The Tigers lefty is racking up the whiffs through two outings.

"Matthew Boyd has come a long way since Tigers fans first got a look at their new acquisition back in 2015. Boyd arrived along with Daniel Norris and Jairo Labourt in the deal that sent David Price to the Toronto Blue Jays. At the time http://www.rangersfanproshop.com/authentic-matt-moore-jersey , Norris was the showpiece. However, Boyd is the one who has incrementally transformed himself into a very solid major league starter. Through two starts this season, he now looks ready for a true breakout campaign.It all came together on Wednesday in perhaps the finest performance of his career as Boyd struck out 13 Yankees in a 2-1 win. That was the highest single game strikeout total by a Tigers pitcher since Max Scherzer’s 14 strikeout performance against the Pittsburgh Pirates back on August 14, 2014. Boyd also racked up the most strikeouts in a game by a Tigers lefty since franchise legend Mickey Lolich punched out 15 hitters back in 1972. Combined with Boyd’s 10 strikeout performance on March 29 against the Blue Jays, and he is currently your major league leader in strikeouts this season with 23.So how did Boyd transform himself from a decent but unheralded pitching prospect into this Andrew Miller-looking strikeout artist you see before you? Well, it didn’t happen overnight. There have been numerous major changes along the way. The evolution of Boyd’s deliveryThe first, and perhaps the biggest adjustment, was the change in arm slot Boyd made during the 2016 season. From a relatively conventional three-quarters arm slot, Boyd began dropping down more, moving his release point to a low three-quarters position.That change produced the makings of the sweeping pair of breaking balls Boyd now features. It also appeared to have improved his deception, by hiding the ball a little longer — from right-handed hitters, in particular. Still, while he was able to refine his repertoire and improve his command somewhat through the arm slot adjustment, the strikeouts still eluded him prior to this year. Giving up contact in this era, particularly in the air, is a dangerous proposition, and Boyd didn’t induce enough whiffs to balance out the occasional bursts of hard contact he allowed.The rebuilt sliderThings started to change in 2018 when Boyd emerged with a rebuilt slider to punch out 22.4 percent of batters faced. To that point, he had never topped a 20 percent strikeout rate in a season. Between the 2017 and 2018 seasons Bartolo Colon Jersey , Boyd, as he typically does, worked out at Driveline Baseball’s academy in Washington. The main goal? To sharpen the slider. He came out of spring camp a year ago convinced he had finally found the breaking ball he’d been looking for.The redesigned slider was much slower, averaging 80.5 miles per hour — the previous version had averaged 86.1 mph in 2017. The improved depth on the pitch, along with the sweeping horizontal movement produced by the lower arm slot all came together for him. Boyd responded by leaning heavily on his new weapon. In 2017, Boyd threw the slider just 11 percent of the time. In 2018? He upped that to 31.1 percent as the slider became the foundation for how he sequenced hitters.However, no one predicted the results we have seen early in the 2019 season. With 23 punchouts in two starts, Boyd currently leads the majors in strikeouts. Moreover, check out the horizontal movement on the slider so far this season. Boyd is getting even more on the side of the pitch and just sweeping frisbees in there.Boyd Horizontal MovementCertainly the Yankees lineup he faced on Wednesday was missing dangerous hitters like Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar, and Aaron Hicks. And yes the field was streaked in sun and shadow through the early innings. But the stuff, especially the interplay between Boyd’s slider and his other pitches, appears to be coming together for him. This is a very different pitcher than we saw in his first few seasons in Detroit, and the baseball world is taking notice.Taking it to a higher levelBoyd had one key drawback entering this season that needed to be addressed. As we noted in our review of his 2018 campaign, he became an extreme fly ball pitcher last season. So despite posting his career best numbers, Boyd appeared to be walking a bit of a tightrope to do so, with a lot of solid contact in the air against him. In fact, he posted the second highest fly ball rate among qualified starters in 2018 Jon Niese Jersey , right behind Justin Verlander. However, unlike Mr. Verlander, Boyd paid for it with a lot of home runs, and more blow-up starts, particularly on the road. The leading culprit? His two-seam fastball.Hitters posted an isolated power (ISO) of just .164 against his four-seam fastball in 2018. Against the two-seamer? Hitters clobbered him for a .318 ISO against. That discrepancy immediately makes anyone familiar with sequencing in the launch angle era cringe. Ditching the two-seamer almost entirely seemed to be in the offing. Based on his work thus far, Boyd appears to have agreed. Per Brooks Baseball, Boyd has only thrown four total two-seamers in his two outings this season. Instead, he is using the four-seamer almost exclusively now (89 through two starts) and living at the top of the strike zone. This change, combined with the increased depth on the slider, creates very similar tunnels for his fastball, slider, and slow curveball, and is making it very tough on hitters through his first two outings.This is a valiant effort by our friend Rob Friedman, and helps with visualization, but the slider in the gif actually hung up and outside — catcher John Hicks wanted that one on the hitter’s back foot. You can get a better idea of what Boyd is doing to hitters by imagining the high fastball paired with the nasty offering below.And if you’re not particularly familiar with Boyd’s delivery, you’ll have a better idea why comparisons to lefties who create serious horizontal angle, such as Andrew Miller, were flying fast and furious on social media as Boyd carved his way through the Yankees lineup.The emphasis on horizontal movement Edinson Volquez Jersey , and the slower speed on Boyd’s new slider make it almost indistinguishable from his curveball when he chooses to pair them both. More importantly, the depth produced by the decreased velocity allows Boyd to start both pitches on a target line at the top of the strike zone — just like the fastball — and still manage to bury both breaking balls below the zone. He is now working at three distinct velocity bands, with the fastball between 90-94 mph, the slider and changeup close to 80 mph, and the curve typically checking in around 70-72 mph. That separation generates a lot of wind in opposing bats, particularly as they all look so similar out of his hand. The change in stuff was evident in 2018, but has a more refined look in the early going. Boyd has also shown the command to make use of it.We’re just two starts into the season. While the Bless You Boys staff had hopes of another modest breakout from Boyd this year, we’re not prepared to predict Cy Young candidacy just yet. Unlike Justin Verlander, Boyd doesn’t have the velocity and ridiculous backspin to pitch up in the zone without taking some lumps along the way. However, Comerica Park is a great place for fly ball pitchers, and if Boyd can continue to rack up strikeouts at a higher clip than ever before, he should be able to limit the damage when the long ball does rear its ugly head.Overall it’s been a remarkable evolution, and a testimony to Boyd’s work ethic and unwillingness to settle for just a back-end starter role. He made fairly radical changes that many pitchers wouldn’t be able to stomach, and those adjustments to his delivery and slider have paid huge dividends. The final piece may be simply to continue paring back on his pitch mix and leveraging his best pitches, leaving aside the two-seam fastball and perhaps even the changeup as well until hitters show they can adjust. One of the names that has consistently been rumored as an Astros potential trade target is Marcus Stroman. I started to explore him in more depth yesterday and it was said that the Padres were..."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Houston Astros NewsGame ThreadsHouston Astros Minor LeaguesAstros Game DayPodcastsHis name is STRO-man... How could we not trade for him?New,106commentscompletely open to discussion on fair value. Figuring 2.7 war x 2 years x $10 Mil / war figure = $54 Million in ValueEst. 2019 arb - $7.2 Mil + Est. 2020 arb - $12.6 Mil = $19.8 Mil in CostTotal excess value - $34.2 Million in Excess ValueYou can use Fangraphs Prospect Valuation and their article on putting a dollar value to prospects outside of the Top 100, to work backwards to build something that comes to a similar value. But $34 Million is a fairly significant surplus value, so the trade package will sting regardless. It would be close to a 1-for-1 swap with Alvarez (est. 30 mil) or much more realistically a package bundled around someone like Cionel Perez ($17 Mil) + a few complimentary pieces that add up to the total value.SummaryWell there’s a lot to take in. The once ace of the Toronto Blue Jays has lost some of his luster Kendall Graveman Jersey , although arguably you could say the same about Cole before his trade to the Astros. I would love to have Stroman on the team, I think he would outperform the projections that Depth Chart has listed with pitching under the tutelage of Brent Strom and the Astros defense supporting him. From a cursory glance, his spin rates and ground ball tendencies seem to fit well, though his K/9 may limit his upside comparatively. As a #3/#4 Starter, Stroman would be one of the best in the league, and he would fortify our rotation and alleviate some of the stress for the dire need to extend or re-sign Cole/Verlander after this season. From a culture perspective, Stroman seems like a great fit, with fun exchanges ongoing between him and McCullers regularly on twitter. He is extremely passionate and you have to think that Altuve would appreciate his Height Doesn’t Measure Heart charity organization for at risk kids.My challenge is that the Astros truthfully don’t NEED another pitcher. Adding one could be very beneficial but there’s always the aspect of weighing current vs future value. In 2019, the Astros should not have an issue taking the AL West. Stroman of course would also be a huge asset if one of our key pitchers did sustain an injury, or even just as an addition alone, but do we trade away strong prospects for that reassurance?If the Astros were able to swing a Cole-esque type trade, utilizing some of our fringe MLB players and alleviate our roster crunch moving some other prospects, without taking one of our core prospects, it makes a lot of sense. What do you think? Would you trade for Stroman if you were Luhnow? If so, what would you be comfortable giving up?