How Bryan Woo Became the Mariners Ace Overnight

it's June of 2021 calply State University pitcher Brian Woo is in a truly brutal stretch of his career his freshman year in 2019 was a complete disaster allowing nearly 16 hits per nine and had an ear over eight he bounced back with a much better but brief 2020 season and after a rough start to 2021 Brian woo underwent every pitcher's worst nightmare Tommy John surgery he would not throw another inning for the MUSC STS this is it for a lot of pitchers a college career that never really got off the ground due to bad performance with some bad luck and injury mixed in but Brian Woo is not most pitchers yep a career 6.36 aray in college coming off of Tommy John's surgery got drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the sixth round of the 2021 draft no matter the results that he got the Mariners liked his stuff they decided it was worth a shot and picked him in 2022 woo started the year in rookie Ball but quickly jumped up to a and A+ ball despite being mostly a reliever in college the Mariners chose to develop him as a starter his results and Everett were pretty middle of the pack a 4.78 e nobody could hit for much power against woo but they hit to a high average against him despite his Elite strikeout numbers still not too bad for a 22-year-old that struggled in college 2023 was when woo kicked it into another gear he absolutely shoved in the Arizona fall league and kicked off the season in daa Arkansas where he continued to thrive a 2.05 ER striking out over 34% of the Batters he faced and allowed two home runs these are numbers that undeniably warranted a promotion to triaa Tacoma but woo would not throw a single pitch for the 2023 reers Brian woo was a Seattle Mariner in just two short years he had gone from struggling in college to joining one of the best rotations in baseball here we go Woo's MLB debut going up against one of the toughest offenses in baseball the Texas Rangers let's see what his first Major League pitch is a 92 m per hour for steamer right down the middle to a really really good hitter pitch of the game and this one WRA past third base and that'll be extra bases for Marcus Simeon he'll cruise to Second and hold up there a lead off double next up ah geez a top five hitter in baseball at this moment streak now for Simeon as well Seager goes after the next pitch that's a base hit it'll get Simeon to the plate and two pitches in the Rangers have already erased the deficit this isn't going well thankfully a 96 mph fast ball retires Nathaniel low looking a walk to adelus Garcia a strike out of Josh Young and then just one out way from getting out with limited damage a two strike pitch that one should find P out there it does it's down one run is in the wave Garcia here he comes and it's a double for Jonah Heim the second inning wasn't any better Brian woo got annihilated in his MLB debut six runs and two innings allowing seven hits in a walk but the Mariners didn't let this one start deter them and he started the following week against the angels and his first couple of innings were encouraging and that's those short arms are quick fat swing and a miss Strikes Out Mike Trout onew pitch swing and a miss with two outs and Zack Netto on first sh Otani steps up Woo's first pitch is an excellent sweeper that T chases he decides to double up on it if you were watching this game you would understand that woo hit his spot good pitch bad time to throw that pitch with a drive to right this one's going to go a long way sh but that was pretty much it woo shut down the angels for the rest of the day at least until Mickey monc ground Ru double chased him from the game woo still allowed his fair share of hard contact but he struck out seven in just four and two3 innings of two-run ball a much more respectable outing woo still got barreled up a good amount over the next few months but he struck out enough batters to mostly be effective despite a brief I with elow information his best start of the Season came in the pivotal September playoff race against Anaheim five and two-thirds Innings pitched four hits no walks and eight strikeouts Brian woo finished his 2023 making 18 starts for the big league team he struck out a good amount of batters and kept his walks at a reasonable level but he allowed a few too many homers to be truly great however his home run to Fly ball Ray in particular seemed like it was due for a major correction woo didn't get hit too hard with barrel and hard hit rates better than the league average and yet 133% of fly balls allowed from him left the yard despite lefties being troubled for woo in his rookie year there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about him heading into 2024 but I don't think anybody expected what would happen next woo has so far knock on wood landed on the I twice in 2024 but when he's pitched swing and a struck him [Applause] out super impressive look at this the argument that Brian woo has been the 2024 Mariners Ace is extremely real his strikeout rate has actually dropped quite significantly from 25% % to 20% however he's done what George Kirby did with not walking anyone and cranked it up to 11 woo has the League's lowest walk rate for any starting pitcher at 2.4% not only that he also has the League's lowest Barrel rate allow with at least 93 Innings pitched Sorry by the way Spencer schwellenbach these two skills simply shouldn't coexist baseball nature will tell you that someone that throws as many strikes as Brian w shouldn't have such a low Barrel rate all of that has culminated in an absolute Masterpiece of a season as a recording this 99 a pitched a 2.36 3.31 FIP and an absolutely ridiculous 0.848 whip Woo's best start of not only this season but of his career came on the 14th of August in Detroit he allowed only four base runners and struck out six in seven Innings of scoreless dominance by the way he took a no decision in that game ouch so what has made woo so much more effective this year his velocities and movement profiles have remained eily similar to his 2023 first and foremost it's his command his for seam fast ball has always been effective due to both his low release point is it really a Brian wo video if I don't mention his vaa at least once an above average vertical break but he's also commanding it extremely well Fang graphs gives him a 65 for foring command and a 68 for Sinker command on the 20 to 80 scale and his location Plus for his heaters are 110 and 111 respectively his sliders and change up have seen even bigger increases there's a lot of talk about how Brian Woo is all fastball and to an extent he is he's throwing his four seam Sinker combination 72% of the time but this series suggests that Woo is a one-trick pony he isn't his change up and sweeper are plus plus pitches too in particular his sweeper Brian woo has thrown 12 123 sweeping sliders this season it's gone whiffs at a 40% clip and there have been are you ready for this two hard hit balls do you want to watch them going Fly ball right field get it in the air but underneath it there they were two routine pop outs this may very well be the best sweeping slider in baseball and he throws it just 9% of the time more often than not batter step up to the plate knowing what Brian Woo is going to throw them and they still can't hit it