Entering this season Brad Pacheco was viewed as a work in progress, a player who had just one healthy season in 3. When he ranked #32 on the preseason list this is what I had to say about him, and I think it gives a good snapshot in time.
At his best, Pacheco will show good arm speed and a pair of fastballs that will sit 92 to 95 with some 96s and 97s. Neither pitch has great shape, but he shows the ability to elevate the 4-seamer consistently. This is important because his most successful pitch in the low minors has been a big slow curveball that needs to be a chase pitch off of a high pitch. He has shown strides with his change, and it has to be his best pitch in the long term, but lacks consistency. He needs a pitch in the high 80s like a slider or cutter because he should be de-emphasizing his fastballs. Consistency has also been a problem for Pacheco, who had a throw away disastrous season debut (0.1 IP 6 H 7 ER 1 BB) followed by 4 just run of the mill bad games. He did end the season on a good run (7 GS 31.2 IP 2.56 ERA 20 H 7 BB 36 K). Also on the positive side, Pacheco finally made a bunch of starts in a row after barely pitching for 2 years.
In the Spring Breakout, Pacheco sat 96-98 with his fastballs with a new cutter/slider. That was a short burst, but it was a hint at what was to come. Here was his arsenal, usage, and results through May 26 (more on why that is important later).
| Pitch Type | % | %vR | %vL | Speed | Spin | Vert | Horz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FF | 29.8 | 10.8 | 60.1 | 95.5 | 2505 | 16.2 | -10.4 |
| SI | 25.1 | 39.4 | 2.2 | 95.7 | 2358 | 12.8 | -16.2 |
| SL | 32.9 | 43.3 | 15.8 | 85.5 | 2343 | 1.1 | 3.7 |
| FC | 3.6 | 5.8 | 0 | 87.8 | 2415 | 3.1 | 1.1 |
| CH | 8.7 | 0.7 | 21.4 | 89.7 | 1800 | 8.5 | -15.1 |
Now the cutter here is really the slider, but he was throwing it harder in the first few starts of the year. Overall, it is a more analytically friendly arsenal than what he was using in 2025. Against RHBs he was mostly sinker-slider with some 4-seamers mixed in, and then against lefties it is a bunch of 4-seamers with the changeup taking second place and slider still present. The big change from before the season is that the big looping curveball is gone and now there is a hard slider in its place. While the changeup and slider can be used as chase pitches, the arsenal is fairly one not in that it is all hard and lacks big movement either north-south or east-west.
Here is that same breakdown, but May 31 to June 25.
| Pitch Type | % | %vR | %vL | Speed | Spin | Vert | Horz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FF | 28.0 | 14.7 | 49.3 | 95.2 | 2482 | 15.7 | -10.6 |
| SI | 24.9 | 37.7 | 5.9 | 95.0 | 2331 | 9.5 | -16.3 |
| SL | 31.1 | 32.6 | 28.7 | 85.9 | 2255 | 2.4 | 2.9 |
| ST | 10.7 | 16.1 | 0.7 | 80.2 | 2540 | -2.4 | 15.1 |
| CH | 5.9 | 0 | 15.4 | 89.2 | 1682 | 8.3 | -14.6 |
Yes that is a brand new pitch. In his start on May 31, Pacheco started throwing a sweeper. Over his next many starts he found a bit more sweep to it. It is a pure chase pitch, by Rob Orr’s data it has been in the zone just 25% of the time. It isn’t getting big chase rates, but it is performing relatively similar to his slider in those regards, however opposing batters have not had any positive results on it. From a usage standpoint it has just replaced a portion of the sliders he is throwing to right handed batters, which should give him another pitch off a slider in the zone, but also he now has over 30 inches of horizontal separation between this new pitch and his sinker to work horizontally against right handed batters. This should help because opposing hitters are starting to really hit his sinker. Pacheco also uses his sinker as a pitch in the zone, throwing it there 60% of the time with just a 10% swinging strike rate thanks to a 85% zone contact rate. Ideally, you want the sinker to be able to compete in the zone with weak contact, and it hasn’t so far and a sweeper just help open up the zone more.
Once again there are arbitrary end points to that graph, and the changeup percentage is down. In his start on June 25, Pacheco did not throw any changeups, throwing just 4-seam fastballs and sliders to the left handed batters. Admittedly there were not many lefties in the Jupiter lineup that day, so it flagged more as a blip than anything notable. Here is his start yesterday on July 2.
| Pitch Type | % | %vR | %vL | Speed | Spin | Vert | Horz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FF | 39 | 23 | 59 | 94.5 | 2420 | 14 | -10 |
| SI | 12 | 21 | 0 | 94.9 | 2308 | 8 | -14 |
| SL | 18 | 28 | 6 | 86.5 | 2233 | 3 | 4 |
| ST | 18 | 28 | 6 | 79.8 | 2475 | -3 | 17 |
| CH | 13 | 0 | 29 | 83.7 | 1465 | 4 | -10 |
The change (pun intended) can be easy to miss, but let’s put the change (pun really intended) into it’s own table.
| Month | Speed | Spin | Vert | Horz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 89.5 | 1739 | 8.6 | -15.1 |
| May | 89.7 | 1808 | 8.3 | -15.0 |
| June | 89.3 | 1696 | 8.6 | -14.7 |
| July | 83.7 | 1466 | 3.8 | -10.2 |
It is a sample size of 10 pitches, but the difference is quite dramatic. He is throwing it off of his fastball against lefties and goes from a pitch with some fade, but only 6″ of vertical separation and 6 mph of velocity separation, to one that is in the same horizontal frame, but now has over 10 mph of velocity separation and 10″ of vertical separation. He had 4 whiffs on 7 swings against it in a very good start (5 IP 1 H 1 R 0 ER 1 BB 7 K), but that is a really small sample size.
Now it isn’t like Pacheco has emerged as a big time prospect. He was 20th on my June list update and he has a 4.48 season ERA with the Threshers. His arsenal looks better, and it looks better in ways that make logical sense when you think about the puzzle pieces and how they should interact together. Which makes this not really about Pacheco at all, it is about watching the Phillies pitching development at work. We can map out with instant feedback what changes are being made and the philosophical reasons one might make the changes. We are going to get this same opportunity with Andrew Painter in AAA as they rebuild him, but we also can start to think about how this all might apply to the next set of pitching prospects heading through the system and how they might be changed and adapted to meet the modern game.