He’s not the hardest thrower you’ve ever seen, though he does rely on his fastball. More notably, in his starts this year, you can get sense of how crafty he is getting guys to chase balls out of the strike zone. He has a slider that convinces batters to swing at air, and a changeup that falls off a cliff. “To go along with his 12-6 curve, Maeda’s changeup dips, dives, ducks and has so much arm-side movement, it looks like it blew out a tire on the way to the plate,” MLB.com wrote last year. “It’s enough to have earned the nickname ‘Bugs Bunny’ change.”
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