Gregor Chisholm: Blue Jays mailbag: What the heck happened to José Berríos?
The following questions have been edited for length and grammar:? He went from performing well in 2021, then signed a huge extension that everyone was excited about and suddenly started to pitch like garbage last year, which has continued in spring training and the World Baseball Classic.
Why the change? Well, it wasn’t a drop in velocity with only a 0.1 mph difference in fastball averages across the last two seasons. The issues are more related to location and while Berríos’s 2.4 walks per nine innings last season were below his career average, there were too many pitches thrown into hittable parts of the zone.
The quality of Berríos’s stuff hasn’t diminished, which is why the Jays remain optimistic he can be fixed. They believe that Berríos’s mechanics got out of whack last season, altering his arm slot and release point. Minor adjustments, but after giving up six runs in one-plus inning of work for Puerto Rico at the WBC, it’s clear there’s still a lot of work left to do.
One thing we know for sure is that injuries aren’t a concern. There was no talk last year of a lingering issue and Berríos never would have volunteered to pitch in the WBC if he wasn’t feeling OK. Physically, Berríos has no issues going deep into games. The problem is location and the search for a cure remains ongoing. This is going to be a huge storyline during the first several weeks of the season.The same way they did last year.
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