Corbin Burnes has been one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball since he broke out during the shortened 2020 season. He won the 2021 NL Cy Young Award and received votes again in 2022. A big part of his game is his cut fastball and his ability to generate swings and misses with it. Codify recently posted a statistic that shows how ridiculously good his cutter has been over the past two seasons.
Over the past two seasons, Corbin Burnes has the most strikeouts with cutters.
Most strikeouts with cutters,
last two MLB regular seasons:Corbin Burnes, 𝟐𝟐𝟖 😮
Luis Garcia, 127
Kenley Jansen, 89
Tyler Anderson, 87
Madison Bumgarner, 86 https://t.co/YsDmDIBXr7— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) January 11, 2023
Burnes has the lead in this statistic by a large margin. His 228 strikeouts with a cut fastball is not quite double than the next closest pitcher, but it is close. After Luis Garcia, who has 127 strikeouts with a cut fastball, the next closest is Kenely Jansen. Jansen is not even in the triple digits in regards to total strikeouts with a cutter.
Overall, Burnes has 477 strikeouts with all of his pitches over the past two seasons and he led the National League in strikeouts in 2022. This means more than 50% of his strikeouts have come via the cutter. On top of all the strikeouts, Burnes’ cutter generated a 27.8% whiff rate in 2022 and 32.1% in 2021.
Usage wise, Burnes used the cutter 55% of the time in 2022 and 52% of the time in 2021. That pitch has been a game changer for him and based on the above information it may be one of the best pitches in baseball right now.
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