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Cole Sulser

2026
Rays· RHP · throws R· 46.1 IP· 4.86 ERA· 1.32 WHIP· 197 BF
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
C+better than 52% of pitchers at limiting bases
RelieverPower Arm

Misses bats in bunches; lives with the walks.

Sulser sits right around league average

The simulator expects 0.452 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 52nd percentile of qualified pitchers. Short relief stints inflate strikeout rates a touch, so read the Strikeouts spoke with that in mind.

197 batters faced · data through 2026-08-22.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size (not raw season stats), so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. Percentiles vs. 464 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Cole Sulser.

Pitcher type

What kind of pitcher he is, next to the league

Pitcher type

Where he sits among qualified pitchers on the two skills that separate styles.

How to read this chart
Two skills separate pitching styles: finishing hitters without free passes (strikeout rate minus walk rate) and keeping the contact they do allow soft (hard-hit rate against). Every dot is a qualified pitcher this season; dot size tracks batters faced. Click any dot to open that pitcher's page.
 Cole SulserLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(lower = better).603.52852nd
Walk rate(lower = better)8%9%67th
Strikeout rate(higher = better)23%22%64th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Cole Sulser leans on his four-seam fastball (45% of pitches). His best pitch has been the cutter, saving 1.5 bases per 100 thrown vs average.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

+6 bases better than a replacement arm this season

allowed 95 bases vs a replacement arm's 101 over the same batters faced

Replacement level is per-batter and can't be split by pitch type, so the bars below use league average.

All pitches

Even with league average across 744 pitches.

Four-Seam Fastball
45%
92.2 mph · RHP median 95.1
22% whiffs · Lg median 21%
saved 0.5 per 1001.9 total
Changeup
39%
83.5 mph · RHP median 87.1
36% whiffs · Lg median 30%
cost 1.1 per 1003.3 total
Cutter
12%
87.4 mph · RHP median 90.1
19% whiffs · Lg median 22%
saved 1.5 per 1001.4 total
Sweeper
not charted
4%
83.1 mph · RHP median 83.5

His sweeper isn't in the charts below — only 32 of them were tracked with velocity and movement data this season.

How to read this chart
What they throw, how hard, and what misses bats — from pitch tracking, regular season only.

Mix by batter side

Four-Seam Fastball
47% vs LHH · RHP median 41%
43% vs RHH · RHP median 34%
Changeup
43% vs LHH · RHP median 30%
35% vs RHH · RHP median 13%
Cutter
10% vs LHH · RHP median 19%
13% vs RHH · RHP median 19%
How to read this chart
How the mix shifts against lefty and righty bats. Medians are among right-handed pitchers who throw that pitch at least 3% of the time — between 101 and 351 of them, depending on the pitch. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Cole Sulser's pitch movement, 2026

Cole Sulser's pitch movement, 2026-60612061218in← glove sidearm side →more risemore drop
Four-Seam FastballFF
Rise 18.3 in
+2.6 vs Lg median
Break 8.5 in
+0.9 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
ChangeupCH
Rise 2.0 in
−2.0 vs Lg median
Break 14.5 in
+0.4 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
CutterFC
Rise 8.3 in
+0.8 vs Lg median
Break −4.8 in
−2.7 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Early season → nowLg medianCurrent-dot uncertainty
How to read this chart
Each dot is a pitch's current shape — horizontal break (arm side vs. glove side) by induced vertical break (rise vs. drop). Both axes are in inches of break. The trail runs from this season's earliest tracked outings — the faint, thin end — up to today's solid dot; a trail with only a few segments just means fewer tracked outings. The soft halo around each dot is how far that dot could sit off on its own, just from ordinary outing-to-outing wobble. Don't read a long trail as proof on its own that a pitch changed. Every pitch in baseball loses a little break through midsummer and gets it back by September — the same shift two full seasons back agree on — and the trail shows that league-wide seasonal swing alongside whatever this pitcher did himself. The sentence at the top of this card has the league's share taken out, so it can read “has not moved” above a trail that looks long. That is the two marks measuring different things, not a mistake. A pitch counts as changed only once it sits at least two inches from its own early-season shape — a verdict about this pitcher against himself, never a comparison with anyone else. League median: the small hollow ring marks it, on the same two measurements. Where it sits far from a pitch's dot, a line joins the two — and on a wider screen the ring carries that pitch's code as well — so a distant ring is never orphaned; where it sits close, neither is drawn, because the pairing is already obvious. League median is missing entirely for a pitch marked *: too few pitchers throw it for one to be worth setting, so it is plotted without a reference ring. For the exact dates a pitch changed, see the by-appearance chart below.

By appearance

How the stuff has held up outing to outing

One point per outing — how his velocity, movement, and pitch mix have moved across the season, with league context for scale. Each pitch keeps the same color in every chart. His sweeper isn't in these charts — only 32 of them were tracked with velocity and movement data this season.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Better vs RHB than vs LHB by 0.037 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.028 to +0.045

vs LHB115 PA0.477

vs LHB: shrunk estimate 0.477 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.458 to 0.499, based on 115 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.388 EB/PA. League median vs LHB: 0.454 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHB rate (0.388) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHB82 PA0.441

vs RHB: shrunk estimate 0.441 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.420 to 0.461, based on 82 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.596 EB/PA. League median vs RHB: 0.440 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHB rate (0.596) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.4110.4350.4590.4840.508
← betterworse →
Below league medianAbove50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a righty arm (median 0.040). Against lefty bats he allows more than the league median — a genuine platoon vulnerability.

How to read this chart
  • Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
  • His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that side — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all pitchers against that side.
  • These are bases allowed, so lower is better. Weighted by how often he faces each side, the two splits average back to his modeled overall EB/PA allowed — not the xEB/PA headline at the top of the page, which folds in strikeouts and walks differently.
  • Shrunk splits beat raw splits on held-out seasons, most decisively at low batters-faced counts (relievers especially), and converge with the raw numbers as exposure builds.

Contact allowed

What hitters do when they connect

Batters go to the pull side off him most often, but the hardest contact goes up the middle.

Pull and oppo are relative to each batter's stance, so this pools all the hitters he faced.

Batted balls allowed

Where every ball hit off Cole Sulser landed this season.
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball his defense ran down. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Earned vs. actual

Results have matched the contact quality — batters have been credited about what they earned off Cole Sulser.

Earned off his contact allowed80
Actually credited to batters76

over 132 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases batters were actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

ERA 4.86 · WHIP 1.32 · BABIP against 0.318 (Lg median 0.286)

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

His best outings this season by bases saved vs a replacement arm.

Multi-season trends · Cole Sulser

HR allowed% up, Barrel% against up, Hard-hit% against down, FB% against up, Pull% against up vs last season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.