SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – When the Royals acquired Cole Ragans in 2023, he had just introduced his slider and worked on it extensively at Triple-A Omaha before bringing it to the big leagues that August. The newfound upper-90s fastball he was throwing certainly helped establish himself, but the slider was somewhat of a revelation. He threw it 10.4% of the time in ‘23 but generated a 40% whiff rate on it. Batters hit just .180 off it and slugged .200.
The pitch hasn’t really been the same since – a good pitch, to be sure, but not quite what it was for Ragans in ‘23.
But it might be back.
Among the many things Ragans worked on this offseason, the slider occupied the greatest part of his mind as he tried to replicate the grip and movement he had in ‘23.
“It was really good and performed really well to both sides, lefties and righties,” Ragans said. “I could take it in the zone, out of the zone. It was firm. It was exactly what I wanted.”
In ‘24, the pitch was more inconsistent for Ragans, but he made do with what he had and still got fairly good results with it. He tweaked the grip heading into last year, and it was back to getting swing and miss and some chase in Ragans’ limited time on the mound – but the movement wasn’t what Ragans wanted.
“It got super depthy and was almost a baby curveball,” Ragans said. “... It was bigger and inconsistent. And just depthy, just straight down. I got some chase with it, some swing and miss with it, but it’s more so about putting it in the zone. I could never throw an 0-0 slider last year. In the grand scheme of things, I didn’t do well with that. And it’s something I do want to do.”
Ragans’ usage of 0-0 sliders decreased to 6.6% last year, down from 9.4% in ‘24. He wants to use it to get ahead in the count, so this offseason, he set out to find the movement that his slider had in ‘23. He scoured video from games but really focused on bullpen videos from that season. Edgertronic technology captures high-speed footage and allows for pitchers to break down even the smallest of movement with their grips. Ragans saved several bullpen sessions on his phone and was finally able to see the grip he used three seasons ago.
When he did, he took a video of him gripping the ball so he wouldn’t forget it.
The fix was simple, too: He moved his fingers back on the seam, more toward the horseshoe, so he’s not so much on the front of the ball. He also discovered a mental cue that works for him: Throw it like a cutter. It clicked one day this offseason while throwing a bullpen, and suddenly Ragans got the movement he desired.
“If I think, ‘Slider,’ I want to get around the ball and yank it,” Ragans said. “Where if I think, ‘Cutter,’ it’s like I’m staying on top of the ball and the grip is going to do the work and get the movement instead of trying to manipulate somewhere else. I can just be free and easy and all I have to think is the same thing with my cutter. The grip is going to do the work.”
The pitch has looked tremendous on the backfields during live BP and Ragans’ bullpen sessions this spring. But he’s been itching to get in a game and work on it against non-Royals hitters.
Saturday was the day to do that, when Ragans threw two scoreless innings in the Royals’ 16-3 win over the Rockies at Salt River Fields. He averaged 97 mph on his 17 fastballs and topped out at 98 mph. He struck out three batters.
He looked like Cole Ragans – and that’s a really nice sight to see for the Royals.
“We joked about [Ragans] being in the bullpen today, but to have both him and [starter] Seth [Lugo] pitch on the same day was a lot of fun,” manager Matt Quatraro said.
Ragans also threw four sliders and averaged 86.8 mph with them, an increase of 2.1 mph from last year. One was an 0-0 slider to Mickey Moniak, who took it for a strike. Another was a nasty backfoot slider to Charlie Condon, who swung and missed.
“The first couple I threw, I yanked to the ground,” Ragans said. “I had the one that backed up to [Hunter] Goodman. But movement-wise, I thought it was good.”
When Ragans is healthy and at his best, he’s blowing his fastball by hitters and bringing them to their knees with his breaking balls. A slider like the one he’s working on now will only add to that.
“I feel as good as I’ve ever felt,” Ragans said. “It just felt good to be out there.”