gradually, in increments of 1, most recently just this past sim. He's also had slight potential improvements on his other two pitches, a 6/9 cutter and 4/10 slider.

That does it for this update. If you'd like me to track any specific data, let me know. I'll (hopefully!) do another one of these around opening day.

[Bob_Meteors]

Very small and unfortunate update:

Somehow my export didn't go through after I compiled all this data. Since then, seven of the 110 players with a 1 changeup in the 2127 draft class have developed their changeup, including three whose potential was 6+. Unfortunately, I simply have no way to know who they were, I just know that my lists only have 103 and 29 names, instead of 110 and 32. So these guys just won't be included in the data, which will probably make it seem slightly worse than it is, but there's nothing I can do about it. Sorry.

[Bob_Meteors]

Update #5: 2128 Draft

The 2128 draft has not started yet! Ignore everyone who dares to suggest that I might not post these as often as I planned. Anyway, here's another update.

Let's first look at the 2126 draft, now with two full years of development. This absolutely shocked me, but out of the 30 players from that draft class with a 1/6+ changeup, 24 of them have seen some development, for a rate of 80%! Only one has fully reached their potential - Black Forest's Khai Jiang, at 7/7 - but they're all still very young, and it's a good sign that so many have begun developing.

On to the 2127 draft, which had 29 players with 1/6+ changeups. One year later, 14 of them have developed somewhat, for a rate of 48.3%. Although none have gotten above 4, it's still higher than most of us would expect.

And now to the current draft, 2128. This draft class had 159 players with a current changeup of 1, much higher than last year, and 33 of those had potential changeups of 6 or higher, only slightly higher than last year. 12 of those are 2.5 stars, two are 3 and two are 3.5, and one is 4 stars - Hi-yuan Mao, whose 1/9 changeup will make the difference between a mediocre and excellent pitcher. Every single one of those is listed as a SP (although, of course, if their changeups never develop, they might turn into relievers). At this point, it's happening way too often to be coincidental - players with 1/6+ changeups are almost always starters. I have absolutely no idea why.



Overall stats time! In total, 196 players have passed through my list as 1/6+ changeups. The oldest of them, by the way, is now 28 - time really flies, doesn't it? My original list was only players under 23. Since our last update, 26 more players have seen some development.  The most significant ones improved to 4: Tokyo's Asadel bin Kaseeb and Puerto Rico's Shi-ping Guao. This means that overall, of the 196 players, 115 have developed somewhat. This is a rate of 58.7%, especially impressive considering that the list of 196 includes the 2128 draft class. When they are removed, the rate jumps to 70.6%, which is probably much closer to the actual likelihood of development.

I felt like I've been saying "Tokyo" and "Black Forest" a lot, so I decided to look at the list of developing changeups and see which team was best represented. Of the 115 players whose 1/6+ changeup has begun developing, 11 belong to Black Forest, 10 to São Paulo, and 9 to Tokyo. No other team has over 7 (Mexico City and Los Angeles have exactly 7), and past that, the list goes:
6 - Mumbai, Rome
5 - Cairo, Edmonton
4 - Manila, Northwest, Paris, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo
3 - Havana, Melbourne, Phoenix
2 - Ljubljana, Rio de Janeiro
1 - Karachi
14 of the remaining 15 are currently free agents, while one - Carlos Galló - retired at the age of 26, following three seasons in the major leagues. I have no explanation for this.

That's it for this update. I'll try to do another one around opening day, but we'll see.

[Echo127]

Not much luck for Rio in Bob's data, but I do have one pitcher who has gone from 1/3 to 3/5 with his changeup (and maybe upgraded himself from RP to SP).  https://statsplus.net/wba/player/4522?page=ratings