Craig Yoho’s rise to the majors has come fast enough that it’s easy to miss just how new this all still is for him. He’s only in his fourth season pitching, and the Brewers right-hander is still figuring out the job one adjustment at a time.
Yoho was a position player for most of an injury-filled college career before moving to the mound in 2023 at Indiana. Milwaukee drafted him that summer, and now, at 26, he’s working through his third full professional season while trying to settle into the big leagues.
"This is, what, my third-and-a-half year pitching, something like that?" Yoho said at his locker in the Milwaukee clubhouse over the weekend.
"So there's still a lot of stuff I'm learning about myself and stuff in the game of baseball that I haven't experienced yet. It's been, in a way, just a learning experience through it all."
A big part of that learning curve has been figuring out how to build a pitch mix that actually fits his arm. Yoho’s unusual movement, especially the screwball-like action on his changeup, carried him through college and the minors. In the majors, though, he’s had to make tougher decisions, both mechanically and mentally, while working daily with Brewers pitching coaches.
"Just going in each and every day, understanding the work I need to put in to be ready to go that night, and just having the right mindset of going into the game," Yoho said.
The biggest shift came during his most recent Triple-A Nashville stint, when he added a sinker and made it his primary fastball instead of the four-seamer he had used since first taking up pitching. That four-seamer had been his default simply because it was the grip he picked as a college convert.
"I decided to start pitching my last year of college, and [the four-seam was] the grip I chose," Yoho said. "It wasn't necessarily like a rhyme or reason to it. So, for the most part, my arsenal hadn't changed since the day I picked up a baseball."
The Brewers saw the issue clearly. Yoho is an extreme pronator, meaning his palm turns outward as he releases the ball.
That helps him create the sideways spin behind his changeup, but it also gives his four-seamer more arm-side run and less carry than a normal four-seam fastball. In practical terms, the pitch was acting more like a sinker that didn’t sink enough.
"It’s always crossed my mind because his four-seam is kind of like a two-seam anyway, so might as well just get some depth to it," Brewers pitching coordinator Jim Henderson said.
Yoho had wondered the same thing for a while.
"It's something I've thought about pretty much every offseason, but hadn't actually done anything with," Yoho said. "I always kind of wondered if it would actually help my arsenal or not."
At the start of July, he finally made the switch. The new sinker uses a standard two-seam grip, and Yoho said it simply feels better coming off his hand.
"The hand coming off the ball feels great," he said.
The results have matched the logic. The sinker has shown nearly the same run as his four-seamer, but with more depth.
Yoho’s sinker has averaged 6.7 inches of induced vertical break, while the four-seamer has averaged 11.4 inches, not counting his Coors Field outings, where the ball moves less because of the altitude. He’s still mixing in some four-seamers, giving hitters two fastballs that look similar but move a little differently.
The Brewers want that extra sink to do two things: generate more ground balls and help Yoho get more fastballs over the plate. Yoho said the sinker gives him a better starting point on his glove side so the ball can run back into the zone.
"I got to start my line a little bit more on my glove side, just so that way when the ball runs, it comes back [into the strike zone]," Yoho said. "With the four-seam, I felt like sometimes it would come back a lot, sometimes it wouldn't as much, and so it was a little bit working against what I was trying to do. So the two-seam has helped kind of clean some of that up."
Henderson likes the pitch for another reason, too.
"I like it because I think it's a training tool for his mechanics," Henderson said. "When you throw sinkers back-door [to righties], you can't come out of your delivery."
That command piece is still the key. Yoho has actually thrown fewer sinkers in the strike zone than four-seamers, 47.7% to 52.6%, and that’s what Henderson and lead pitching coach Chris Hook are watching most closely. Their message has been simple: hitters have to respect the fastball before the changeup can really play.
"If he commands the fastball, if they have to respect the fastball, then the changeup, no matter what [the velocity] is, is going to have them out in front," Henderson said.
There’s also been a small but meaningful change with that changeup. The Brewers have some concern about its low velocity, since a slower pitch can give hitters more time to identify it and spoil it.
But during the second half of July, Yoho’s changeup has climbed from around 77 mph to more than 80 mph. That wasn’t planned, but it’s been a welcome development.
"Movement's great, but when it's big and it's early, big-league hitters are good enough to spoil it or take pitches that aren't tracking [in the zone]," Henderson said. "So for him to be able to sell it a little bit more with some velo is good if he can maintain movement, and then there's still the Bugs Bunny one that can mess different hitters up."
Yoho has shown enough to keep the Brewers interested. He’s posted a 29.1% whiff rate and a 32.6% hard-hit rate, but the broader numbers say the success has come with some warning signs.
He’s allowed three home runs, walked 10.8% of batters faced, and benefited from a .116 batting average on balls in play. That’s why his 4.84 FIP and 3.90 SIERA sit above his 3.32 ERA.
For now, Milwaukee has mostly kept him in a low-leverage role. His future with the club is still unclear, and he remains a possible trade candidate, but Yoho is focused on staying ready and becoming dependable in the bullpen.
"It hasn't really been a conversation about roles," Yoho said. "Honestly, from pitch one, I'm ready to go, to the last pitch of the game."
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