You can find two of the best changeups in baseball lurking at the backend of the Rays bullpen. And they couldn't be any more different.
Bryan Baker is a strong candidate to represent Tampa Bay in Philadelphia at next month's All-Star Game thanks in part to his sterling changeup, which he uses 45% of the time. The opposition is hitting just .158 with a 39.8% swing-and-miss rate against the pitch, entering play on Wednesday.
Kevin Kelly, meanwhile, is back to his steady self following a subpar 2025 campaign. The changeup -- a pitch he developed over the offseason -- is a big reason why. He's allowed just four hits in 32 at-bats ending in a changeup this season.
But while these offerings are technically the same pitch, they're really not anything alike at all.
Baker is your classic over-the-top, flame-throwing hurler. Kelly is a true sidearming right-hander who slings the ball to home plate.
“It’s definitely a challenge throwing from that high arm slot, where you’ve got a lot of different things going on,” Baker said. “And you’re throwing off a slanted mound anyway. It can get tough. I’m sure Kevin’s is about as different as it gets.”
Baker has the third-highest vertical release point on a changeup in baseball (min. 50 changeups thrown), at 6.51 feet above the ground. That's more than three feet higher than Kelly, who lives on the other side of the world. His changeup is thrown at the lowest release point of any changeup in the game, at just 3.58 feet off the ground.
Those different release characteristics lead to different movement profiles, too.
Baker's changeup doesn't have the sort of drop that we come to associate with most changeups. It's not quite like the "riding" changeup that Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease uses, but it's not far off, either. Baker's version averages 29.1 inches of drop, which is 1.2 inches fewer than comparable changeups, based on those thrown at a similar velocity and release height. While he's had that movement profile for his entire career, Baker tweaked his changeup grip two days before Spring Training last year, adding velocity and increasing its repeatability. Now, he throws his changeup a career-high 45.2% of the time.
“In some ways, it feels like fewer guys are throwing the changeup like him,” Kelly said. “Like he’s got a true, straight change. The velo difference is the main separator there. Mine, it’s only a couple miles off my sinker. It’s more about the movement than anything, which feels more common now. But he’s throwing 97, then he just floats 86 in there. … Batters are just completely befuddled by it, because it looks like a fastball the whole way, then, ‘Oh, it’s 10 miles per hour slower.’”
Kelly’s changeup is just five miles per hour slower than his sinker, but it drops a ton. His changeup averages 45.7 inches of drop, which is the second most in baseball behind the Reds' Sam Moll, among pitchers to throw at least 50 changeups this season.
At the end of the 2025 season, Kelly mentioned to Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder that he wanted to incorporate a changeup into his arsenal. Tampa Bay throws more changeups than any team in baseball -- with a teamwide 20.4% usage rate this season -- and Kelly wanted in. He threw one in college, but from a higher arm slot that he typically uses for his four-seam fastball. He wanted to find a grip that would work from a true side-arm slot. So, they got to work.
“When I started throwing bullpens, I started messing around with grips,” Kelly said. “We tried a split-finger grip at first; that didn’t work at all. That was like a gyro slider. Terrible. We settled on what felt comfortable in my hand, which was just like a modified circle. … We kept tilting the ball until eventually it moved well.”
It took Kelly three months to get used to throwing a changeup from the lower slot. A few weeks into Spring Training, he finally felt like he could control the movement on the pitch. It was unlike anything he had thrown before -- even his old changeup.
“This one’s very different,” Kelly said.
That's a good thing. It’s a reliable weapon now, something he uses 22% of the time, giving him a north-south component to what is primarily an east-to-west arsenal.
“Him showing up this year and implementing that, and then also implementing that at such a high level, is extremely impressive,” Baker said. “I don’t think people realize how hard it is to do that at the big league level. ... It’s probably been 20 years in the making for me, where it’s probably been two months in the making for him, which is kind of crazy.
“That’s baseball for you: Different ways to get the job done.”
MLB.com senior club reporter Adam Berry contributed to the reporting of this story.