What Can Brady Singer Improve on in Order to Reach Stardom?

Since his return to the majors after being sent down to Triple-A Omaha earlier in the year, Kansas City Royals righty Brady Singer has shown that he can be a very intimidating pitcher when he's on his game. He has flashed signs of being an ace or No. 2 guy in a rotation at times while also still having some issues holding him back in the present.

This season, Singer has shown some excellent development in his pitches and — to an extent — in his statistics. Let's start with some of the issues that have hurt him this season.

Singer's groundball rate has taken a hit this year, going from 50.9% in 2021 to 47.4% in 2022. This shouldn't impact him too much in a vacuum, but he is a sinker-slider pitcher so he needs to keep the ball on the ground and avoid giving up too much hard contact.

This leads to another issue for Singer: his HR/9 rate and HR/FB%. This season has seen Singer give up home runs at a career-high rate (1.19), but that is generally about standard for him. The issue is his HR/FB% being at 15, which is two percent higher than last year. This isn't great, but he limits flyballs (for better or worse) to a 20.1% clip.

Singer limiting flyballs is definitely a trend for him early in his career. In his three seasons, he averages a 19.7 FB%. What he doesn't limit, however, is line drives. This year has been Singer's worst in surrendering line drives (26.9%), and that makes sense given the type of contact he gives up.

This season, Singer has been barreled up at a career-high rate (8.8%). He also gives up hard hits at a 40.6% rate, and another issue with all of these combined is his .312 BABIP. Now a .312 BABIP isn't terrible but with the type of contact given up by Singer, it usually means that when the ball gets hit, it's hit hard and on a line or the ground. Let's expand to the main issue for Singer this season (and his career in general).

As we all know, Singer has had an issue developing a third pitch in his career. Why is this an issue? To be an effective starter, you need at least three pitches in order to avoid being very predictable. This season, Singer has been throwing a changeup more but still hasn't thrown it enough. His current 8.5% rate isn't where it should be.

Singer needs to throw the changeup more often because even though it isn't a great pitch movement-wise, it's gotten the job done for him when used. This season, Singer's two best pitches have been his slider (-4 run value) and his changeup (-2). That's really good given the fact that he has only thrown 120 changeups this year. With the negatives out of the way, let's get into the positives.

In most of his per-nine (minus HR/9) stats, Singer has shown improvement. His K/9 has raised to 9.33 while his BB/9 is down to 2.18. Adding to this, his BB% is at 5.9 and his K% is at 25.4. Another key stat that has improved a lot is Singer's LOB%, as it's at a career-high 76.9%. That's solid for a starter. 

In terms of ERA and FIP, Singer is putting up career-highs at 3.67 and 3.66, respectively. Taking a step further and looking at ERA+ and FIP-, Singer has been above average in both with an ERA+ of 111 (11% above league average) and a FIP- of 92 (8% above league average). He also has a 1.6 WAR, leading Royals pitching, and is on pace for around a 3 WAR if he can keep this up.

Singer is showing a lot of great things this season and has helped solidify himself as a future piece in the Royals' rotation for years to come. If he could throw his changeup a tad more and keep developing its movement, Singer has a shot to be one of the best pitchers in the American League for years to come.