Who needs grounders? This Brewer succeeding with unusual batted-ball profile

This story was excerpted from the Brewers Beat newsletter, which was written this week by Theo DeRosa. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Logan Henderson isn’t what you would call a ground-ball pitcher.

Of the 71 batters the Brewers right-hander has faced so far this season, 45 have put the ball in play. Of those, only EIGHT have hit a ground ball. That’s a 17.8% ground-ball rate, the third lowest among qualifying pitchers. Just like he did in his 2025 debut campaign, Henderson is giving up a ton of fly balls, line drives and popups.

And it’s working out just fine.

With Brandon Woodruff and Quinn Priester on the injured list, Henderson -- who is set to start Friday against the Dodgers at American Family Field -- has filled in admirably with a 3.50 ERA and 23 strikeouts in four starts for the Brewers. After a stellar debut campaign, he has a 2.49 career ERA, making him one of just seven pitchers in franchise history with a sub-2.50 ERA in their first nine career starts.

The former MLB Pipeline Top 100 prospect might not be rolling many ground balls, but he’s finding success by keeping hitters off-balance, inducing softly hit contact and running fantastic strikeout and walk rates.

Henderson has an impressive 32.4% K rate this season, compared to a walk rate of just 4.2% (three walks in 18 innings). Through Wednesday, his strikeout-minus-walk rate of 28.2% is the third best among starting pitchers to throw at least 10 innings this season, behind only the Orioles’ Dean Kremer (32.6%) and Brewers teammate Jacob Misiorowski (31.3%).

After racking up 33 strikeouts in just 25 1/3 innings in 2025, Henderson’s 56 K’s through his first nine Major League starts are actually one more than Misiorowski racked up in the same span. In Brewers history, only Freddy Peralta (63) and Corbin Burnes (59) had more, with Mike Fiers tied with Henderson at 56.

MLB-wide, only 74 pitchers had at least 56 K’s in their first nine starts, 25 of which have been in the past 10 seasons -- a testament to the leaguewide increase in strikeouts in recent years.

So how does Henderson do it? While he’s not particularly massive at 6 feet tall, nor does he throw particularly hard (93.2 mph average fastball velocity), he has a four-pitch arsenal featuring devilish movement on every offering. Among qualifying pitchers, he ranks in the top 20 in either horizontal or vertical movement compared to similar pitches on all four pitches.

Henderson’s pitch movement numbers and MLB ranks
Four-seamer: +2.5 inches vertical drop vs. comparable, tied for 17th
Cutter: +4.2 inches vertical drop vs. comparable, ninth
Slider: +6.9 inches horizontal break vs. comparable, tied for ninth
Changeup: +5.1 inches horizontal break vs. comparable, third

Henderson has thrown his cutter a lot more in 2026. It’s up to an 18.2% usage rate from a 7.8% clip in 2025, and he now features the pitch to lefties, too. But so far, Henderson’s cutter has been hit hard: Opposing hitters are 5-for-12 with three singles, a triple and a home run. Henderson has also allowed a single and a double in five at-bats against his slider.

But his two main pitches -- the four-seam fastball (44.2% usage rate) and changeup (32.3% usage rate) have been excellent. With 11 K’s in just 29 plate appearances ending on the four-seamer, Henderson’s 37.9% strikeout rate on the pitch is tied for ninth in the Majors. Hitters are 5-for-25 against the righty’s changeup, which has a .193 expected wOBA -- the best of any of Henderson’s pitches.

That’s due to not only his high strikeout rate and low walk rate, but also due to his ability to get tons of soft contact. Henderson ranks in the 92nd percentile of MLB pitchers in hard-hit rate (28.9%), and his average exit velocity of 87.7 mph ranks in the 73rd percentile.

Despite all the lofted contact off Henderson -- 17 fly balls (37.8%), 16 line drives (35.6%) and four popups (8.9%) -- only 12 of those 37 batted balls have been hard hit. That helps counteract his sky-high 31.1% pulled-air rate, the eighth highest among qualifying hurlers.

Henderson’s propensity for fly balls isn’t what the Brewers probably imagined, but he’s clearly found a recipe to rack up strikeouts and keep runs off the board. It remains to be seen if Henderson’s batted-ball profile will stay so extreme, but the young righty is making it work so far.