TrackMan Pitcher of the Week: RHP Heath Hachkowski

When all 6’5” of Heath Hachkowski stepped on the mound for his bullpen at the Saskatchewan Open ID you could tell he was going to bring a lot of power. It started off with his fastball, which is top 5% in the country in velocity (89 mph). From there, he also adds a power slider and a heavy change up.

Another aspect of his fastball is his elite spin rate which sits tops in the country (2393). Although this doesn’t lead to an elite movement pattern (14.3 IVB/8.4 HB) it generates an above average to elite VAA. VAA is very important for Hachkowski because his above average to elite VAA comes when he sits in the upper third of the zone. When he does so, he produces a VAA of -4.1 to -3.6. For context, above average at the top of the zone is considered anything -4.04 and over, and elite is -3.70 and over. Fastballs with flatter VAAs at the top of the zone, especially with the kind of velocity Hachkowski has, are very hard to get on top of. This allows him to set up his secondary offerings in many ways.

Let’s start with his slider. As of right now it is more like a cutter. It plays nicely off his fastball as it has that necessary variation in velocity and movement pattern that gets off the barrel. Like most cutters it is not much of an out pitch, but it can be used effectively if thrown in the right scenarios.

Similar to his slider, his changeup is not much of an out pitch at the moment, either. It has a similar movement pattern to that of his fastball (12.4 IVB/-5.5 HB) but does have a significant drop in velocity from his fastball (77.7 mph) which makes it an effective offering. Below are the movement patterns of all 3 of Hachkowski’s pitches (Black – fastball, Green – changeup, Blue – cutter/slider).

As you can see in the graph, there isn’t much of a difference in movement between that of Hachkowski’s changeup and fastball. One way to achieve a variance in movement is to tighten up that fastball release point/tilt:

The tilt on his fastball varies from 12:15 to about 2:00. If he can tighten that up to around 12:15/12:30 his VAA at the top of the zone will still be effective while also opening the door to a changeup that could become an elite offering. One way to make that changeup elite is to drop the spin rate on it. It currently averages only 300 rpms less than that of his fastball. Less spin will decrease IVB and thus increase the difference in movement.

With Hachkowski’s ability to spin the baseball, there are a lot of options for his breaking ball. I don’t mind the cutter being a part of his repertoire, however, he also needs to tighten up the tilt on that pitch as well (as seen on the graph above). If he can have a tilt of around 9:45/10, the average HB will increase dramatically therefore making it an effective out pitch. The movement on the pitch at 10:00 was 3.6 IVB/-9.3 HB, while the average movement of the cutter/slider was 12.4 IVB/-5.5 HB. Another option is to create a breaking ball with more depth to play off his fastballs VAA and change the eye level of the hitter. This, however, requires either a new pitch or a drastic change to his current breaking ball.

The potential for Hachkowski to have three elite offerings is there. His ability to pound the zone with his hard fastball and natural talent to spin the baseball give him many options going forward.