Kyle Hart's Salvation Lies In His Reworked Splitter

When Kyle Hart struggled through six starts out of the gate for the San Diego Padres in 2025, the remainder of his appearances came in relief. Even short on rotation depth to start this year, that’s where Hart has spent all of his time in 2026. The results? A 5.40 ERA, a plummeting 14.7 K%, and an 8.8 percent walk rate that sits above last year’s mark through 16 2/3 innings. That work earned him a demotion to Triple-A upon the return of Yuki Matsui.

And yet, there’s something enticing about this iteration of Kyle Hart (even if his recent minor-league option will put a pin on the anticipation).

Last year’s version of Hart didn’t offer anything particularly inspiring. He pitched to a 5.86 ERA, a 5.18 FIP, and was only particularly strong in his ability to mitigate free passes (7.3 BB%). For a pitcher without upper-tier stuff, he also wasn’t particularly adept at mixing things up depending on the handedness of opposing hitters. 

This is Hart’s pitch distribution in 2025: 

There was a favoring of the sweeper against lefties that was balanced out by the changeup to right-handed hitters. Other than that, he was evenly spreading things out regardless of opposing hitters. Worse yet is the fact that deploying the change against righties didn’t make a bit of difference, as he was touched for a .359 opposing wOBA and 42.5 percent hard hit rate against that handedness. 

In 2026, however, there has been a stark change to Hart’s repertoire. Note that splitter down at the bottom of the distribution, thrown a mere five percent of the time in total. That’s where things get interesting: 

Hart’s splitter usage has taken off. He’s now throwing it 22.4 percent of the time, in line with each of his sweeper and sinker usage. Not only that, the changeup has become a thing of memory; he has yet to throw one in 2026. While the results haven’t been there in terms of run prevention, there’s something very interesting happening with that splitter in particular. 

Opposing hitters are swinging at the split 56.1 percent of the time. That’s the most of any pitch Hart is throwing. They’re whiffing at a 21.9 percent, also the tops of any component in his arsenal. It’s gone for a 25.0 Hard-Hit% and has yet to find a barrel. Even more importantly, it’s righties that are most heavily impacted by each of these trends. Not only are they following each one, they’re putting the splitter into the ground at a 66.7 percent rate. The value of this development cannot be overstated given that it’s a tool designed for right-handed hitters (and he’s throwing it to said hitters more than any other pitch at 31 percent of the time).

It’s been an imperfect process given that Hart still has a .328 wOBA against righties on his ledger. Within that context, though, it’s notable that he continues to walk righties at a much higher rate, with five of his six walks coming against hitters of the opposite handedness. Nevertheless, the fact that the process is there speaks to an evolution that could be tremendously beneficial to the middle innings for the Padres. 

The strikeout numbers don’t look good. The walk rate looks just okay. But when you are working with a hard-hit rate in the 95th percentile and a groundball rate in the 96th, then you offer plenty to be a regularly utilized arm in relief. If Hart is able to gain enough of a grip on his command to right-handed hitters, there’s a real viability here that removes any thought of a restriction over which handedness he could face. 

The splitter is the springboard. He just needs to harness it.