Jharel Cotton wants to be more than an enigma. Armed with a signature changeup, a good velocity fastball (averaging 93MPH) that has high RPMs but not great movement, an inconsistent cutter and curve, the 5’11” Virgin Islands native burst onto the scene with 5 excellent starts in September, 2016 (2.15 ERA) only to struggle big time in 2017. And by “struggle” I mean he coughed up 28 HRs in just 129 big league IP while posting a 5.58 ERA.
The meme
The common refrain on AN is that in order to turn things back around, Cotton needs to employ the high fastball and abandon throwing the fastball lower in the zone, taking a page out of the books of other pitchers with high RPM fastballs such as Sean Doolittle.