Ben Brown’s Changeup Looked Different in Last Start
Fair warning out of the gate that you may want to file this one under confirmation bias for the time being. There’s so little evidence — only 14 pitches total and just one or two in question here — but I’ve been writing about Ben Brown‘s changeup for a while now and something looked different on Friday. Not only did he get his first swing-and-miss on an offspeed pitch this season, but the metrics varied significantly from what we’ve seen in the past.
While I’d love to say it’s because he listened to CI’s The Rant podcast this past Thursday, I don’t think he’d have integrated a new grip within 24 hours.
“Start throwing a kick change. Thank me later” @DEvanAltman wants Ben Brown to add a kick change to his arsenal ? pic.twitter.com/3SiZlwQUEb
— Cubs Insider (@realcubsinsider) May 3, 2025
The bad thing about having such a small sample and lacking Edgertronic video or high-def stills is that we can’t really say anything definitive about what may have been different in his most recent start. The good thing about having such a small sample is that we can easily review all the changeups Brown has thrown in MLB over parts of the last two seasons. Let’s take a look at the publicly available information to see if anything stands out.
Below is a rudimentary chart I just put together showing the velocity, spin rate, induced vertical break in inches, and result of every changeup Brown has thrown in a game. Feel free to peruse at your leisure, but I’ve taken most of the guesswork out of it by highlighting the two he threw in Milwaukee.
That first one was against Sal Frelick and generated just the third swing and only whiff Brown has gotten on a change this season. It also had just 5 inches of IVB, tying it for the most depth he’s ever gotten on an offspeed offering. The spin rate is what really stands out, as it was more than 500 rpm below his season average and nearly 400 lower than he’s ever gotten. Then he dialed it down even further on his second changeup of the game, though the IVB was back to his norm.
Brown was also able to reduce the velo a little bit, though that wasn’t as dramatic and it’s less important than creating vertical separation from the fastball. He clearly hasn’t been able to kill spin in the past, which causes the change to have too much ride. Finding a way to consistently generate several more inches of depth will make this a much more viable pitch, thus elevating his game.
This could just be a fluke, but the significant deviation in those spin numbers in particular tells me Brown was intentionally doing something different. Other anecdotal evidence suggests as much, namely the growing prevalence of the kick-change across MLB and the fact that the Cubs employ one of its more astute pedagogues. And since Brown is already familiar with spiking the grip on his knuckle curve, it stands to reason that he’d be able to do so with another pitch.
Again, we’re going to need to see or hear something from Brown, the Cubs, or another source to know for certain whether an alteration has been made. But rest assured that I’ll be nerding out about this in a major way if there’s more to it than coincidence.
