How Yennier Cano is thriving with a new pitch mix
Who knew throwing your best pitch less and introducing a new mediocre one would work?
The story of Yennier Cano's breakout 2023 season is straightforward: Plus command of a double-plus sinker led to lots of weak contact and a 96th percentile ground ball rate, and his slider got just enough whiffs and chases to be the perfect complement. As long as he was dotting the bottom zone with the sinker and placing the slider just outside, he didn't need much else.
His command regressed in 2024 and he was worse overall, but an even stronger 63% ground ball rate kept him effective. He threw his sinker — which graded out about 30% better than average by Stuff+ with the equivalent of a 70 grade from PitchingBot's stuff metric — more than 50% of the time overall and over 60% to right-handed batters.
So you'd expect the sinker to be the reason he has pitched 4 scoreless innings with no walks and a 0.07 FIP so far this year, right?
Wrong.
Cano has cut his sinker usage in half to begin the season, using both his changeup and slider more and introducing a new cutter. Part of this may be that his sinker hasn't had great characteristics in his first few appearances — it's gone from double-plus to average by stuff models — but he's been pretty decisive in diversifying his mix from the jump.
And while his slider hasn't noticeably improved by stuff, there are two reasons I think it has played up in terms of run value: improved command and the introduction of the cutter.
He has only thrown the cutter 7% of the time, and it isn't special in terms of stuff (81 Stuff+), but its mere existence fills a crucial movement gap for Cano.
Below is his movement profile from 2024:
And now his 2025 movement profile:
What you'll notice is that the cutter falls right in the movement gap between Cano's tailing sinker and changeup and his slider, while also harder than the slider and change.
In previous years, his slider moved so differently than his other pitches that it may have been relatively easy for hitters to pick up. Having to guard against both the slider and the cutter makes the whole at bat less comfortable.
The other element I mentioned — command — shouldn't be ignored. Cano hasn't walked a batter in his four appearances and has an early Location+ score of 131 compared to his career 106. PitchingBot gives his command a 73 out of 80. And his locations have improved across all of his pitches.
It's very early and his mix might change as the season goes along, but right now Cano is dotting a 5-pitch mix that is more varied in movement and velocity than it's ever been, and that's a recipe for success.