Biggest Risers in August SP Rankings

Taking a closer look at what drove the biggest risers in my latest SP rankings.

Jeff Samardzija, SF | +65 to 52nd

For those of you who don’t have Shark on a team or aren’t familiar with his numbers this year, take a quick guess at his ERA and WHIP on the season. You may be surprised to learn that he’s at 3.70 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in his 126.3 innings of work. He isn’t just leveraging Oracle Park, either. His home/road splits are very close as his ERA is just 0.25 points higher on the road while his WHIP is actually 0.05 points lower. He is carrying a heavy platoon split (LHB are +186 in OPS at .803) so you might be careful with him in switch/lefty-heavy matchups like Arizona (potentially 6 switch/lefty batters on any given day).

Aaron Sanchez, HOU | +54 to 51st

He was going to move up just by virtue of going to Houston, but then he went and dropped six no-hit innings in his debut and got everyone super excited about his potential. Houston already put their imprint on him as he threw fewer two-seamers and more curves during the outing and it’s hard not to be excited about his prospects there given what they’ve been doing with pitchers over the last few years.

Chase Anderson, MIL | +51 to 63rd

Anderson hasn’t been his 2017-self by any stretch, but he rejoined the rotation in late-April and has put up 17 starts with a 3.64 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in 84 innings. He has averaged fewer than five innings per start, though in a recent surge he has gone at least five in seven of eight starts with a fantastic 2.55 ERA in 42.3 innings. Perhaps most importantly, he has a palatable 0.85 HR/9 in that stretch.

Anthony DeSclafani, CIN | +50 to 53rd

DeSclafani was a home run machine to start the season as a 2.4 HR/9 saddled him with a 4.99 ERA through 10 starts (48.7 IP). Since then, he’s allowed more than 3 ER just once in 11 starts while shaving his HR rate down to 1.01 per nine en route to a 3.32 ERA and 1.29 WHIP in 59.7 innings. He has an even worse platoon split than Samardzija (.937 OPS for lefties is 350 pts higher than righties) so I’d be really careful and consider sitting him against lefty-heavy lineups.

Dallas Keuchel, ATL | +49 to 57th

Frankly, I was just playing a wait-and-see game with Keuchel. He had two mediocre starts when the July rankings were posted so I just parked him in the middle of the deep spot-start rankings pending more results. He threw seven strong innings the night those rankings were posted and has added six more useful starts on top of that, yielding a 3.57 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in 45.3 innings. He’s gone fewer than six innings just twice in those seven starts while tallying at least seven innings in four of them. Keuchel is a viable streamer in all formats.

Brad Keller, KC | +48 to 65th

Keller took a 4.63 ERA and 1.42 WHIP into July with just 75 strikeouts in 105 innings of work. Those using him as a streamer were getting whipsawed throughout June as he flourished in Texas and Minnesota (1.93 ERA in 14 IP) while getting clocked in Seattle and Toronto (13.00 ERA in 9 IP). Home run suppression was the only thing he’d done well through his first 18 starts (a very nice 0.69 HR/9 rate). He’s been great in six starts since July 1st, putting together a 2.20 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in 41 innings.

Strikeouts still aren’t part of his game and likely never will be (17% career; 19% in this 6-start run), but he’s going deeper into games and keeping runs off the board. This stretch hasn’t just been a favorable schedule either as outings against DET, CWS, and TOR have been offset by trips to MIN, WAS, and ATL. The schedule does shine on him in the near future, though, with DET and BAL in the bottom five for wOBA against righties and NYM sitting just 18th.

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Are you buying or have you bought in on any of these six arms? Who else are you buying outside of the top 50 in hopes that they overperform down the stretch?