Entering last season, Indians starting pitcher Shane Bieber knew he had the slider and the curveball. But he needed to bolster his repertoire to reach the next level.

Part of it had to do with his fastball, but he still lacked an extra off-speed weapon against left-handed hitters to complement his other pitches. That was the key. And that need led to a winter's worth of work on his change-up, which in turn resulted in a breakout 2019 season.

Much of the goal had to do with Bieber being able to throw his change-up in more counts. In 2018, he threw only 69 change-ups, and the pitch was hit hard to the tune of an opposing average of .357 and an opposing slugging percentage of .643. It was a poor attempt to keep lefties from reaching over the plate, and it rarely worked.

The change-up was much improved in 2019, but it still didn't quite end up where he had hoped. Bieber threw his change-up 234 times in 2019 (206 to lefties). Opposing hitters had an average of .309 off of it with a .506 slugging percentage and a .324 wOBA — all three represented the worst totals among his four pitches.

The point wasn't to make the change-up a put-away pitch like his curveball and slider. He just needed something to keep hitters honest. But the change-up still needed work, and Bieber has again spent the winter refining it in an effort to make it a more consistent pitch.

"With the change-up, I've been working on that for two offseasons in a row," Bieber said. "Last year I didn't have it at times. I'm trying to develop consistency and some more feel with it, which was kind of the goal for this offseason."

Bieber's curveball and slider lifted him into the ace conversation in 2019. In two-strike counts, Bieber made the list of the top 20 put-away pitches — twice. His slider had the fifth-best CSW rate (called strikes plus whiffs, which was created by Nick Pollack in 2018) in baseball, and his curveball was 17th. Only Gerrit Cole's fastball, Noah Syndergaard's slider, Max Scherzer's slider and Luis Castillo's change-up had better CSW rates than Bieber's slider. And Cole was the only other pitcher aside from Bieber to make the list twice.

Enter the need to refine the change-up, which is meant to help keep hitters off those two pitches, only adding to their effectiveness. At least, that's the goal.

"Yeah, that's the plan," Bieber said. "I haven't been able to use it the way I've liked to use it. Hopefully going into this year, that'll be the case. I think I can keep guys off the breaking stuff going away towards my glove side and that's when I need something going arm side so guys don't lean out over the plate."
