WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — On a steamy Sunday morning in South Florida, two cameras and a crowd of Washington Nationals employees stood around Patrick Corbin as he threw a meaningless spring training bullpen session. He has thrown hundreds of these sessions, many of them on this exact mound, and they have long since ceased to be appointment viewing. The 34-year-old has the highest ERA of any qualified starter since the start of the 2020 season. His contract ends after this year, and he does not seem likely to be a part of the brighter Nationals future to which he has served as a bridge.
But on Sunday, Nationals pitching coach Jim Hickey was there, watching closely, sneaking glances at an iPad between pitches. New pitching strategist Sean Doolittle was there, analyzing alongside catcher Riley Adams and starter MacKenzie Gore, who mimicked grips and wrist pronation with his water bottle each time Corbin threw his change-up homeward. They are assembling around Corbin this year not because they are trying any harder to make improvements than they have before but rather because they are trying something new.
Corbin spent this offseason working out in West Palm Beach with Gore, his obsessively competitive friend and fellow lefty. Gore has been a disciple of pitch design and detailed mechanical analyses since his days with the San Diego Padres. He makes offseason pilgrimages to the Wake Forest Pitching Lab to hone the intricacies of his mechanics and arsenal. This offseason, Corbin followed Gore’s lead, though Gore was careful not to put it that way.
“I don’t necessarily know if he listens to me,” Gore said. “I think it was just him wanting to be better.”
Gore said he watched Corbin focus on cleaning up mechanics and try to figure out what made him a success in the past, unpacking the ways his pitches moved and played off each other. He watched Corbin rethink pitch design and put new emphasis on getting more creative with his pitch sequencing.
“He’s always worked hard, but he just went into why things happen, really dove into his pitching. He’s gotten to see it from a different perspective,” Gore said. “It’s just been fun to watch him. Everyone knows I’m his biggest fan.”
The most visible result of Corbin’s efforts is a new cutter, something he tried under Max Scherzer’s tutelage in 2021 but never managed to craft into a trustworthy weapon. He threw it several time in his outing last week against the St. Louis Cardinals and even got annual MVP candidate Nolan Arenado to swing through it for strike three.
“It’s real,” said Gore, echoing reviews from other members of the Nationals’ pitching development staff who cautioned that Corbin is still very new to the pitch.
If it is real, Corbin hopes the pitch will help offer a complement to the fastball/slider combination teams have come to know so well he sometimes struggles to fool them. Maybe he can throw it instead of a fastball in the usual fastball counts. Or maybe he can use that instead of a slider to move in on a righty.
“Maybe throw them one less slider where I can get a chase on that slider down in the dirt because that’s what I rely on and I know every hitter knows that,” Corbin said. “Just give them something else, maybe get them off that [slider].”
Corbin says he hopes the cutter, which sat around 88 mph in his last outing, will gain a few more mph as he gets more comfortable with it. He is also trying, as he has in years past, to hone his change-up, another pitch that could help push hitters off his more familiar combinations. Hickey said the change-ups Corbin threw in his most recent outing might have some of the better ones he has seen him throw. Corbin said he, Hickey and Doolittle plan to try out some new pitch sequences in his spring training outings to set up the change-up better.
“He’s just exhausting the other avenues to get hitters out,” Hickey said. “His career, even in 2019, was successful because of the slider swing-and-miss. Teams have become more familiar with him, so they see the ball low and let it go. So the change-up and especially the cutter plays along with sink. He’s down with the two-seam, and now he has something coming into right-handers. That will help.”
Just how much it will help Corbin remains to be seen. Spring training is always awash in optimism. Expecting Corbin — one of the most consistent starting pitchers of the past four years, for better, in terms of eating innings, and worse, in terms of runs allowed — to suddenly reemerge as an ace would be like hoping for a Florida spring training without rain. It’s possible, sure. But it isn’t exactly a safe bet. Besides, Gore and Hickey and Nationals Manager Dave Martinez all made clear that Corbin hasn’t suddenly flipped some switch.
“His mentality has always been outstanding. He’s always been willing to do anything you ask of him,” Hickey said. “He definitely did a little tinkering. Maybe there’s a little bit more edge there; it’s possible it’s because of the contract that’s expiring. But that’s also unfair, because he’s not trying any harder now than he was in 2021 or 2022.”
He is, however, trying something different. And the people who know him and his arsenal best seem to think that is worth watching.
