Now that Chase De Jong has found a home with Pirates, he's working on a new pitch

Chase De Jong arrived in Bradenton last year as a nonroster invitee coming off season-ending knee surgery and making the move from the starting rotation of the Pittsburgh Pirates to a reliever role.

If Bradenton feels more like home for De Jong this year, it’s because he bought a house in Lakewood Ranch and worked out with two of the Pirates’ top prospects for six weeks before the start of spring training.

“It was the first time I’ve been retained by a major league team,” De Jong said. “I’ve been with the Blue Jays, Twins and (Pirates) for the last 11 years, so the west coast of Florida has kind of been home to us. Now it officially is.

“I love it here. I’ve been with a lot of organizations. This is the first one that’s felt like home. This is the first one that has given me a really legitimate chance. Now, it was warranted. I had to go to the minor leagues both years and pitch really well and earn an opportunity.”

After De Jong went 6-3 with a 2.64 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 71 2/3 innings over 42 appearances in a variety of roles last season — everything from long relief to finishing 16 games and earning a save — Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin pointed to De Jong as one of their “extremely versatile” pitchers in the bullpen who could cover innings.

De Jong added a split-fingered fastball to his pitch repertoire in hopes that it would replace an ineffective changeup, which he threw only a dozen times last season. De Jong said he is trying to develop the splitter into a major league-caliber pitch quickly.

“Metrically, it wasn’t a great pitch,” De Jong said of the changeup. “The usage of it was like 5% heavily to lefties. I had three pitches that were performing better than league average, so I didn’t want to take away from those to use one that was performing worse. It just didn’t compute, so I scrapped that.

“It’s got consistent shape and I can locate it well enough. It’s just getting that last final piece to figure out if it’s something I’m going to use in fastball counts to get off the barrel or if it’s something that’s going to be a swing-and-miss pitch for me. Time will tell, and hitters will tell me, so I’m excited to get into games and to optimize it.”

Through his first two appearances in Grapefruit League play, the pitch is working. The 29-year-old right-hander hasn’t allowed a run while giving up one hit and two walks with two strikeouts.

Manager Derek Shelton took exception to the notion that De Jong is pitching backward, leaning on multiple breaking balls to set up his fastball instead of the other way around.

“I really don’t know if we should think about it that way anymore,” Shelton said. “Especially with relievers, breaking balls are becoming more prominent, more prevalent. … One of the things that that probably didn’t get highlighted enough with him was his ability to execute the fastball to be able to keep people honest. That’s really what you’re looking for.”

Pirates pitching development advisor Dewey Robinson told De Jong not to wait for the optimal count to throw the new pitch this spring. During live batting practice sessions in January, catchers Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez gave De Jong positive feedback on the pitch.

De Jong took Davis under his wing, building a relationship with the 2021 No. 1 overall pick by throwing bullpens to the catcher. The Pirates were thrilled to have Davis learn from a veteran pitcher, especially one who was a former second-round pick but has bounced from team to team and even played independent baseball to stay in the game.

“This is a guy who has been through highs and lows. He’s rededicated himself and pitched in independent ball, fought his way back to the big leagues, was challenged at times, came back last year and had a good year,” Shelton said. “You learn different things, and he has a little innate ability thing that he has the ability to lead and relate. We saw that this offseason. He spent the whole offseason here. He lives down here, was at the complex every day and having conversations not only with our pitchers but our position players. That’s really important to just have a really good feel for it.”

Now, De Jong is trying to get a feel for his new pitch. De Jong did a self-evaluation this offseason, essentially game-planning against himself to figure out how hitters would attack him.

After throwing four-seam fastballs on 46.6% of his pitches, with a slider (29.2%) and curveball (22.9%), De Jong realized that the majority either stay really straight or go away from right-handed hitters.

“If you look at the Trackman graphic, I have nothing that has this type of movement to it, like an arm-side fade or a depth this way,” De Jong said. “Everything I throw has high ride, high spin and it’s cutting or coming to my glove side. The splitter is something that goes away.

“So if I can have something that looks like a heater and then goes the other way, that’s only going to benefit me and make it harder to hit off me because we’re taking away the predictability factor. This game is all about who makes the best adjustments. That’s how you stay around.”