For those wondering about Christian Javier’s issues

https://theathletic.com/4659683/2023/07/01/astros-framber-valdez-christian-javier/

The article mentioned several points. TLDR: Mechanics are off

“The season-long trend has been pretty consistent: that it’s been inconsistent,” pitching coach Josh Miller said. “The fastball (velocity) is down a touch, the spin rate with it is down a touch. The slider shape is a little inconsistent. Execution of his pitches is a bit inconsistent. We’re just trying to shore up his delivery and make sure he’s on time, as much as he can, to work efficiently and get to his best pitch.”

He is healthy:,

Drops in the fastball velocity and spin rate from last season prompt wonder if Javier is healthy, but Miller insisted Friday that the 26-year-old right-hander “is feeling good physically.” Baker reiterated it Saturday, even after bringing up — without prompt — that Javier is “scuffling.”

It's a mechanical issue:

Miller’s more pressing concern must be Javier’s mechanics. The team believes some small flaw is causing much of Javier’s fastball decline. His vertical release point with his fastball this season is 5.75 feet, up from 5.65 feet last season. Because of that, his relative vertical movement is down a bit and the angle on the pitch has changed a little.

“He has less margin for error, for sure. But our aim is to get back to that version of him,” Miller said. “It’s in there. We’ll find it.”

There is almost an inch less vertical movement on his fastball which takes away from that invisible effect.

What you see here is a fastball that has recently lost about a tick and a half off where it was last season, almost an inch of induced vertical break (IVB), and is coming in at a worse vertical approach angle (compared to league average, or VAA AA) than it did before.

At its best, Javier’s fastball comes in on a straighter plane. Now it is arriving at more of an average plane — the closer that number gets to zero, the worse it is for the fastball. Javier used to be a full standard deviation above average in this measure.

Here’s another way of looking at how all of these small changes come together to make a big difference. The stat Stuff+ looks at all of these things in concert and gave Javier a 111 four-seam fastball Stuff+ last season, good for 16th among all qualified starting pitchers. This year, he’s got a 93 Stuff+ on the four-seam fastball, good for 30th among all qualified starting pitchers. It’s down to a 90 Stuff+ in the last month.