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Cody Bolton

2026
Astros· RHP · throws R· 20.0 IP· 5.40 ERA· 1.75 WHIP· 95 BF

Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Fbetter than 10% of pitchers at limiting bases
StarterStill Searching

Below league average across the board.

Bolton is getting hit harder than most pitchers

The simulator expects 0.484 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 10th percentile of qualified pitchers. The soft spot is Command (7th percentile).

95 batters faced · data through 2026-09-11.

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. The middle ring marks the league median and the outer ring the league best. Percentiles vs. 494 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled. He hasn't reached that bar himself, so he is measured against them rather than counted among them.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — the pitchers whose profile looks most like this one.

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.

League best:K% − BB% Jacob Misiorowski (26.7%)Hard-hit% against Blake Snell (29.8%)

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.
 Cody BoltonLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(lower = better).685.52710th
Walk rate(lower = better)12%9%7th
Strikeout rate(higher = better)22%22%47th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Cody Bolton mixes his four-seam fastball (29%) and cutter (24%). No pitch has beaten league-average results yet — the cutter has come closest.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

−1 bases worse than a replacement arm this season

allowed 52 bases vs a replacement arm's 51 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

9.0 bases cost vs league average, across 260 pitches — 3.5 per 100.

Four-Seam Fastball
29%
94.8 mph · RHP median 95.1
25% whiffs · Lg median 21%
cost 3.5 per 1003.9 total
Cutter
24%
90.7 mph · RHP median 90.2
19% whiffs · Lg median 22%
cost 1.2 per 1001.1 total
Sinker
15%
94.5 mph · RHP median 94.7
cost 7.0 per 1004.0 total
Curveball
not charted
12%
79.2 mph · RHP median 81.2
Changeup
not charted
11%
89.5 mph · RHP median 87.1
Sweeper
not charted
11%
82.1 mph · RHP median 83.5

His curveball, changeup, and sweeper aren't in the charts below — too few of each were tracked 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
31% vs LHH · RHP median 40%
26% vs RHH · RHP median 33%
Cutter
27% vs LHH · RHP median 20%
19% 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 142 and 371 of them, depending on the pitch. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Cody Bolton's pitch movement, 2026

Cody Bolton's pitch movement, 20260612061218in← glove sidearm side →more risemore drop
Four-Seam FastballFF
Rise 14.8 in
−0.8 vs Lg median
Break 4.3 in
−3.4 vs Lg median
CutterFC
Rise 7.4 in
−0.2 vs Lg median
Break −5.3 in
−3.2 vs Lg median
SinkerSI
Rise 8.1 in
−0.1 vs Lg median
Break 16.0 in
+0.8 vs Lg median
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 curveball, changeup, and sweeper aren't in these charts — too few of each were tracked this season.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Better vs RHB than vs LHB by 0.043 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.035 to +0.052

vs LHB52 PA0.512

vs LHB: shrunk estimate 0.512 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.490 to 0.533, based on 52 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.643 EB/PA. League median vs LHB: 0.455 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHB rate (0.643) 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 RHB43 PA0.469

vs RHB: shrunk estimate 0.469 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.448 to 0.491, based on 43 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.495 EB/PA. League median vs RHB: 0.438 EB/PA.

0.4260.4560.4850.5150.545
← betterworse →
Below league medianAbove50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a righty arm (median 0.043). He allows more than the league median against both sides.

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

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 Cody Bolton 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 Cody Bolton.

Earned off his contact allowed40
Actually credited to batters36

over 58 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 5.40 · WHIP 1.75 · BABIP against 0.327 (Lg median 0.287)

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

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

Multi-season trends · Cody Bolton

HR allowed% down, BB% up, K% up, Barrel% against up, Hard-hit% against up, FB% against up, Pull% against down vs his previous season

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