ANAHEIM — In an era when hitters are striking out more than ever, and front offices are pursuing pitchers who miss bats, the Angels are banking on a couple of starting pitchers who don’t fit the trend.
“I think something that’s lost with the new school of thinking is that outs are outs, however you get them,” catcher Logan O’Hoppe said. “Strikeouts are sexy. Don’t get me wrong. But going seven or eight scoreless innings is even more sexy, in my opinion.”
Right-handers José Soriano and Jack Kochanowicz are the two homegrown pitchers in the Angels’ rotation. Both rely heavily on a sinker – a pitch that is intended to induce ground balls – instead of pitches that are intended to get whiffs and strikeouts.
“I think that’s a huge part of what makes this group unique and different, is that we have guys that can get weak contact,” O’Hoppe said. “That’s more of our identity than punching guys out. And I know the pitchers believe that and buy into that.”
In retrospect, any out is good, whether it’s a strikeout or a groundout. When projecting forward, though, the industry still has a bias to prefer strikeouts, because statistical models have determined the pitchers who get strikeouts are succeeding in a more sustainable way.
ZIPS, the main projection system on FanGraphs, has Soriano’s ERA at 3.91 this season, which would be up from 3.42 last season. ZIPS projects Kochanowicz to post a 4.91 ERA, up from 3.99.
Soriano, 26, and Kochanowicz, 24, don’t seem to care about any of that.
“I love throwing my sinkers because they go through the innings quicker, with less pitches,” Soriano said through an interpreter. “I’d rather do that than have more pitches and more strikeouts.”
Soriano struck out 20.7% of the hitters he faced last year. Kochanowicz struck out 9.4%. The major league average was 22.6%.
“I’m definitely not valuing the strikeout too much,” Kochanowicz said. “I know what my strength is, so I’m just playing to that right now. If things evolve, things evolve. But I’m really not worried about it right now.”
Angels pitching coach Barry Enright said there are three key metrics to use to evaluate a pitcher: strikeout rate, walk rate and ground ball rate.
“To be a good major league starter, you’ve got to be good at two of three,” Enright said. “To be elite elite, you’re going to end up being good at all three.”
Soriano and Kochanowicz are exceptional at getting ground balls. Soriano’s ground ball rate of 59.8% was one of the best in the majors last season. Kochanowicz, in a smaller sample size, was at 55.6% The gold standard is Houston left-hander Framber Valdez, at 60.6%. The major league average is 41.9%.
Both Soriano and Kochanowicz get those ground balls by relying on sinkers they’ve developed in the past few years.
When Soriano returned from his second Tommy John surgery and made the big leagues as a reliever in 2023, he threw a four-seam fastball. He struck out 30.3% of hitters, but he also walked 12.4%. (The major league average was 8.6%.) The Angels began teaching him a sinker in 2023, but he didn’t master it until 2024.
“It’s a special pitch,” O’Hoppe said. “It’s got a lot of depth when it’s really good. That makes it hard for a lot of guys (to hit). I know in the box that pitches with a lot of depth give us trouble.”
Because Soriano had racked up big strikeout numbers with his four-seamer in the big leagues in the past, the Angels believe he can still go for strikeouts when he needs them.
“Sori can do both,” O’Hoppe said. “His stuff is that good. We could definitely lean on it when we need to.”
Enright said one of the keys for Soriano is not necessarily going back to the four-seam fastball, but being able to throw his breaking ball as a strikeout pitch. He said when Soriano gets better at getting ahead in the count and then using his breaking ball, “then you’re going to see a monster.”
Kochanowicz gets even fewer strikeouts than Soriano, but he also issues fewer walks (3.8% last year).
Kochanowicz also used to throw a four-seamer, but he mostly ditched that pitch after he realized it had lost some of his effectiveness during the COVID shutdown of the minors. His minor-league career stalled until the Angels had him switch to a sinker in the spring of 2023. It took him a while to learn the new pitch, and everything came together in 2024. Former Angels catcher Matt Thaiss called it a “turbo sinker” last year.
In his first start of 2025, though, Kochanowicz showed an intriguing new side. The Chicago White Sox hit his sinker hard in the first inning, scoring two runs. Kochanowicz, catcher Travis d’Arnaud and the coaches decided to use more four-seamers the rest of the day.
Kochanowicz ended up facing the minimum 15 hitters through the next five innings. By the time the game was over he had gotten a career-high 12 swings and misses, eight of them on his four-seamer. The whiff rate on all his pitches was 30.8%, which was a career high and better than the MLB whiff rate of 25.3%.
A one-game sample doesn’t mean much, but it suggests that perhaps Kochanowicz can also find the best of the both worlds: an ability to breeze through a lineup getting ground balls in a pitch-efficient manner, while also having what he needs when a strikeout is necessary.
“Of course you want to grab a few more strikeouts here and there,” Enright said, “That will end up coming for both of those guys. But their magic power right now is to be able to throw some special pitches that get them deep into games and get them quick innings.”
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Guardians (RHP Gavin Williams, 0-0, 3.60 ERA) at Angels (RHP José Soriano, 1-0, 0.00), Friday, 6:38 p.m., FDSN West, 830 AM
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