Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Andrew Abbott throws in the first inning of a baseball game against … More
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The Cincinnati Reds have possessed a wealth of young starting pitching talent in recent seasons. Led by blue-chippers Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo, it was only a matter of time before one of them emerged as the leader of the staff. While Greene has been over-the-top dominant at times, it has been a less heralded southpaw, 2021 2nd round draftee Andrew Abbott who has quietly emerged as the most reliable of the lot.
Now if it was simply ability that we were evaluating, then Greene would still be the guy. But sometimes availability is the best type of ability. With the exception of a lost September 2024 to a shoulder strain, Abbott has been taking the ball without fail since arriving in Cincinnati during the 2023 season.
If you merely look at Abbott, his raw stuff and his launching pad of a home ballpark, you’d be scratching your head trying to figure out how he gets things done. Fly balls go places in Great American Ball Park, and Abbott gives up a whole lot of fly balls. His 20.7 degree average launch angle allowed was the highest of any 2024 NL starter with over 100 innings, and his 19.7 mark this season isn’t much lower. And though his 92.4 mph average four-seam fastball velocity is reasonably firm for a lefty starter, it’s far from overpowering. It would then stand to reason that a fly ball pitcher with less than dominant stuff, pitching his home games in a launching pad, would tend to give up more than his share of damage on balls in play. Instead, Abbott has emerged as one of the premier contact managers in the NL.
Contact management is a somewhat esoteric skill, but it is in fact a skill. Some guys excel by running a high grounder or pop up rate. Others possess fairly ordinary batted ball type distributions, but throttle authority across all batted ball types. The very best among them combine multiple aspects. Abbott’s high average launch angle allowed is derived from plenty of pop ups to go with all of those fly balls. His 6.0% pop up rate this season is down a touch from his 6.6% mark in 2024, but is still well over a standard deviation above league average. But it’s in the authority department where Abbott really shines. His 87.6 mph average velocity allowed is basically flat compared to his 2024 87.5 mph mark, and is over a half standard deviation lower than league average. While his 91.1 mph average fly ball exit speed allowed is in the league average range, that’s because he’s allowed a ton of can-of-corn 85-100 mph flies that are most often outs.
And that is the key at Great American Ball Park – once you get up over 100 mph in the air, you’re in trouble. Abbott has posted a 67 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score this season, down from 89 last season. Overall, he has a 79 Adjusted Contact Score this season, just better than his 82 mark in 2024. This puts squarely in contention for NL Contact Manager of the Year honors. My batted ball-based method gives him a 72 “Tru” ERA-, right in between his 50 ERA- and 85 FIP-.
And the underpinnings of his contact management ability are quite strong. Each season I assign pitch grades to each qualifying offering in the arsenal of starting pitchers with 135 or more innings, based on bat-missing and contact management performances relative to the league. Last year, Abbott’s sweeper earned an “A+” grade, while his changeup and four-seamer got “B” grades, and his curve earned a “C+”. All four pitches were average or worse bat-missers, and all four were average or better contact management offerings.
This season, his four-seamer is an “A” pitch, his curve and sweeper are “B+” offerings, and his changeup gets a “B”. Again, all four are average or worse bat-missers, all four are above average in the contact management department.
It’s especially reassuring to see his four-seamer flourishing. As I often note in this space, the four-seamer is the least effective pitch in the game, and its usage has been decreasing in recent years. But really good pitchers have really good fastballs.
Abbott loves to throw his four-seamer. Abbott threw his 53.5% of the time in 2024, near the very top among starters. This year he’s down a bit to 47.9%, which is still in the upper echelon. And his fastball has gotten even better than it already was. Even his bat-missing has crept up into the average range, at 8.3%.
One statistic sums up the depth of his contact management ability – his 2025 pitch-specific Adjusted Contact Scores fall into a narrow band between 72 (for his sweeper) and 81 (for his four-seamer). If one pitch isn’t working, another one will stifle you.
What does the long term hold? That’s not as simple a question. He’s not particularly durable, averaging well under six innings per start. The Reds have been reluctant to go an extra turn through the order with Abbott, and it’s served him and the club well. Plus, things can fall apart quickly for pitchers who rely so much on average but well executed fastballs. Marco Estrada is a recent comparable pitcher who comes to mind. He was a righty, but it was the same deal – ordinary fastball velocity, solid changeup, lots of can of corn flies and pop ups. Until his stuff faded ever so slightly, and he got smoked.
So the short to intermediate term looks extremely bright for Andrew Abbott. But the onus will always to be on him to walk the very fine line that keeps him viable in the hazardous Great American Ball Park environment. Crafty lefties are fun, until they aren’t.
