After a lackluster 2016 with a 6.50 ERA, 4.34 FIP, and 1.61 WHIP across 14 starts, Daniel Mengden seemed to be headed into a career of fantasy irrelevance, reinforced by a pair of poor outings earlier in 2017. But since returning from a rib injury, Mengden was allowed just 2 ER in three starts, including 16 scoreless innings in his last two games. You might be excited (it’s hard not to be excited) especially when he induced zero walks and eleven strikeouts as well. Our first instinct is to believe that Mengden made a dramatic shift and while we can’t expect a 0.00 ERA, a sub 4.00, maybe even a 3.50 ERA could be in his future.

But 16 innings is a small sample and I elected to scrutinize each pitch Mengden threw in those two spotless starts. Instead of the normal rundown, I want to emphasize a few elements from these starts that can help us determine what to expect from Mengden for his final two starts and entering 2018. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably seen Brandon Woodruff’s name tossed around as a streaming option this season. Even including a 6 ER blowup against the Pirates, the 24-year-old rookie is still sporting a 3.28 ERA with a 1.18 WHIP, numbers that could have helped you in five of his six starts. He’s also peppering a 94.1mph Fastball while hinting at a 50% groundball rate and that’s sure to turn some heads as well.

I’ve watched a few games from Woodruff this season and I thought it would be best to roll through the Pros and Cons to outline if Woodruff is someone we like or not. I’ll be using his latest start against the Marlins as context, as he pitched to the tune of 7.0 IP, 3 ER, 8 Hits, 0 BBs, 5 Ks.

Pro

Velocity with life!

The first Pro should be the easiest to grasp as Woodruff’s Fastball is a solid pitch. It comes it with good velocity that can touch 96+ and even with a bit of tail on it at times:

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This article isn’t going to blow your mind. It’s actually going to reinforce what you probably already know: Amir Garrett’s command is all over the place and he will continue to labor through outings until it gets addressed. What I will try to do is show you are the two sides of Garrett – the ceiling and the floor – while attempting to illuminate how believable his ceiling is.

So let’s address the elephant in the room right away. Garrett faced the Cardinals yesterday and put up a ghastly line of 4.0 IP, 4 ER, 3 Hits, 5 BBs, 7 Ks. His strikezone plot looked more like a Jackson Pollock than a Giovanni Bellini: Read the rest of this entry »

Chase Anderson wasn’t supposed to be a must-own pitcher this season. His first three years in the majors all rendered ERAs north of 4.00 and WHIPs above 1.30, with his strikeout rate falling under 20% in 2015 and 2016. It didn’t look to be much different at the start of this season, with Anderson holding a lackluster 4.25 ERA, 7.58 K/9, and 3.51 BB/9 through his first nine games of the season. However, he’s turned on the jets since, with a sparkling 1.99 ERA, 9.13 K/9, and 2.51 BB/9 over his last twelve starts and he’s making us question where to draft him in 2018.

There are a few apparent changes to Anderson with a tick of velocity added to his Fastball (turning it from a -1.5 pVal to 8.4) and an extra 1.5 inches of drop to his Cutter (pVal increase from -3.4 to 2.4) and I could call it a day by showing off those pitches.

But there’s more to the story than those two changes and I want to expose it. In short, Anderson has become a pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

After getting his MLB debut pushed back a day by mother nature, Luiz Gohara finally stepped onto a major league mound for the first time as he started for the Atlanta Braves. Spoiler Alert: It didn’t go well. The 21-year-old allowed 6 ER as he labored through four frames while walking four batters en route to a 2.00 WHIP. Still, it’s a major step for a young southpaw as he began the season in High-A and there was plenty to dissect to get a sense of what he can do in the future. Let’s dive into Gohara’s repertoire and discuss his approach from his MLB debut.

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It’s the final month of the season and every pitching matchup holds extra weight. Maybe one of your regular arms is slated pitch in Coors and in Arlington or you’re in need of an extra few starts from now through September 14th. Over at my site Pitcher List, I helped tackle this question by outlining the Top 100 Starters for the rest of the season according to their ROS schedules, providing estimations for each starter’s schedule from now until the end of the year. Instead of focusing on the entire month of September, here we’re going to take a look at ten lesser owned arms that could help you later this week or find themselves in good matchups for the next round:

Note: Owned rates are according to ESPN Leagues.

Good Matchups

Kyle Gibson (@KCR, SDP) – 8.7% owned

You may be surprised to see Gibson here. I’m surprised to see Gibson here. His career 6.17 K/9, 3.20 BB/9, and 4.73 ERA have secured him a comfortable spot on the third page of your waiver wire for ages, but in his last three starts, Gibson has been a new man, sporting a 1.37 ERA, 9.15 K/9, and 0.92 BB/9. His whiff rates have jumped to 13.9% in those starts after a near 9.0% prior and given he’s facing the paltry lineups of the Royals and Padres next, he’s worth a look for your squad.

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After spending the majority of the season struggling to get his footing as a rookie, Jakob Junis has started to blossom as a starter for the Royals, holding a marvelous 1.80 ERA, near 9.00 K/9, and 0.36 BB/9 across his last four starts. His latest was an impressive eight strikeout performance in 5.2 frames against the Rays, sparking many owners to get on board. But should we be trusting Junis to be productive during the final month of the season?

To answer that question, we should take note of Junis’ most dramatic change: he’s turned himself into a two-pitch pitcher by throwing his Slider 46.7% of the time in his last two starts. Chris Archer, Tyson Ross, and Rich Hill have had success with a similar approach, and let’s scrutinize Junis’ two pitches to determine if he can do the same. Read the rest of this entry »

This is going to start with some bad news. After Luis Castillo has been a fantasy MVP in many ways for giving your team a 3.26 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 6+ strikeouts per start, it’s expected that he will be shut down for the season after two more starts. Maybe three if we’re lucky.  But before his season comes to an early end I wanted to take a moment to appreciate just how Castillo is dominating lineups, and I’ll use the context of Saturday’s 7.0 IP, 3 Hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 Ks start against the Pirates. Let’s dissect five strikeouts from that outing that showcase just why I love Luis Castillo.

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We had a brief glimpse of Lucas Giolito in 2016 as he started four and relieved in two games for the Nationals, accruing 21.1 innings of 6.75 ERA ball. We were looking forward to better times for the 6’6″ right-hander and after a trade to the Chicago White Sox during the 2016 off-season, Giolito held a 9.37 K/9, 4.13 BB/9, and 4.48 ERA in 24 starts in Triple-A. Tuesday night marked the return for 23-year-old Giolito and I for one was excited to see what he had morphed into during his time away from the majors. Let’s jump into the start and talk about what we saw.

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The 2017 season has not been kind to Blake Snell. The 24-year-old southpaw has been demoted to the minors multiple times while putting up ghastly numbers in the majors including a 4.42 ERA, 4.52 BB/9 and averaging just 5.4 innings per start. However, Sunday’s excellent outing of 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 Hits, 2 BBs, and 7 Ks against Seattle has been raising eyebrows, hinting at Snell’s massive upside we saw when he entered the major leagues in 2016. The question is, what did Snell do in this outing to succeed and can we expect this level of production to return in future starts?

Let’s dive into Sunday’s game against the Mariners to determine if Snell can be a dependable pitcher down the stretch. First here’s a quick overview of Snell’s approach for the afternoon.

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