2022 Season Recap

At the end of the 2021 season, I was in Arizona rehabbing my elbow injury so I couldn’t even tell you what happened on the last days of the season and that's why I was excited to be with the team for the last days of this season. The Lansing Lugnuts were out of playoff contention so the atmosphere was stress free as we prepared for the end. Our last day as a team was odd to say the least - a short delay and then a cancellation of the game due to rain. We all sat in the clubhouse with NFL RedZone on the tv yelling at our various fantasy football players when our manager walked out of his office to announce that we were not going to be playing our season finale. Selfishly, I didn't care if we played that game since I had pitched the night before - officially wrapping up my season on the mound - but all of the pitchers scheduled to throw that day were bummed to hear the news. We packed up our lockers, said our goodbyes, and were on our way.

I probably won't see most of those guys again until Spring Training next season. An odd thought considering we spent every second together for six months and then do the exact opposite for the next six months.

There was a very small group of players that started and finished this season on the Lugnuts active roster and of that group, I was the only player on the 2022 Lansing Lugnuts team to not miss a single day of practice or be unavailable for a game. Reasons others missed days: Covid/sickness, injuries, birth of children, weddings, suspensions, joining the team after a trade, joining the team after the 2022 MLB draft, promotion from Stockton (Low-A), promotion to Midland (Double-A), and I might be missing one or two. A handful of Lugnuts at the end of the year began the year in Stockton. A handful of the original Lugnuts didn’t finish the year in Lansing because they got promoted to Midland or Las Vegas. Obviously, I would have traded my 100% attendance for a promotion any day of the week but I was ready to go for 131 out of 131 games in a Lugnuts uniform. Note: I came up with this stat on my own and am pretty sure it's accurate but not 100% sure so if you are a teammate reading this and think otherwise, just forget about it and let me have my moment.

Prior to this season, one of the goals I set for myself was to be available to pitch whenever asked, which I wasn't able to do last season due to my injury. I am proud of myself to have accomplished that goal this season and for a majority of the year I led the Midwest League in appearances. I ended up finishing third behind two pitchers whose team was fighting for a playoff spot through the last week of the season. Some say the best ability is availability.

Lansing was a great spot to be this summer. We lived close to Michigan State’s campus so there was good food to eat and fun bars to distract us from baseball. The bus rides were longer on average in the Midwest League than the Cal League but still not terrible - our longest trip this summer was eight hours and majority of our bus rides were between two and four hours. Because of the Monday off day, we never had to travel more than three hours and play the same day.

Lansing is also closer to the east coast, where majority of my friends and family are located, making it easier for people to come watch me pitch. I was blessed to have a ton of great people come visit me this summer. Here are some pics.

My dad, Anant, and my mom, Hema

My sister, Simi

My friends from Mamaroneck High School: Ben, Andrew, Josh, (me), Nick, Sam, Harry

My parents and their friends: Top - Mickey, Greg. Botton - Hema, Rich, MJ, Anant

My uncle, Samir, and aunt, Lou

My Yale friends: Charles, (me), Hannah, and Sophie

Having these people in the stands while I pitched was very special. Thank you so so much to everyone that made it out to support the Lugnuts and me.

A big thank you to my manager, Phil Pohl, and pitching coach, Don Schulze, both of whom are great baseball minds and trusted me through the up and downs of my season. I am grateful to have learned a ton from them.

Manager, Phil, taking the ball from me mid inning

Pitching coach, Schulze (in red top), and the pitching staff watching Cerveza throw his pregame bullpen.

Here is a side by side look of some stats between 2021 and 2022:

These are some stats that can be found online so I consolidated the numbers to make them easier to see and highlighted the year in which that stat was better. Some differences between the years: in 2021 I was a starting pitcher and in 2022 I was a relief pitcher even though I had a similar amount of innings, 2021 was Low-A and 2022 was High-A so this year I pitched against better competition.

For the most part, I pitched better this year than I did last year. There is a lot more green on the right side of the chart (2022). These aren't the only stats used to evaluate my season but were some that I thought gave a good summary of my year. I was able to limit hits and damage (extra base hits) while improving my strikeout rate. Although my walk numbers were higher, I lowered my WHIP (walks + hits per inning) and while my ERA in both seasons is higher than I would like, my FIP improved significantly. Fielding independent pitching (FIP) is a stat used to evaluate pitchers by ignoring all balls that are put in play - every team has a different defense, some better than other, so this evens the playing field for pitchers. The stat takes into account strikeouts, walks, and home run: three outcomes controlled by only the person standing on the mound. My ability to strikeout batters and limit home runs hit off me is why my FIP dropped 1.50 runs from 2021 to 2022. My FIP probably would have been way better if I didn't walk so many batters. My ERA only dropped 0.54, which is an improvement but ERA relies heavily on the defense behind me which was completely different in Stockton and Lansing.

The stats that regressed from last season to this season are all related to my ability to throw strikes: walks, hit batters, and strike percentage. As a starter last year, I was able to execute my entire pre game throwing routine because I could take my time prior to the first pitch of the game but as a reliever, I need to be ready to warm up at a moment's notice. This change forced me to shorten my routine big time. At no point this season did I enter a game feeling unprepared but there was a few outings where I probably could have used a few more warmup pitches in the bullpen. Pitching out of the bullpen is a different animal and now that I have had that experience of feeling rushed, I can prepare for it going into next season.

While my statistics might not be good enough to make it onto awards lists, I'm proud of the year that I had. Given a new environment in the bullpen, I was able to improve ~almost~ every aspect of my ability on the mound. I'm going to continue to compete against myself because that's what is important to me - becoming a better version of me - and for those of you who have followed me throughout this journey, it's easy to see that year after year I find ways to improve. If you aren't moving forwards, you are moving backwards!

I'm so excited to head back to AZ next spring but I know there is a lot of work to be done first. I'll make sure to keep you updated with my progress throughout the off season. Thanks for following along! Till next time.

Here are some of my favorite action shots from this season: