2016 AL Starting Pitcher Tiers: The Untiered

On Monday, I unveiled the first edition of my American League starting pitcher tiers. Of course, it didn’t include every pitcher currently part of a team’s rotation. Don’t feel bad for them, as their day has come. Today, I’ll discuss the remainder of the crop that missed the cut. Do any of these guys have the potential to join the tiered?

Warning: this is a boring list. Try to stay awake while reading about these names.

Colby Lewis — For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to roster Lewis in AL Tout Wars last year. And hey, he recorded 17 wins! Of course, that also came with an ugly 4.66 ERA, though a usable 1.24 WHIP. What happens when you strike out few, while giving up tons of fly balls in a home run friendly park? Bad things. Lewis does possess excellent control, so he shouldn’t kill you in WHIP. And he may even luck himself into some extra wins if he gets great run support again. But there’s absolutely no reason you should be forced to ever start him. The potential to torpedo your ratios in one outing is too much of a risk. Start a strong middle reliever instead if you have the choice.

Verdict: Little chance to join the tiers.

Chris Tillman — I was asked about Tillman in the comments and rudely snapped at the commenter for even mentioning his two innings of performance on Monday. My apologies. And although his two innings of five strikeouts means nothing to me, what is interesting was his fastball velocity. Going back through his entire career, his 93.1 average velocity was his fifth highest ever in a game. Obviously, this is a tiny sample — just 15 fastballs. And obviously, pitchers typically lose velocity as the game wears on, so it’s likely Tillman wouldn’t have averaged 93.1 mph if the rain delay didn’t knock him out of the game.

But his max velocity over those 15 pitchers was already 0.1 mph higher than all of last year! We know that velocity slowly creeps up through the season and typically pitchers will be at their lowest velocities at this time. So this is a very exciting sign. He still needs to improve his repertoire as not one of his pitches generated a SwStk% in the double digits last year. The fastball velocity is encouraging though and a spike there could improve the effectiveness of his secondary pitches.

Verdict: A velocity surge could fuel a rebound and push him into next month’s tiers.

CC Sabathia — I was as stubborn as one could get last year when it came to my optimism about Sabathia. We all know how that turned out. And even though he suffered through another inflated BABIP and HR/FB rate, his strikeout rate tumbled, hitting its lowest mark since 2004, and his SIERA jumped above 4.00 for the first time since that same year. Even if he enjoyed neutral fortune in those metrics, he still wasn’t playable in anything but deep mixed or AL-Only leagues. Now? I’m done. With reports of his spring velocity scary low, I see little hope for any sort of rebound.

Verdict: I doubt he’ll surprise on the velocity front, which makes him a no go for the tiers.

Scott Feldman — Feldman must practice some sort of voodoo magic to continue to post ERA marks below 4.00. He has done it three seasons in a row, the last two of which featured strikeout rates below 15%. That’s not good. He does induce grounders at a slightly above average clip and possesses good control, but this is as boring a skill set as you could find. Aside from the performance questions, the Astros rotation is going to be full once Lance McCullers returns from the disabled list. The other candidate with a non-zero chance of moving to the bullpen is Mike Fiers. But we all know that Fiers is the far superior pitcher and it would be silly for them to choose Feldman over Fiers. So we have both performance and innings concerns here, which makes him free agent worthy.

Verdict: Nope, ain’t sniffing the tiers.

John Danks — Danks still has a rotation spot? If you did your job poorly for four straight years, you would have probably been canned by now, right? So explain to me how Danks has not posted an ERA below 4.71 since 2011, and yet still remains gainfully employed in a Major League team’s starting rotation. He’s a fly ball pitcher who fools no one and pitches half his games in a hitter’s park, backed by a poor defense. No thanks.

Verdict: Nope.

Mike Pelfrey — If there are questions about Danks maintaining a rotation spot, the same must be asked of Pelfrey. He does induce ground balls, but that’s his only redeeming quality, though his control has become pretty good. However, he has the complete inability to miss bats. That’s a loooooooooot of balls in play. His career high strikeout rate is just 15.3%. LOL.

Verdict: With such a weak strikeout rate, earning fantasy value is quite the challenge. It’s one he has not succeeded in.

Ricky Nolasco — It was a surprise when Nolasco made the Twins rotation, and 2015 surprise Tyler Duffey was sent down to open the year in the minors. Guess it’s hard for the Twins to admit the huge mistake they made when they signed Nolasco to a four year contract back in 2014. He has always allowed inflated BABIP marks, thanks to a high line-drive rate. His strikeout rate did rebound last year over a small sample, so we’ll see if he can carry that over this year. It probably won’t matter even if he did, he still managed to post a 6.75 ERA! The Twins can’t possibly keep him in the rotation for long with Duffey and top prospect Jose Berrios waiting in the wings.

Verdict: Not a chance.