The Los Angeles Dodgers relied heavily on their bullpen to reach the 2024 World Series, including contributions from names that are a byproduct of their stellar player development.
Anthony Banda is one of them, after joining the Dodgers via trade from the Cleveland Guardians in the middle of May. The 31-year-old has found new life in his eighth organization and 11 years at the Major League level.
Banda worked with Dodgers pitching coaches to rework his slider with an emphasis on pronation. It was a main factor in how he posted a 3.08 ERA, 1.25 WHIP over 49.2 innings (48 games) during the regular season.
“The idea with it was very simple. The biggest thing that they kind of communicated with me and understood with me was I had a misunderstanding of how to throw the breaking ball,” Banda said. “I thought you always had to get the fingers to the front of the ball and all this other good stuff.
“But when they told me that this is going to fit you and just throw it like a fastball, let it work off your pronation, that was the key thing for me was, what do you mean as pronation?
“And then when I saw it at Edgertronic, the slow-motion camera, that’s what really, really opened my eyes in the sense of, OK, we spin the ball through the pronation part of it, not through getting the fingers to the front of the baseball type of deal.
“I think that’s what really made it click for me, and understand that OK, I could do this. And then when we tried it, it kind of just really worked. It wasn’t anything special anything. But it was just the communication part of understanding the idea of it.”
Since joining the Dodgers, Banda’s stuff+, which measures physical characteristics of each pitch including, vertical and horizontal movement, release point, pitch velocity and spin rate, all ticked up. With 100 being baseline-average, Banda’s slider jumped to 109 after his 2023 season graded it as a below-average pitch with the Washington Nationals.
In his 5.2 innings in both the National League Division Series and Championship Series, he’s turned in a 1.59 ERA and 1.06 WHIP with seven strikeouts. Since fellow left-hander Alex Vesia went down with injury prior to the NLCS, Banda stepped up into a prominent role.
How can Anthony Banda impact Dodgers bullpen in World Series
As it goes with Vesia’s availability, the Dodgers may continue to rely on Banda because of his feel for the playoffs to this point. However, both can be big in their own ways.
The New York Yankees have a few lefties in their lineup, including Juan Soto and Anthony Rizzo, but for the former, Banda’s slider could be a big matchup-plus.
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