Detroit Tigers: Designing the perfect arsenal based on the 2023 pitching staff

Adopting a four-seam fastball from Detroit Tigers RHP Beau Brieske.

To start things off, we had to adopt a fastball. The bread-and-butter pitch that a Detroit Tigers pitcher could use to command the zone, get ahead early in counts, and rely on as needed. Sure, maybe Beau Brieske is not the first name that comes to mind, but it's a fastball that serves as a good base for the Tigers.

Beau Brieske's fastball averages 96.7 mph, providing some velocity behind it, with a four-seam shape. The pitch has 5.6 inches of horizontal break and 12.5 inches of vertical break per Baseball Savant's metrics, giving it a shape with some separation between the two.

He may not have an absurd 24-inch IVB fastball or anything crazy, but it's not in the dead zone, and he can create some separation in the two numbers and throw it with good velocity. On top of that, Brieske spun the fastball up above the 2,400-RPM mark.

Brieske got hitters to chase the fastball over 20% of the time on out-of-zone fastballs and held opponents to a .271 batting average overall. He was able to use the heater as a putaway pitch at times as well, with a 13.5% PutAway rate.

Sure, it's not 104 mph and is not the high-IVB pitch that some elite arms have in their arsenal, but it's the base for this arsenal and can be built around.