The Strange Case That Is Making Randy Dobnak's Lack Of Velocity Work

I don’t know if this has happened to you, but sometimes small samples can cause panic. Throughout his major league career, right-hander Randy Dobnak has had a few of them. The first time I saw Dobnak pitch this season was on July 2, during his debut with the Royals in relief against the Tampa Bay Rays at Kauffman Stadium. He entered after a terrible 42-pitch second inning from Stephen Kolek.

The Tampa Bay Rays had taken a 3-0 lead. With Dobnak coming onto the mound, I had the feeling that his inning would be the inevitable reason to stop watching the game. I watched a couple more batters; Dobnak fell behind 2-1 in the count against Junior Caminero, but got him out on a groundball with a high sinker. One out. The next batter, Víctor Mesa Jr., grounded out to second on the first pitch, against a sinker on the outside corner. When it looked like everything was going to be fine, Chandler Simpson and Cedric Mullins collected back-to-back singles, and Taylor Walls walked. Bases loaded. On the first pitch, Richie Palacios missed a sinker away and hit a fly ball to left field.

With a little scare, Dobnak escaped the third inning without allowing a run. He dominated the next five opponents and reached the fifth inning with two outs. Who cared about exit velocities? The man was getting outs! But just when everything seemed calm, Simpson and Mullins caught up with the sinker. Single and home run. The Rays extended their lead to 5-1. In the following inning, Dobnak allowed two more hits, but a great throw home by Isaac Collins cut down Hunter Feduccia at the plate to end the inning.

Dobnak’s Royals debut was over. He threw four innings, allowing two runs with two strikeouts and one walk. He had seven baserunners and allowed two of them to score.

That first look at Dobnak perfectly described the version of the pitcher he has been in the majors. When you look at his weapons against opposing hitters, you realize the contradiction contained in his profile: a pitcher whose fastball barely reaches 92 mph, with an insignificant strikeout rate and a lurking volume of contact allowed in the zone.

Taken together, there is nothing that looks more vulnerable in a league where velocity and stuff occupy a central place. His 2021 season with the Minnesota Twins, when he had his biggest role as a reliever, confirms that reading with certainty: his hard-hit rate ranked in the first percentile of the league, along with a 10.3% barrel rate and a 6.81 xERA.

So, how can a pitcher with that profile survive now? What were the desperate Royals looking at when they brought in Dobnak? Those were some of the inevitable questions following his debut in early July.

The answer begins with his sinker, a pitch he uses 39.8% of the time. Yes, as contradictory as it may seem, the sinker is the starting point. When you look at Dobnak’s splits by count, there are some surprising things. Opponents have posted a .577 xSLG when ahead in the count, with a tiny 4.2% Whiff rate. Yet the result behind that devastating average tells another story. Batter Run Value tells us that the sinker is not being punished throughout the entire zone. There are six of the eight areas of the strike zone where the opposition has negative values.

The efficiency inside the strike zone responds to the value that seems hidden in Dobnak’s sinker: his ability to generate groundballs. He does not have elite velocity or the ability to generate swings and misses frequently, but he makes up for that difference with location. And when opponents make contact, here is the success: he induces groundballs more than 67% of the time. Contrary to what we might believe when looking at the sinker’s results, Dobnak’s location problem has been outside the strike zone.

Alongside the sinker, the sweeper and his changeup are the pitches that strengthen the plan. With the sweeper, Dobnak has posted his highest Whiff rate (35.5%), making it his two-strike weapon, while the changeup is his most efficient pitch. When opponents make contact with the sweeper, the xSLG jumps to .448, making it even more vulnerable than the sinker (.444). Against the changeup? Just .278, with an average exit velocity of 83.1 mph.

The sweeper is most effective when it is out of the hitter’s reach, but when Dobnak misses with it, the result has been terrifying. Bat Tracking data helps explain why that difference is so important. Hitters have averaged a 4.6-inch Miss Distance against Dobnak’s sweeper, while the four-seam fastball (0.9) and sinker (2.0) remain the pitches opponents read best.

The Perfect Contact% against the sinker (47%) and fastball (42%) is at its worst for Dobnak, but his ability to generate groundballs and maintain location on the corners has prevented major problems.

That explains how Dobnak can survive without velocity, and I believe his uncommon profile was the reason the Royals have tested him as a starter. The result, considering his arsenal, has been surprising. Dobnak has allowed more than one run in only one start, and it came in his most recent outing, on August 9 against the Cubs. He has allowed just one home run against 136 opponents, has a .271 BABIP, and maintains a 55.1% groundball rate. His 2.00 ERA tells a story of success since he arrived in Kansas City, while his 4.79 xERA predicts that he has been too lucky.

In an era when velocity has become a pitcher’s indispensable antidote, every inch matters for Dobnak because he does not have many other tools to compensate for a bad location.

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