Lamonte Wade leadoff man 🔜

Here’s Bubic punching out Steven Kwan this season.

Add all of these factors with a 53% ground ball rate and 60% rate in 2024, I think Bubic could be a great get for the Reds. Probably as a reliever who can provide some length, given that Nick Martinez is probably being paid 21 million to be a starter. (Video from Baseball Savant)

FanGraphs deemed Bubic’s value at 7.4 million dollars in 2024. Bubic is only expected to make 3 million in arbitration this year and has two years of team control left.

Pitching models also liked Bubic’s stuff in 2024. His 3 main pitches the fastball, slider and changeup ranked 98, 110, and 86 on the stuff + model (100 being avg) and 110, 107 and 109 on the location + model.

With his improved fastball, he also added some more extension down the mound being close to 7 feet in extension. Also, his expected stats like batting average, slugging and weight on base average (WOBA) were lower than the actual stats themselves deeming Bubic unlucky in 2024.

Bubic appeared to tweak even more things in his recovery. He really took away the arm side run on his fastball that was near 8 inches in 2022 with a -20 run value and took it down to 3.6 with a +3 run value in 2024. This made the fastball play off his new slider a little better.

Unfortunately, Bubic only pitched three games in 2023 before suffering an injury that led to Tommy John surgery. But his stuff seemed to be on the right track. (Another screenshot from @lancebroz.bsky.social)

Bubic altered some mechanical things in 2023 such as starting in more of a hip coil, moving his glove lower, pointing his front toe down when he began delivery, moving right on the rubber and slightly shortening his arm path. Video from @lancebroz.bsky.social (check out his YouTube!)

The lefty entered 2023 with changes to his arsenal. He added a slider, but it moved similarly to his curveball.

Bubic’s 2022 was less than ideal and he needed to make some changes.