Luis Severino thinks he can return to old form this season, or at least improve upon what plagued him at times with the Yankees.
The new Mets pitcher told reporters in Port St. Lucie, Florida on Wednesday that he did a lot of studying this offseason in hopes of curtailing the pitch-tipping that he believes has caused him to have issues the last few seasons.
Severino said he believes the main issue has happened when he’s throwing a breaking ball with runners on base.
“This is the big leagues. I’ve got to clean it up,” Severino said, according to The Post’s Jon Heyman.
Severino, a two-time All-Star who finished third in the American League Cy Young Award voting in 2017, struggled in 2023 with a 6.65 ERA in 89 1/3 innings.
He was particularly vulnerable with runners in scoring position, as hitters had a .330/.404/.637 slash line with seven homers in just 105 plate appearances.
Severino previously said the pitching-tipping issues has hampered him on and off during his career.
In 2018, there was some suspicion that Severinon was tipping pitches during a notably bad start in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Red Sox in which he was tagged for six runs in three innings.
A year later, former Yankee Alex Rodriguez suspected Severino was doing the same in the ALCS against the Astros.
“There’s a lot of things that I think I was doing wrong. I always have problems with tipping and stuff like that,” Severino said during a January press conference when he was introduced as a Met. “I think I need to address that now so when I go on the mound when the season starts, I just need to focus on pitching and forget about [whether] my glove is too high or too low.”
Severino’s peripherals took a nosedive last year as battled injuries, but his fastball velocity still remained in the 88th percentile in all of baseball, according to Baseball Savant, so there is hope he can turn things around during his one-year prove-it deal with the Mets in 2024.