What is the Next Step for Jacob Misiorowski?

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Photo via Milwaukee Brewers - Facebook

Jacob Misiorowski - Milwaukee Brewers

Jacob Misiorowski celebrates a win against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 8, 2025 at American Family Field

Jacob Misiorowski used something he doesn’t typically do to get out of some tough spots on Sunday and, according to at least one researcher, a change in his arsenal might help him do it more often.

Misiorowski has always been a top prospect in the Brewers organization largely due to his 100+ mph fastball, but his struggles with command have often tempered the enthusiasm around his rise to the majors. In his first three professional seasons in the minors he walked 109 batters across 170 1/3 innings. It’s extremely hard to make contact with Misiorowski’s offerings (only about half of the batters he’s faced as a professional have put the ball in play), but at times opposing hitters have reacted successfully to that by simply waiting him out and drawing a walk.

Misiorowski struggled with exactly that challenge early in his outing against the Pirates on Sunday. The Brewers had scored four runs in the top of the first inning, but Pittsburgh quickly threatened to bounce back after Misiorowski walked the first two batters he faced, throwing his first 15 pitches without recording an out.

Out of Control?

While he has the arsenal to be absolutely dominant when he’s pitching well, Misiorowski’s arsenal and style cause him to quickly find himself in danger when things start to get out of control. He’s one of baseball’s best pitchers at getting batters to swing and miss but using that arsenal to recover when he’s behind in the count or trying to work out of a jam leaves him a pretty small margin for error and often a lot of pitches left to throw. This makes him vulnerable to big innings and high pitch counts, shortening his outings.

It looked like one or both of those things might happen again in the first inning on Sunday, when Misiorowski worked deep into the count and walked the first two batters. In that inning, however, he did something he’s struggled with all year: He got back-to-back ground balls and induced a double play to get out of the jam. It’s not unreasonable to say that his entire outing may have hinged on that moment. The Pirates had him on the ropes with a high pitch count in the first inning, but he went on to match a professional high by pitching seven innings in a 10-2 Brewers win.

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Image via Baseball Savant - mlb.com

Heat Map for Misiorwoski's Four Seam Pitch

Heat Map for Misiorwoski's Four Seam Pitch

“Work down in the strike zone to get ground balls” is an outdated and perhaps oversimplified approach to pitching, but there is a fair amount of truth to it. As such, when looking at the heat map for Misiorowski’s four seam fastball (via Baseball Savant) it’s not a great surprise that he’s in the bottom quarter of MLB pitchers in ground ball rate:

Misiorowski uses his elite velocity and arm extension to attack hitters up in the zone and he’s very good at getting them to swing and miss there. His arsenal, however, is not conducive to getting weak contact when he needs it, something that would allow him to induce ground balls with runners on base or “escape” with one pitch when he’s behind in the count.

Get a Sinker?

Syracuse student James Young, however, has a suggestion. Young recently presented at Saberseminar, an annual event focused on new baseball research, to unveil his work on a system to project what additions to a pitcher’s arsenal might look like based on their existing attributes such as arm angle, extension and spin rate.

“I’m able to compare across other pitchers in a model I ran, and it projected a pitcher’s velocity, spin, horizontal and vertical break for a given pitch type based on those baseline characteristics,” Young said in an interview two weeks ago.

Young’s model suggests that Misiorowski would be a strong candidate to add a sinker to his repertoire. The estimates suggest he would be able to throw the pitch at about 97 mph, sacrificing some of his extreme velocity to get more downward movement, but that the pitch would have about 12 inches of “armside run” (horizontal movement) and about eight inches of perceived vertical break.

“If he can give himself a sinker, it gives him the ability to raise his ceiling. He gets hit really hard when he does get hit, but instead of turning him into a risk-reward profile where he’s great when he doesn’t get hit but when he does it’s an issue, if we can get some of that quality of contact on the ground the Brewers have stellar infield defense and it would certainly make things easier and allow him to grow as a prospect,” Young said.

Certainly, there’s more to adding a pitch than simply deciding to do so. The Brewers have had tremendous success with their oft-discussed “pitch lab” in reworking pitchers’ arsenals to help them find new opportunities to perform at a higher level, but even their processes require significant time for a pitcher to develop comfort, command and repeatability with a new offering. With that said, the offseason is looming and it’s possible that spending some of that time developing a sinker could help Misiorowski further unlock his star potential.