Aaron Nola’s Fastball is the Worst Pitch in the MLB
Ranked 613/613 of available pitches from pitchers. His fastball run value is tied for the worst pitch in the entire MLB. He’s tied with Simeon Woods Richardson, 25 year old pitcher for the Twins. Who throws a split finger at a similar -13 run value. Ranked in the bottom 1 percentile overall for pitching value. Nola’s total Pitching Run Value ranks him in the bottom 5 percentile, with that fastball really just dragging him down to oblivion. His “Breaking Run Value” is actually +5, which is 94th percentile for breaking pitches, and his offspeed is +2 run value which is 77th percentile. Those are his Knuckle Curve/Changeup/Cutter, which have all looked pretty fine this season.
His fastball hasn’t always been terrible either. If you look back to 2022, his velo has dropped .8MPH, which isn’t that severe, but in 2022 his fastball had a +30 run value, which was in the 100th percentile for fastballs. Ahead of Wheeler’s fastball that year, and in the same realm as Scherzer, Strider, & Verlander. Ranked as 21/567 applicable pitches that season.