3 reasons Buehler is worth re-signing

This story was excerpted from the Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Over the course of one rollercoaster season, Walker Buehler went from fearing for his own release from the Dodgers to closing out the final game of the World Series.

What comes next?

Buehler is a free agent. He's spent his entire career in Los Angeles. But there are big questions. Next season, will we get the Buehler who was sapped of his once-electric stuff as he returned from Tommy John surgery and hip issues, or the Buehler who turned his year around with his postseason gems against the Mets and Yankees and ended up one of the most important pitchers in the Dodgers' championship run? Is his future in L.A., or somewhere else?

Well, there are signs that Buehler, still just 30 years old, could be a high-upside signing with star potential -- thanks to the flashes he showed throughout the postseason of the dominant pitcher he used to be.

Here are three things we saw from Buehler this October that make him worth taking a shot on in 2025.

1) His fastball got some of its old life back

For Buehler, everything used to start with his fastball. He had one of the best power fastballs in the game, an upper-90s, rising four-seamer that racked up 279 strikeouts from 2018-21, a top-10 mark in the Majors.

But Buehler's four-seamer lost its explosiveness amid his injuries. Even though it was still sitting at 95 mph, it got shelled in the 2024 regular season. Buehler allowed a .342 batting average and .696 slugging percentage against his four-seamer, with nearly as many home runs against it (eight) as strikeouts with it (nine).

So it's no wonder Buehler threw his heater a career-low 29% of the time. He couldn't trust it.

But in the playoffs, he started to figure something out. Buehler started generating more rise on his four-seamer, and hitters started swinging and missing at it. More "rise" on a fastball just means the pitch is dropping less on its way to the plate, often because the pitcher is throwing it with true backspin, making a hitter more likely to swing under the ball.

Buehler's 4-seamer, 2024 regular season vs. postseason
Regular season: 16.7 inches induced rise -- 17% whiff rate
Postseason: 18.5 inches induced rise -- 29% whiff rate

Because his fastball was better in the playoffs, Buehler could trust it more, and throw it more -- he upped his four-seam usage to 37% in October, higher than any month of the regular season. He used it to get swinging strikes on hitters like Francisco Lindor, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.

And if Buehler can carry that extra life on his fastball into the 2025 season -- and maybe even regain a little of his velocity in the second season post-surgery -- that would go a long way toward a return to form.

2) His knuckle-curve was biting again

Buehler's best pitch in the playoffs was the one he used to end the World Series: his knuckle-curve.

He didn't allow a single hit on his curveball all postseason -- hitters were 0-for-12 against it, with four strikeouts, including Buehler's K's of Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo for the final two outs of the Fall Classic, and a huge K of Lindor to escape a bases-loaded jam in Game 3 of the NLCS.

That was a big turnaround from the regular season, when Buehler's knuckle-curve was among the least valuable curveballs in the Majors. But it was just a much sharper pitch in the postseason.

Buehler added movement in both directions in the playoffs -- his knuckle-curve got more induced vertical break (that's the amount of drop Buehler induces from the way he spins the pitch), and it also got more horizontal break.

Buehler's knuckle-curve, 2024 regular season vs. postseason
Regular season: 14.7 inches induced drop -- 10.7 inches horizontal break
Postseason: 16.6 inches induced drop -- 12.2 inches horizontal break

As a result, Buehler's knuckle-curve swing-and-miss rate went way up, from 27% in the regular season to 39% in the postseason.

Buehler, when he's right, likes to go up in the zone with his fastball and down in the zone with his breaking stuff. A sharper knuckle-curve, coupled with the better rising fastball, will let him do that.

3) There were glimpses of a nasty sweeper

Buehler's sweeper -- the variety of slider with big side-to-side "sweeping" movement -- is a pitch Buehler has introduced into his repertoire to attack right-handed hitters in recent seasons.

And it looked particularly interesting in the playoffs. On the one hand, Buehler gave up some hits on his sweeper -- but on the other, he was getting a bunch of swings-and-misses.

Buehler's sweeper (which was already one of his only effective pitches in the regular season, along with his cutter) got eight whiffs on 15 swings in the playoffs, a 53% swing-and-miss rate. Hitters like Manny Machado, Pete Alonso and J.D. Martinez all waved at it and missed at various times.

The reason was a big jump in movement. Buehler's sweeper averaged 15 inches of horizontal break in the regular season. It averaged 19.5 inches of horizontal break in the playoffs -- tied for the most glove-side horizontal break on any pitch type in the postseason.

That's a ton of movement. It's like Buehler was taking a page out of teammate Blake Treinen's book.

At times in the postseason, Buehler struggled to command the sweeper with all that movement, but if he can harness it in 2025, it could become a key part of his arsenal, as a horizontal-breaking weapon to complement his riding four-seamer, running sinker, dropping curveball and tighter cutter.

It would make Buehler a more complete pitcher, and hopefully, help him be an all-around nasty pitcher again.