Jackson Holliday’s April 2024 debut gave top MLB prospects a brutal warning: 18 strikeouts in 10 games. Picture the swing that makes a rookie want to snap his bat. His front knee buckles, his weight spills forward, and the barrel sweeps past a ball still approaching the plate. As his foot rolls, dirt catches the outside edge of the cleat. Barely moving, the catcher receives the ball.
That ugly finish tempts a tidy verdict: the kid cannot hit a changeup. Holliday’s strikeout total does not reveal which pitches beat him. Sometimes speed beats him; other times, movement, location, or the fear of something else does the damage. The replay needs to show which one.
“Stay back” sounds obvious from the dugout. Inside the box, waiting longer can leave a hitter late on the fastball he used to hammer. Selling out for the heater can send him lunging after the changeup. Somewhere between those failures, he must find a swing that still belongs to him.
The promotion changes his opponents overnight. Fixing the damage takes longer than changing the name above his locker.
The replay needs a better question
Start with the ball, then watch the hitter’s body. Did he commit before he recognized the pitch, chase something beneath the zone, or miss a strike he should have hit? Those mistakes can look equally awful from the upper deck. They send a hitting coach toward different repairs.
MLB groups changeups and splitters with off-speed pitches, while sliders and curveballs belong to the breaking-ball family. Swinging through a slider does not mean a hitter cannot hit a changeup. Lumping every miss together makes the scouting report easier to write and harder to use.
Across a single at-bat, the problem unfolds in three stages. First comes the pitcher’s disguise, then the hitter’s bad bargain, then the work that gives him a chance next time. Follow those stages and the ugly swing starts to make sense.
The pitch creates the hurry
With velocity, the pitcher gets the hitter moving before he knows enough. Disguise does the rest.
The heater teaches the body to leave early
Oswaldo Cabrera took the kind of swing that makes a changeup pitcher grin. Baseball Prospectus’ 2025 breakdown showed him lunging through a 78 mph Joey Cantillo changeup, well ahead of the ball. Cantillo’s average separation between fastball and changeup approached 14 mph in that analysis.
Cabrera’s swing illustrates the bargain. Prepare to handle the fastball and the slower pitch can make that preparation look ridiculous. Wait exclusively for the changeup and the pitcher can come back hard.
After years of hunting velocity, a promoted hitter brings the pitcher exactly the urgency he can exploit. Starting his move, the hitter sees something he likes and discovers too late that his body has outrun the ball. Cantillo’s example keeps an old pitching lesson alive. Even without overwhelming velocity, a pitcher can make a hitter leave too soon.
The delivery keeps the secret
The changeup works like a forged signature. Its first strokes look familiar enough to earn trust. By the time the hitter notices the difference, he has already acted on it.
Cole Hamels described the aim during his 2008 World Series press conference: make an 85 mph pitch look like 95. He traced his interest in the changeup to Trevor Hoffman’s success in San Diego and instruction from his high school coach. That history belongs beside the modern talk about tunneling.
Tunneling means keeping different pitches close together along the early part of their flight before they separate. Baseball Prospectus’ research on sequencing examined how fastball-changeup pairings could exploit that shared early path.
To beat the disguise, a rookie has to spot the difference before his hands commit. Announce the changeup before a cage swing and the hitter can look wonderfully balanced. Remove the announcement and the test changes completely.
Skenes brings fastball speed with a disappearing bottom
Paul Skenes makes the word “slower” sound almost dishonest. Sam Dykstra’s May 2024 MiLB report measured his splinker at 94.7 mph through seven Triple-A starts. At that speed, the hitter has to hurry before he can even account for the movement.
Baseball Savant tracked 30.3 inches of total drop on Skenes’ splitter in the 2024 majors, compared with 17.4 inches on his four-seamer. Even a well-timed swing can pass over a ball finishing much lower than the hitter expects.
That physical mismatch matters more than the unique nickname. Sitting back will not automatically help if the hitter reads the wrong path. Reaching downward can wreck his balance and leave him vulnerable upstairs. Skenes’ arrival sharpened the assignment: handle elite velocity while recognizing when the bottom will fall away. Nobody hands out extra time because the pitch carries an off-speed label.
The count turns recognition into a trap
Recognizing the pitch only starts the fight. Once the count tightens, the rookie has less room to guess wrong.
Waiting for a fastball count can leave a hitter stranded
Drew Thorpe threw 38 changeups among 98 pitches in his June 2024 debut. Against that kind of mix, waiting until two strikes to consider the changeup leaves a hitter guessing too long.
Consider a 1-0 count. The rookie looks for a heater he can drive, then watches a changeup land near the bottom edge. Now he faces 1-1 with less room to refuse the next close pitch. The pitcher can follow with something that starts similarly and finishes beneath the zone.
At two strikes, the same low target carries a different threat. Taking a strike ends the at-bat; chasing a ball can end it just as quickly. The hitter must judge the pitch without letting the count make the decision for him.
Thorpe’s debut offers a reminder that deception can carry the workload. Before two strikes, a rookie still has to account for the pitcher’s best changeup.
The league keeps ordering what the rookie cannot handle
Coby Mayo learned how repetitive big-league pitching can become. He told MLB in August 2024 that opponents would keep attacking low and away until he supplied an answer. For the pitcher, keeping the evening interesting never enters the job description.
That repetition can expose two different weaknesses. A hitter might keep offering at balls in the dirt. Another might recognize those balls perfectly well and still miss the changeup that catches the zone.
Colton Cowser’s 2024 numbers show why the distinction matters. The Banner’s April 2026 review recorded a 25% chase rate alongside misses on 42.9% of his swings against off-speed pitches that rookie season. Better restraint alone could not explain away all those empty swings.
Prospect rankings buy no mercy. Until the hitter takes away the easy out, pitchers will repeat a profitable attack. Telling every struggling rookie to become more patient amounts to lazy coaching when the real problem involves contacting strikes.
A bad week can follow the hitter into the cage
Back in the cage, the next bucket of baseballs brings the temptation to change everything. Move the hands, widen the stance, shorten the stride, try whatever might stop another miserable walk back. Soon the hitter carries several repairs into a swing that used to feel automatic.
Mike Trout’s first major league audition offers some perspective. Baseball Savant records a .220 average in 40 games in 2011, followed by .326 in 2012. His early line never captured the player he would become.
Trout supplies no guarantee for the next rookie. His example does make instant verdicts look foolish. Before dismantling the swing, a club still needs to identify the actual miss.
After a miserable week, frustration can make every part of the swing look broken. One bad decision can produce a spectacularly ugly finish. Rebuilding everything after that swing risks damaging the movements that already work.
The repair starts with the actual miss
Before changing the swing, a coach needs to separate bad decisions from poor contact. Chourio and Adell show why the distinction matters.
Choose between a better take and a better swing
MLB’s September 8, 2024, snapshot showed Jackson Chourio’s chase rate falling from 36.4% through May to 30.3% from June onward. Jo Adell later improved through a different route.
Baseball Savant shows Adell’s contact on swings at strikes rising from 79.0% in 2024 to 83.1% in 2025. Over those full seasons, his chase rate actually climbed from 29.8% to 32.8%. Adell connected with more strikes without becoming more selective outside the zone. Neither example proves mastery of every changeup. Together, they give coaches something firmer than “be patient.”
Chourio’s numbers point toward refusing more bad invitations. Adell’s show progress in executing swings inside the zone. Even with identical strikeout totals after a rough night, those hitters might need entirely different work the next afternoon. A coach who cannot explain which repair the rookie needs should keep watching the video.
Make the cage ask the same uncomfortable question
Step into a pitch-replication cage and the screen gives the opponent a body. Motors hum behind the screen as the projected pitcher lifts, turns, and releases. From the opening where the hand appears, a real baseball shoots toward the hitter’s ribs.
MLB’s March 2025 Marlins report described a 1,200-pound Trajekt machine in the club’s training setup. Along with adjustable release slots, Trajekt’s own specifications list control over speed, spin, and seam orientation. The machine can put a big-league slider into the same session as the fastball the hitter keeps expecting.
Expensive hardware does not finish the job. Without uncertainty, changing locations, and a reason to take, a rookie gets only part of the rehearsal. A session devoted only to loud contact cannot reveal whether the hitter would refuse the same pitch during a game. Name the changeup in advance and the hitter can rehearse the answer. Mix it with fastballs and balls below the zone, and he has to solve the question.
Make the pitcher come back into the zone
Picture the first sign of growth from the dugout: a hitter keeps his hands back and takes a 1-2 changeup in the dirt. The barrel stays quiet. Instead of dropping toward his own empty swing, his head follows the ball into the catcher’s mitt. With the count at 2-2, the hitter has denied the pitcher the out he wanted. Nobody needs to call it a breakthrough.
To make that take matter, the rookie must repeat it and still attack a strike. A pitcher might bring the next changeup higher, try the edge, or return to the heater. The hitter needs a plan that survives those responses.
Spitting on a ball below the zone does not require surrendering aggression. Instead, he saves that aggression for something the bat can reach and drive. The next hard line drive means more when the hitter has helped create the pitch that produced it.
The next trip to the plate
Even after a strikeout, a rookie can carry one better decision into his next turn. The final pitch might have beaten him. Earlier in the count, he might have refused the changeup he chased the night before.
Before the batting average catches up, the dugout should notice that progress. Coaches can track whether he stops fishing beneath the zone, contacts more strikes, and keeps his fastball swing intact. With two strikes, fouling a heater into the seats can buy another chance. None of those improvements needs a grand explanation over the stadium speakers.
Soon enough, another rookie will arrive with scouting grades, highlight reels, and expectations his first cold stretch cannot satisfy. His opponents will arrive with a plan for turning those strengths against him. A violent fastball swing gives the changeup pitcher something to exploit.
Calling the rookie soft after an ugly miss is cheap analysis. So is celebrating every quiet take without asking whether he can still hit a strike. Back in the box, he digs in and watches the pitcher show the same delivery.
The catcher lowers his glove. Can the rookie spit on the pitch in the dirt? Does he still have the fastball when it comes back upstairs?
Read More: Evaluating the top 100 MLB prospects for the 2026 season
FAQs
Why do top MLB prospects struggle with changeups?
They prepare for fastball speed, then commit too early when a similar delivery produces a slower pitch. The changeup punishes that urgency.
Is a slider an off-speed pitch?
MLB classifies sliders as breaking balls. Changeups and splitters belong to the off-speed group.
Why is Paul Skenes’ splinker hard to hit?
It arrives fast and finishes much lower than his four-seamer. A hitter can time the swing correctly and still swing above it.
Will chasing fewer pitches fix a hitter’s contact problems?
Not by itself. A hitter can stop chasing balls and still miss strikes, so coaches must examine both decisions and contact.
How does a Trajekt pitching machine help hitters?
It pairs a projected delivery with adjustable release points, speed and spin. Hitters can practice recognizing pitches before facing the real pitcher.
