Joe Kelly giving White Sox what they envisioned, better late than never

White Sox pitcher Joe Kelly
(Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/USA TODAY Sports)

Joe Kelly recorded his first save of the season to close out the White Sox’s 5-2 victory over the Royals on Sunday, and if Pedro Grifol operated his bullpen with a standard hierarchy, Kelly would receive most of the save attempts from here on out, if not all of them.

Kelly has retired 26 of the 27 batters he’s faced in May, including his last 16. The exception was Mauricio Dubon, and that hit wasn’t quite legit. He reached on a chopper that rose three stories and lured Kelly and Andrew Vaughn to the same spot on the diamond, and Grifol blamed the first baseman after the game.

It wouldn’t be the only time this month that a batted ball in Vaughn’s proximity was the lone blemish of an otherwise perfect performance. Kelly has to settle for this line instead: 8.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 12 K.

This Kelly was seldom seen last year, when injuries delayed his debut until May, and held him from working consecutive days until July. He had a few hot pockets where it all clicked, but the scoreless-outings streaks he managed to build were bookended by clusters of failures that nullified any progress, which is how you end up with a 6.08 ERA.

In 2023, Kelly is damn near invincible. He’s working on a career-long streak of 11 walkless appearances, and there appears to be zero risk in filling up the zone.

Kelly’s always been a stuff monster, so this is the kind of run he’s always been theoretically capable of. There’s a reason why the White Sox gave him a two-year, $17 million contract, even if there were also reasons not to.

I suppose it’s not surprising that Kelly is good, but it’s shocking that Kelly has strung together eight appearances without smearing a speed bump and shattering his skid plate. The rogue relapses that drain confidence are nowhere to be found.

It’s natural to have questions. Mainly:

What gives, Joe Kelly?

It seems like Kelly has focused on making his primary pitches as nasty as they can possibly be. That sounds a little trite — why wouldn’t a pitcher do that — but it’s reflected in the way he throws his primary fastball and breaking ball.

Regarding his two-seamer, he’s throwing it from a lower arm slot than the rest of his pitches …

Joe Kelly release point chart

… and it’s lower in May than it was in April. Whatever he loses in tunneling, he gains in run. He’s averaging 18.3 inches of horizontal movement on his sinker, and he’s been hitting 20 or more with regularity as of late.

And while he throws his changeup from a higher slot than his sinker, it’s lower than its old self, and it’s enjoying a little extra fade as well.

Statcast also shows that his primary breaking ball has shifted from a curve to a slider. It’s hard to know exactly which is which when watching him a pitch at a time because he has the tendency to crack 90 mph with both, but this new breaking ball has rounded up to 95 a couple of times, with a shorter, later vertical break.

Only Houston’s Hunter Brown has thrown more 94 mph sliders than Kelly — he holds an 11-to-7 edge — but this is something that Kelly just started doing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he eventually took the lead in this category.

Kelly also seems to enjoy exploiting the opaque decorum of the pitch clock, ranging from quick pitches to tripling up on leg pumps, while stalling out at crane poses in between. He sees multiple benefits:

“I only enhanced it because the chirping I get for it has made me really happy so now I just do it even more,” Kelly said. “With good teams right now who know how to pick pitches and if you’re tipping the way to stop tipping is to get good at it or do something different every time. I’m taking the other route. I’m doing something different every time so you physically cannot tip if you’re doing something different every single time. That’s just given me confidence to throw my pitches over the plate with hitters not knowing what’s coming.”

The chirping is fun but the triple-leg kick is beneficial with the pitch clock as well.

“It factors in a ton,” Kelly continued. “There was a pitch the other day where the pitch clock was running out and I wanted to get my fourth pitch and I kept shaking. I had leg kicked and started my mechanics still shaking, still shaking, still shaking, and then I pitched. I had time to pretty much get to the pitch I wanted mid-leg kick.”

It speaks volumes about Kelly’s athleticism that he’s able to put the first part of his delivery on “shuffle” while making major strides in location. He’s gone from posting a career-low zone rate (43 percent) to a career-best (53.8) out of the gate, and he’s throwing first-pitch strikes more than two-thirds of the time (68.9 percent).

Count leverage looks like it’s doing wonders for him, because his chase rate has surged to nearly 40 percent when he’d never reached 30 percent in any previous season.

I’m a little bit reluctant to try to sum up Kelly at any one time because he never stops tinkering with his mechanics and his arsenal, and he’s reached the doorstep of elite on a few occasions before something throws him off. That something is usually an injury, and he’s already pulled a groin this season while running in from the bullpen during the bench-clearing incident in Pittsburgh.

I wouldn’t bank on this version of Kelly hanging around for that, but it’d be great if he did, because overachieving relievers often help fringy teams outperform their components. That just requires the rest of the White Sox to provide enough leads, and even less can be assumed there. The solace is that the Sox win even if they lose, because if it looks like they can’t make Kelly’s dominance matter in September, they should be able to do a lot with it at the deadline in July. The longer Kelly remains untouchable, the more teams will be calling to touch him.

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ParisSox

This is a nice development. I’m already trying to sort through my mixed feelings when they get close to contending for the division (go for it!) and they trade Gio and Kelly, et al. because really, their World Series chances are quite slim.

GrinnellSteve

Are they that slim? If they were to to win the division, it would suggest the rotation remained solid, the bullpen led by Kelly, Hendriks, Graveman was lights out, and the lineup was adequate. Come October, someone like Robert or Moncada goes on a binge ala Arozarena or Murphy or Beltran and you have a serious World Series contender.

Of course, they have miles to go before they sleep, but if they play well enough to come back from 14 under, it’s easy enough to imagine the formula that could carry them through the playoffs.

roke1960

Yes, as weird as it is to say, this is a team that can be dangerous IF they get in the playoffs. Many, many things would have to go right, but the pieces are in place. They have 2 really good top of the rotation pieces in Giolito and Cease, and a playoff-tested Lance Lynn at number 3. The bullpen could be elite (and very deep) if Hendriks comes back healthy. Hopefully, Colas gets some confidence in Charlotte and is a contributor down the stretch. The middle of the order of Robert, Moncada, Eloy, Vaughn, Burger, Grandal can be potent. But Timmy must get healthy. He is the catalyst of this offense, and even though they had a really good week with no help from him, it was against two pretty bad teams. As always, health will be the key. And they dug themselves such a deep hole that they really can’t afford any 2-8 10-game stretches the rest of the way. If they are sniffing .500 at the all-star break and within striking distance of 1st place, they should add at the deadline.

Alfornia Jones

I think their playoff chances are 50/50, but to ParisSox’s point, there is no purpose. As the three seed they host 3 games against the AL East’s worst playoff team or Hou/TEX. In the unlikely chance they get past that team, they play the best team from the AL West or AL East. The SP melts against real line-ups, so even if the bullpen can carry 4-5 innings in game 1, the bullpen is torched after 2 games. See 2020 and 2021 playoffs.

JR and the FO have successfully lowered expectations where any playoff hardware would be a huge success, but they have a mediocre team at best that can’t compete against the big boys. They badly need SP depth, so flipping every asset they have to retool should be the top priority… with a new FO. Hanging on to Gio/Kelly/TA/Eloy for a hollow flag is pointless.

Joliet Orange Sox

Somehow the allusion to Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening has me thinking about the line in the poem that goes “His house is in the village of Bedford Park”.

andyfaust

I was doing a little math this morning and learned that if MN continues to win at it’s current rate (.532) for the rest of the season, they will finish with 86 or 87 wins. If Sox can play their remaining 114 games at a .600 winning pct., they should have at least 87 wins. (For comparison, only 5 clubs have played .600 or better to this point.) 87 could def be enough to win this division, but it is extremely unlikely Sox can get to that number. The 10 game losing streak was a back breaker and probably too much to overcome even if they are the strongest team in the division from here on out. If they won 3 out of 4 May 8-11 against KC instead of losing 3, the outlook would be MUCH better. That was a dagger.

It would be a surprise to me if the winner of the AL Central got to 90 wins.

Josh and Jim touched on it in this morning’s podcast, Grifol did NOT have them ready to play to begin the season, which was something everyone hoped he could improve upon vs TLR.

roke1960

Unfortunately, even in a bad division, they may have dug themselves too big of a hole. I think the only way they can play .600 the rest of the way is with very good health, and if the last few years are any indication, that will be tough to do. But 83 or 84 wins may be enough in this division. No way Minnesota’s pitching continues to be this good. And they might be the only team capable of playing above .500. They just have to get to within 3 or 4 games of .500 by the end of June. That would probably put them near 2nd place and only 3 or 4 games out of 1st. After that, anything can happen.

Right Size Wrong Shape

I think the pitch clock has been a huge benefit for Kelly.

I can’t believe he hasn’t racked up like a dozen PC violations. He really let’s the timer get down there.

Yeah, but it’s by design, not because he is rushed. He seems like a creative guy, and it caused problems for him in the past because it took him forever to decide what he wanted to do. Now the pitch clock not only gives him a deadline to decide, but it also gives him something else to play with.

Torpedo Jones

I love the way he mixes up his timing. Great way to get a slight edge as long as it doesn’t mess up your mechanics (and it certainly doesn’t seem to be hurting him right now!).

Papa Giorgio

I just can’t believe how drastically his pitches improved from 2015 to 2016