1
Honestly, Kuma's got a much higher baseball IQ than I could ever dream of. Trying to predict him is a little foolish: if hitters can't do it, why would I be able to?
Pitching backwards, hiding the fastball (now his worst pitch) as much as possible is the only step I could have seen coming. From here, I imagine the slider and change-curve become more important, since they can poach strikes and still function with less velo. The curve especially seems to play up now that it's down around 67, although I imagine 1 in 30 or so will get hit about 500ft. Apart from that, it's all just pitchability baby. I'll be interested to see if the ladder fastball still works with consistency anymore.