Milwaukee Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the … More
How little time does a player need in the big leagues to prove he’s an All-Star? Apparently only five starts. That’s how many Milwaukee Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski has made, and he was named to the National League All-Star Team just a month after his MLB debut.
Anyone who has seen Misiorowski pitch will attest that he deserves this honor. He has a 2.81 ERA and has struck out 33 of the 98 batters he has faced, giving up only 12 hits and holding opposing hitters to a .138 batting average.
His first two starts put the league on notice. He threw five no-hit innings in his June 12 debut against the St. Louis Cardinals, then took a perfect game into the seventh inning on June 20 against the Minnesota Twins. His 11 no-hit innings to start his career set an MLB record for a starting pitcher.
He followed that up with five shutout innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 25, giving up only two hits. His only dud was his July 2 outing against the New York Mets in which he yielded five runs in 3 2/3 innings, but he rebounded by holding the Los Angeles Dodgers to one run over six frames on July 8, striking out 12 batters.
As a prospect, Misiorowski was renowned for his overpowering arsenal of pitches, and he hasn’t disappointed. He averages 99.3 mph with his fastball, which is tied with Hunter Greene for the fastest in MLB by a starting pitcher, and he can touch 103 mph. His slider averages 94.4 mph; no one else in baseball throws a slider harder than 92.9 mph, and no other starting pitcher even averages 91 mph. He also features an 87.4 mph curveball and a 92.2 mph changeup that only one batter has put in play so far—a groundout to first base by Freddie Freeman.
To make things even more unfair for hitters, he averages 7.5 feet of extension with his 6 foot 7 frame. In other words, he releases the ball about a foot closer to home plate than an average pitcher, meaning it loses less velocity by the time it crosses the plate. That makes it seem as though all his pitches are a bit faster than they actually are—and they’re already faster than anyone else’s in baseball.
MLB.com ranked Misiorowski the 66th-best prospect in the game prior to the season. The reason he didn’t rate higher despite his top-tier stuff was his inability to locate his pitches. Indeed, his 11.2% walk rate would be the fourth-highest in the game if he had enough innings to qualify, but a pitcher can get away with a lot of walks if he gives up so few base hits. Case in point, the 2024 MLB walks leader was Luis Gil, who won the Rookie of the Year Award, and the 2023 leader was Blake Snell, who earned the Cy Young Award.
Misiorowski has also made significant progress with his ability to throw strikes. In Triple-A in 2024, he spotted 46.4% of his pitches in the strike zone. In Triple-A this season, he threw 51.7% of his pitches in the zone, and he has increased that to 57.9% since getting called up to Milwaukee.
The most exciting part of Misiorowski going to the All-Star Game is that he’s likely to pitch in the contest, since he’s a replacement for Chicago Cubs starter Matthew Boyd, who would not. That means the baseball world will get a good look at his high-octane stuff in Atlanta.
