Is 2025 really the 'year of the pitch mix'? 

Every year, it seems, a hot new pitch type spreads across the Major Leagues.

One season is the year of the high four-seamer. The next season is the year of the sweeper. Then the year of the splitter. Or the year of the sinker. Pitches come into fashion in waves, from the "splinker" to the "deathball" curve to the "kick" change.

There are just so many new pitches, and new ways to throw old pitches, in the game today, especially in the modern age of pitch design, with so much technology at teams and players' disposal. And what happens when you put all of those trendy pitch types together -- when more and more pitchers start using more and more of those pitches in combination?

You get a league where pitchers have bigger arsenals than ever before.

Which brings us to 2025.

Entering the season, seeing the growing repertoires and the wide variety of pitch types gaining popularity, MLB pitching analyst Lance Brozdowski made a prediction: 2025 would be the "year of the pitch mix."

The idea was that this would be a year defined not by one hot new pitch, but by the collection of many pitches. Well, the regular season is almost over, and we have the data to revisit that hypothesis. Is the 2025 season really the year of the pitch mix?

The short answer is: Yes.

MLB pitch repertoires are, in fact, getting more and more diverse. Pitchers are both throwing larger numbers of different pitch types, and deploying more balanced mixes of those pitches.

Statcast currently classifies 14 unique pitch types: four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, sweeper, slurve, curveball, knuckle-curve, slow curve, changeup, splitter, forkball, screwball and knuckleball. The number of big league pitchers throwing five-plus, even six-plus of those pitch types, is at a record high for the decade-plus of Statcast tracking.

"The game is just ever-changing," said Mariners catcher and MVP candidate Cal Raleigh. "A couple of years ago, it was the sweeper. I remember, back in the Minor Leagues, everybody was trying to throw four-seamers -- the sinker was out. And then it kind of came back. Guys started throwing more sinkers. And then you're seeing a lot more people throw splitters. And the kick change, everybody's trying that out now, too. It's just a trendy game, it's what happens. People see something work and they want to try it."

Pitchers -- especially starting pitchers, who can't hone in on one or two wipeout pitches like relievers can -- are seeking out pitch mixes that can get out both right-handed and left-handed hitters, that can get strikeouts or weak contact as the need arises, that can keep a lineup off-balance multiple times through the order, that span a wide range of velocities and movement directions, that cover all quadrants of the zone.

The result: Starters who once threw three or four pitches are now throwing five or six … or more.

"One hundred percent, they've changed big-time," Mets star slugger Juan Soto said. "Lately, they've been changing, they've been throwing different stuff. Back in the day, when somebody threw something or went to one side of the plate, they just [threw that pitch or] went to that side. Now, they go in, they go out, they go everywhere. So it's just an adjustment that we have in what we're doing."

To players like that, who have been around long enough to see the rise in new pitch types and experience how pitchers have incorporated them, the trend in pitcher arsenal size is obvious.

"Oh yeah, it's definitely going up," said Angels longtime star Mike Trout. "You've got a lot of new pitches. I don't think, when I came up, the sweeper was a thing. But I think you're seeing a lot more like that."

But it's not just the raw number of pitch types being thrown. Pitchers are using all those pitches in their arsenals more evenly.

Here's one cool way to measure that: "Pitch palettes."

The idea of a "pitch palette" comes from MLB Statcast data guru Tom Tango as a quick way to reflect the diversity of a pitcher's arsenal. Basically, it takes the number of pitch types a pitcher throws and weights that number by how often that pitcher uses each pitch type. That gives you an estimate of the real size of a pitcher's pitch mix.

Think of each pitcher as an artist. Every pitch type they have is a different color of paint on their palette. The frequency they use each pitch is how much paint they have available in that color.

So let's look at Major League Baseball for the last five years. The size of the average pitcher's "pitch palette" has been trending steadily upward, and in 2025, the typical MLB pitch palette was the largest yet.

That's true whether you look at big league pitchers as a whole, at starting pitchers or at relief pitchers. (It's also true whether you look at pitchers facing same-side hitter, or opposite-side hitters.) Pitch palettes are growing across the board.

It's no surprise who has the biggest pitch palettes in MLB: Seth Lugo and Yu Darvish, the two pitch arsenal kings, who can both throw up to 10 different pitch types and mix in far more pitches than they did at the start of their careers.

"Having all those different mixes and just going pitch to pitch and swing to swing -- another team could say I'm wrong, but I feel like I'm not predictable," is how Lugo explained the benefits of his kitchen-sink approach. "You can't say 'It's a percentage count, here's what he's throwing.' Because every hitter is different."

But the year of the pitch mix wouldn't be possible if a ton of other pitchers across the Majors weren't also broadening their pitch palettes, not just the outliers who throw an extreme number of pitch types.

"I think that's a natural thing," Darvish said. "Because now, the hitters are seeing the pitches more than they did 10 years ago. They have more pitching machines -- the Trajekt machines -- that re-create all the pitchers' pitching shapes. So it's a natural evolution to me.

"Because [your pitch mix adapts to] the hitter. Some hitters can hit the small slider, but struggle with the bigger sweeper. So if you have all the pitches, you can face any hitter."

Pitch palettes paint a good picture of the state of MLB pitch arsenals because they're about both sheer number of pitch types thrown and the balanced use of those pitch types.

For example, Tyler Glasnow and Chris Sale both throw four pitches, but they have much different pitch palettes, because they mix their pitches a lot differently. Glasnow throws a more balanced mix of his four pitches -- four-seam fastball, sinker, curveball and slider -- so he has a bigger pitch palette than Sale, whose mix is heavily skewed toward two of his pitches, his four-seamer and slider, than the other two, his sinker and changeup.

If you look at the picture being painted in 2025, it's this: Major League pitchers as a group are starting to mix their pitches more like Glasnow -- who himself has changed quite a bit from his old two-pitch, fastball-curveball ways -- and less like Sale.

"I mean, you see guys like Glasnow now even throwing sinkers and stuff, and different variations of fastballs and sweepers and sliders," said Padres starter Nick Pivetta, who's thrown seven different pitch types in 2025 on his way to a career year. "I just think with the technology -- with the Rapsodo, with the Edgertronic, with the slow-motion capture -- it allows people to see where their hand placement is, see what works, and then they're able to plot it and use certain arsenals for certain hitters.

"It's brought in a whole creative side of pitching. You see it three-dimensionally. It's not just like, I'm throwing a pitch and I can see it from my eyes; I can see how the pitch works from all angles, down to the spin rate and the trajectory and the efficiency of the ball and how it's coming off my fingertips."

To label 2025 the "year of the pitch mix," it also helps that some of the most prominent pitchers in the game exemplify the large-arsenal, rainbow-pitch-palette style. National League Cy Young Award favorite Paul Skenes, Yankees ace Max Fried and Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, for example, all throw seven different pitch types.

"It's kind of amazing what you can do with a baseball if you really want to," Skenes memorably said this spring.

Look at Fried. When he first got to the Majors with the Braves, he threw five pitches, but really, he was mainly fastball/curveball/slider. Now he has seven pitches, and he throws them all. His vast arsenal is his calling card, and taking advantage of his pitch mix has been Fried's plan since he arrived with the Yankees for the start of 2025, when he explained his pitching approach as: "Just having an understanding of how hard it is to hit in general when you're able to throw a bunch of different looks and also change speeds."

Now, the execution of that plan in the year of the pitch mix has Fried spinning gems in the playoff race. After his last start, a career-high-tying 13-strikeout game, Fried said: "[I'm] just sticking to my strengths: I've got a lot of pitches, I mix speeds a lot, and I'm leaning into that."

And as for Skenes? The Pirates phenom throws two types of fastballs (four-seamer and sinker), three types of breaking balls (slider, sweeper and curveball) and two types of offspeed pitches (his "splinker" splitter and changeup).

"Every starter [now] has three or four or five variations," Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. "Now they have the breaking ball, the cutter, sweeper, two-seamer. I look at Skenes sometimes, and he's so magnificent. This guy has an incredible delivery, an incredible arm, and he's got like six pitches. It takes a deeper understanding of how you mix all those in."

Skenes was one of the most-cited pitchers as a master of the modern pitch mix, because of the way he has multiple versions of each pitch group.

"I think the biggest change is, everyone is throwing two forms of fastballs now," said reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. "Jacob deGrom only throws a four-seam -- that just speaks to how good his [stuff] is. But me? Four-seam/sinker.

"With starters, most guys are throwing two versions of a heater because it helps a ton -- when guys are expecting four-seam and you throw something a little bit more horizontal [like a sinker]. And guys are throwing multiple forms of spin now, too. Or offspeed. Like, Skenes throws a changeup and the splinker. They're very similar, but different velos, so they work really well … I think that's how guys' arsenals are getting bigger."

Skubal's intuition is correct. The number of MLB starters throwing multiple fastballs, multiple breaking balls and multiple offspeed pitches are all at or near their high point for the Statcast era.

Other pitchers have echoed that observation. Padres starter Michael King, for example, had what he calls an "enlightening moment" at Spring Training a couple of years ago when he was still with the Yankees, when he realized the days of "just throw high four-seamers" were fading and a new style of "multiple fastball varieties" was coming.

"I pitched in a live BP against DJ LeMahieu. And the whole at-bat, I went two-seam/four-seam/two-seam/four-seam/two-seam/four-seam, and got him to hit a ground ball back to me on a sinker," King recalled. "I talked to DJ about it afterwards, and he was like, 'If you throw two different fastballs at 95-plus with an actual separation of movement, it's impossible for a guy to match his bat paths to the pitches. And so, I then said, the next wave of pitching, after the 2022 'four-seams at the top,' is actually gonna be 'two fastballs.'"

In particular, the number of starters throwing all three fastball types (four-seamer, sinker and cutter), and the variety of breaking pitches (sliders, sweepers, curves, slurves) has gone up.

It's not just aces like Skenes and Fried who have showcased expansive pitch arsenals in 2025 -- although there are plenty more examples of those, like the Phillies' Wheeler or the Astros' Hunter Brown or the Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But really, there are tons of different kinds of pitchers who are contributing to the pitch mix trend.

There are veterans who have tweaked their pitch mixes to keep evolving late in their careers -- like Clayton Kershaw, who now throws a split-change, or Justin Verlander, who now throws a sweeper variation of his curve.

There are relievers being converted into starters, like Lugo, King, the Red Sox's Garrett Crochet and the Mets' Clay Holmes, who added pitches to their arsenal as part of their transition to a new role.

There are young pitchers with electric stuff who have expanded their repertoires, like the Rangers' Jack Leiter or the Marlins' Eury Pérez.

And there are more and more rookies who are coming into the league with five- or six-pitch arsenals, like the Mets' Nolan McLean, who throws all three fastballs and two variations of high-spin breaking balls, or the White Sox's Shane Smith, or the Braves' Spencer Schwellenbach last year.

"I've noticed it with more young guys coming up and flying through the Minor Leagues, coming straight from college, straight to the big leagues, stuff like that," said Dodgers pitcher Anthony Banda. "They have four to five pitches that they utilize as real weapons. And it's pretty impressive, to be honest. I think it's very unique, given how typically you had a starter that would have a three-pitch mix, maybe a fourth, but nowadays you see five, six pitches."

That's a credit to organizations' pitcher development. McLean, for example, was basically a two-pitch pitcher in college at Oklahoma State. But once the Mets drafted him, they helped him develop his current six-pitch arsenal. The way McLean uses his pair of breaking balls in tandem, as a rookie, is a year of the pitch mix signature.

"I use the curveball and sweeper kind of off of each other. Or at least try to," McLean explained recently. "I try to mix and match them, just to create different eye levels and angles for the hitters."

Whether you ask pitchers or hitters, they'll tell you the rise of technology in baseball is what has made the rise in diverse pitch mixes possible. Pitch design is better than ever before, and MLB teams and players have embraced the tools and information that's now available to them. Those tools weren't widely available a decade ago. So a lot more pitchers than just the Darvishes of the world can broaden their repertoires with new pitches.

"For me, that's easy, because that's my strength. So I can do whatever I want," Darvish said. "I don't know how the other pitchers feel, but I think now, there's more slow-motion [pitch capture], there's more technology we have. So most pitchers can learn to throw other pitches easier than 10 years ago."

"You've got all the technology," Trout said. "You can go in the bullpen and work on different grips and different spins, and see how much this breaks, that breaks. I'm not really involved in it, but I see our guys working on it in the bullpen. It's pretty interesting, the amount of detail and information they can get from it, using a Rapsodo or whatever."

"There's more information, and more accessibility [for pitchers] to get information on other guys who throw like them," Raleigh said. "With the era of information, it's all out there. Metrics and analytics, with the Edgertronics, the slow-mo, so you can see how the ball's coming out, you can see other guys that are like you and compare. I think that's probably why [pitch arsenals are bigger]."

But technology can also be the answer for the hitters who have to now prepare for a wider variety of pitch types coming at them, particularly the Trajekt hitting machines because of how they can simulate the exact characteristics of the pitcher a player is about to face -- the velocity, spin and movement of every pitch they throw.

"The Trajekt is a useful tool," said Brewers slugger Andrew Vaughn. "You can literally stand in there and see a guy throwing. Usually it's pretty accurate, sometimes it's a little off. But it's the most realistic thing you've got, and that's why it costs bajillions of dollars."

Other hitters try to distill complex pitch arsenals into something more simple.

"I try to boil it down to two pitches: What are the two pitches I’m most likely to see?" said Vaughn's teammate Jake Bauers. "It definitely always includes the fastball, and then usually whatever is the highest-used secondary pitch. And then, if it’s a guy who throws five pitches 20% each, I’ll go to location."

That's really the beauty of a broad pitch palette, though. That fifth or sixth pitch might not be your best pitch, but if it's good enough, and you throw everything you have, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

"It's something they can show and keep the hitters off-balance," Banda said. "And that's something that's very valuable. In pitching, that's the art of pitching."

MLB's Tom Tango and Jason Bernard contributed research to this article. Adam McCalvy, Rhett Bollinger, Andrés Soto and Jackson Stone contributed reporting.