2022 Bold Pitcher League Leaders — A Review

Yesterday, I reviewed my bold hitter league leaders and actually got one right! Now let’s flip over to the pitching bold league leaders. Do I get another right or will my horrible injury luck get the best of me this time?

American League

ERA – Shane McClanahan | 2.54 ERA

In between injury, McClanahan enjoyed a fantastic season, finishing fifth in ERA among qualified pitchers with sparkling skills and nearly 200 strikeouts. While he didn’t lead the league here thanks to Justin Verlander’s first career sub-2.00 ERA, this was a clear “in spirit” win. Hopefully his appearance on this list and my hype encouraged you to go the extra buck. With a whopping four pitchers that all generated double digit SwStk% marks, including two over 20%, he’s got the elite stuff needed to remain a star for many years.

WHIP – Joe Ryan | 1.10 WHIP

Ryan enjoyed an excellent season, despite a decline in strikeout rate and jump in walk rate. However, another suppressed BABIP thanks to an extreme FB% allowed him to still post a strong WHIP, though not quite anywhere near the league lead. As an extreme fly ball pitcher, there’s risk here, especially with below average velocity.

SO – Patrick Sandoval | 151 SO

I loved Sandoval’s stuff, but acknowledged that recording enough innings to threaten for the strikeout title would be the real challenge. It did prove to be the most difficult part, as he recorded just 148.2 innings. However, his strikeout rate also fell to just 23.7%, thanks to a decline in SwStk%. Even with more innings, his strikeout rate wouldn’t have been high enough to compete for the strikeout total. I’m still not sure how he has generated such a strong SwStk% and even CSW%, but has posted merely slightly above average strikeout rates. I keep thinking there’s more upside there, but I have found that heavy changeup pitchers do post lower strikeout rates (can’t find the article I posted this in), so perhaps there’s no real hope for a big spike.

Sv – Diego Castillo | 7 SV

It’s hard finding a pitcher to lead the league in saves that would qualify as bold, so I settled on a highly skilled guy in an unsettled bullpen. That was the right move, but Castillo’s skills actually declined and he only saved seven games. In fact, his strikeout rate fell to a career low, driven by a career worst SwStk%. So he just wasn’t good enough this year to run away with the job.

National League

ERA – Carlos Carrasco | 3.97 ERA

This was a dart throw given his past elite skills and the hope he bounces back after a brutal 6.04 ERA in 2021. Well, he did rebound somewhat, but a 3.97 ERA wasn’t as much of a rebound as I thought he was capable of. His strikeout rate only bounced back marginally, while a .337 BABIP killed him. Heading into his age 36 season next year, I would be silly to expect that much better of a performance.

WHIP – Elieser Hernandez | 1.43 WHIP

I figured given his strong control, plus strikeout rate upside I linked to in my original post, made him a sleeper for a strong WHIP. Unfortunately, his strikeout rate declined, walk rate increased, and both a high HR/FB rate and low LOB% conspired to push his ERA up to 6.35. He only ended up pitching 62.1 innings as he spent half his time in the minors due to poor results.

SO – Jesús Luzardo | 120 SO

There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is this was another fantastic “in spirit” prediction. Luzardo enjoyed a full-on breakout, backed by a strikeout rate surge that would have allowed him to compete for the strikeout crown had he thrown enough innings. The bad news is that darn injury bug again. He only managed to record 100.1 innings due to a strained forearm, which knocked him out for two and a half months. With increased fastball velocity, his slider and changeup were elite again, but oddly the higher velocity didn’t actually make his fastball any more whiffable.

Sv – Giovanny Gallegos | 14 SV

Gallegos enjoyed another typical season, but he seemingly always ends up with a very short leash, with just one or two blown saves costing him the closing gig. It didn’t help that Ryan Helsley suddenly became incredible, so the Cardinals felt less pressure to keep Gallegos in the closer role regularly, despite having the skills to be good enough in it all season.