The enigmatic Tanner Scott and how he can recapture his old form – Dodgers Digest

Tanner Scott was the Dodgers’ second-biggest free-agent signing of the 2024 offseason, but he was expected to have a big impact on the team. Remember, this team basically won a World Series on the strength of 2.5 starting pitchers and a dynamite bullpen. Signing Scott was only projected to make the bullpen that much better.

Things got off to a slow start before he, seemingly, hit his stride. Then, he didn’t.

Scott finished a tumultuous 2025 campaign with a 4.74 ERA, 4.70 FIP and a 17.6 K-BB% (which was actually better than his 16.3% mark from 2024). Oh, and he missed the remainder of the NLDS, the NLCS and World Series due to a lower-body abscess procedure. Just a banner year for him that still ended in him receiving a World Series ring. But like most competitors, he probably wanted to contribute (positively) to the team.

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When I wrote about him in the middle of June (linked above; will be used as the line of demarcation for the purposes of this article), it seemed like Scott was turning it around thanks to changing the arm angle on his 4-seam fastball — his best pitch throughout his career. In fact, his run value per 100 pitches (RV/100) on his fastball in 2024 was 1.987 — 5th-best among relievers, behind Cade Smith, Bryan Hudson (old friend), Kirby Yates (hello) and Will Vest.

Here is how his 4-seamer in 2024 compared with his 4-seamer in 2025:

Here are the rankings among relievers in each stat in 2024 and 2025:

2024

EV: 1st

LA: 8th

Whiff%: 11th

HardHit%: 2nd

RV/100: 5th

2025 (of 60 qualified relievers)

EV: 33rd

LA: 39th

Whiff%: 41st

HardHit%: 36th

RV/100: 53rd

Think we’ve found a big reason for Scott’s struggles in 2025, but let’s dive a little deeper to figure out what happened and what he can do to fix it.

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From June 17 through the rest of the regular season, Scott saw very subtle changes to his fastball’s metrics while raising his release point, primarily that he had less arm-side movement.

Key: Angle = Arm Angle; Mvmnt = Arm/Glove-side movement; HRP = Horizontal release point in feet; VRP = Vertical release point in feet

The result was his fastball got obliterated after June 16: .286/.368/.612, .411 wOBA. He gave up seven of his 11 home runs in those 23 1/3 innings, five of which came against his fastball. And while his problem may very well have been being too much in the strike zone early in the season, a wilder spray pattern with his 4-seamer later on didn’t help him, as hitters seemed content to ambush a straighter and seemingly inevitable belt-high offering in the zone.

However, let’s not blame all his struggles on his fastball. His slider had a similar season to his heater — good through the middle of June, bad the rest of the season.

The RV/100 on his slider through June 16 was 1.449. After, it was -.460. The sample size is almost perfectly split (216 vs. 213), so this is a solid way to evaluate how good (or bad) his slider was in 2025.

Much like his fastball, he ended up getting more predictable but with a wilder spray pattern with his slider.

On the surface, it doesn’t look like much changed, execution arguably improved. His whiff rate, release points and other underlying metrics were generally the same. However, the results were worse. Batters seemed to hunt his slider as well, essentially knowing the location and waiting for elevation, and so his on-base percentage allowed jumped by almost 100 points, while his slugging against jumped by almost 200. He allowed just two homers on his slider — both in his second half — and four of the 10 hits allowed were for extra bases.

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That leads us to Scott’s home run problem — rather, the back-breaking nature of the home runs.

Of the 11 homers he allowed in 2025, six of them either tied the game or resulted in a walk-off loss. That’s not unexpected for a guy throwing in so many high-leverage situations. At the same time, it isn’t great that more than half the homers he allowed put the game in doubt (four game-tying homers/lost the game (two walk-off homers), especially since he allowed 11 home runs from 2022-24 combined (212 2/3 innings).

What happened? Scott used to be one of the best relievers in baseball at keeping the ball in the yard. Only old fried Dylan Floro has done it better since 2017 (0.56 HR/9, compared to Scott’s 0.68 through 2024). Well, Scott saw a spike in his fly ball rate in 2025. Despite not being a sinker ball pitcher, Scott ran a fly ball rate of 26.4% — the best in the majors among qualified relievers. In 2025, that number was 40.5%. In turn, his HR/FB% ballooned to 17.7% (career-worst). When you look at the pitch chart, it makes sense that (most) of these pitches were clobbered.

Fewer meatballs in 2026, please. Mike would probably agree.

Scott also allowed a career-worst 20.5% Pull AIR%, up from 5.8% the previous year. His pulled fly ball rate more than doubled when compared to the entirety of his pre-Dodger MLB career. Logic dictates that if you allow hitters to pull the ball in the air more, the more likely they are to do damage — extra base hits. “Elevate and celebrate” is a saying for a reason.

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So, what’s the fix? Scott needs to be more, less in the strike zone. He also needs to be less, more in the strike zone. Sounds confusing, I know.

Here’s a side-by-side of his pitch heatmap from 2022-24 (his best seasons) and last season.

During his strong 3-year stretch, Scott lived on the inner third to righties, outer third to lefties. And that’s where his slider is most effective — to both handed-hitters. While there are slightly more mistakes over the heart of the plate in 2025, what really stands out is the misses being far more uncompetitive than they were in 2022-24.

Essentially, offerings are more frequently balls out of hand or firmly in the zone, and that makes take decisions easier for hitters, allowing them to focus on attacking one of the grooved pitches to do damage against. So yes, Scott needs to rediscover his command, but unlike the issues most pitchers face, he somewhat counterintuitively needs it particularly while near the edges and out of the zone to make things work again.

The enigmatic Tanner Scott.