{"id":119087,"date":"2026-04-16T14:23:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=119087"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:23:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:23:41","slug":"how-emerson-hancock-has-reinvented-himself-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/16\/how-emerson-hancock-has-reinvented-himself-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"How Emerson Hancock Has Reinvented Himself in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the Seattle Mariners selected Emerson Hancock<\/a> with a top-10 pick in the 2020 draft, he has struggled to carve out a role for himself as a pitcher in the organization. Since 2018, when they drafted Logan Gilbert<\/a>, the Mariners have hit on virtually every first-round pick<\/a>. But for many, Hancock was always seen as the outlier in that run. Whether due to injury struggles, lack of production, or limited opportunity, Hancock has often been on the outside looking in.<\/p>\n

For the Mariners, 2025 was a difficult year for their starting rotation, with three of the five starters missing prolonged periods. It did, however, give Hancock the chance to leave an impression and make a statement within the pitching staff. For Hancock, it did not go as well as he had hoped. Despite filling in admirably and eating innings as the team pushed for the postseason, he allowed a lot of hard contact, struggled to miss bats, and posted some of the worst numbers among starting pitchers in 2025.<\/p>\n

Lower Slot and New Shape<\/h2>\n

Since the end of the 2025 season, Hancock has overhauled his mechanics, reinventing himself as a pitcher in a very short period of time. This change has not just improved Hancock\u2019s results; it has fundamentally reshaped his profile as a pitcher, giving him new life as he looks to break into this elite rotation.<\/p>\n

2025 Profile: Hard Contact and Limited Movement<\/h3>\n

His fastball previously sat in the \u201cdead zone\u201d of similar horizontal and vertical movement, which meant it sat up in the zone and was hit hard around 40% of the time. He paired this with a sinker that fared even worse, producing an expected slugging percentage of .459 and a hard-hit rate of 48%. For a pitch-to-contact profile, this level of quality of contact on pitches living in the zone is not a recipe for success. His primary off-speed pitch, the changeup, also struggled, finishing with a run value of -7 and a slugging percentage of .545.<\/p>\n

Put simply, he was not generating enough movement or ride on his fastball or sinker, and he was getting punished often as a result.<\/p>\n

Mechanical Change: Lower Arm Slot<\/h3>\n

To address this, he has lowered his arm slot by over 10 degrees, moving to a much lower release point, basically a side-arm slot of 14 degrees. This adjustment has allowed him to reduce spin efficiency, enabling him to \u201ccut\u201d the ball more and generate greater horizontal movement, changing the shape of his pitches. As explored in a fantastic recent analysis by FanGraphs<\/a>, these kinds of changes in arm slot and wrist position can significantly impact spin efficiency and movement profiles.<\/p>\n

The change has also driven a drastic increase in spin, with Hancock\u2019s fastball up by over 100 RPM and his slider making a more substantial jump into the mid-2600s. Combined with slightly reduced velocity and increased horizontal movement, he now has a completely new sweeper in his arsenal in 2026 as his primary off-speed pitch.<\/p>\n

New Arsenal: Movement and Results<\/h3>\n

Through 2026 so far, albeit in a small sample, hitters have yet to record a hit against his sweeper, while generating a 32% whiff rate and a 55% strikeout rate. His sinker is now producing significant drop and arm-side movement, and his ability to pair it effectively with the fastball has been a major difference-maker.<\/p>\n

As a pitch-to-contact pitcher, Hancock previously relied on his sinker, fastball, and changeup. However, none of these were plus pitches\u2014sitting in the low-to-mid 90s without much movement, which led to consistent damage. Now, with the new arm slot, he is still using both the fastball and sinker, but the fastball has become a plus pitch, allowing him to throw it around 40% of the time, while the sinker plays more effectively off it with greater vertical and horizontal movement.<\/p>\n

The addition of the sweeper has also given him a true put-away pitch with two strikes<\/a> and has quickly become one of the most effective pitches so far in 2026.<\/p>\n

Luis Castillo 2.0<\/h2>\n

What is particularly interesting is how his pitch mix is beginning to resemble that of Luis Castillo<\/a>. Baseball Savant<\/a> has his 2026 pitch profile as most similar to Castillo\u2019s in 2025: a sinker and fastball-heavy approach, complemented by a slider as the primary off-speed pitch with the occasional changeup.<\/p>\n

With Castillo potentially moving on from Seattle at the end of the season, it makes sense that the Mariners may already be preparing for a new mid-rotation anchor within a deep pitching staff. With Bryce Miller\u2019s return imminent and looking for his own bounce-back<\/a> season, what the Mariners do with Hancock will be fascinating<\/a>. Moving to a six-man rotation now seems very possible\u2014something that would have been unthinkable to Mariners fans even just a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

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It is a huge credit to Hancock for being able to reinvent himself as a pitcher so quickly. As he was approaching pitching purgatory, it only further strengthened the Mariners\u2019 reputation as one of the best organizations at developing pitchers.<\/p>\n

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Main Photo Credit: Denis Poroy-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the Seattle Mariners selected Emerson Hancock with a top-10 pick in the 2020 draft, he has struggled to carve out a role for himself as a pitcher in the organization. Since 2018, when they drafted Logan Gilbert, the Mariners have hit on virtually every first-round pick. But for many, Hancock was always seen as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5718,"featured_media":119152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1071,35],"tags":[28893,3689,2050,922],"class_list":["post-119087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-mlb","category-news","tag-bryce-miller","tag-emerson-hancock","tag-logan-gilbert","tag-luis-castillo"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119087"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119153,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119087\/revisions\/119153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}